Review: The Song Rising

The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been plenty long enough since we've had a new book from Samantha Shannon, and as always, it's been pretty well worth the wait. While The Song Rising is a little shorter than the two previous books, it's no less jam-packed with futuristic alternate-historical paranormal thrills as it follows Paige, our new Underqueen, on a journey all across Scion-controlled England and Scotland where the goal is to stop Scion from rolling out the dangerous new Senshield technology that can sniff out certain people with powers (shades of X-Men here, now more than ever). Any further information would dip into spoiler territory, but let's just say I'm pretty sure Shannon was strongly inspired by the events of Brexit...and more recent debacles in the British government, eerily enough, echo some of this book's plot developments in ways that I'm pretty sure Shannon will explore further whenever the fourth book comes out. As for this book, yes, it's shorter than I expected, but the action's still there, heavy as always, and Paige is showing herself as real tough cookie of an Underqueen at every turn.

I only hope that we don't have to wait another two long years for the fourth book.

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