Scion

Scion

James Islington

First published 2026

8.18.1 / 10
Score out of 1045 ratingsEarly score · confidence 20%

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About the book

My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s. The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the "killing people" part of it, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So, sure, I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try to crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone’s got to do it. Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at doing it. Still. This next job...I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way. I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.

Description: publisher’s blurb via Hardcover

Where the score comes from

The sources average 8.2 across 45 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 20% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 7.8. That is how 8.1 comes out.

SourceAverageRatingsWeight
Hardcover8.245 100%

Reader voices

The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).

  • “I went into this knowing it wasn't going to be another Hierarchy book—Islington's first sci-fi, smaller scope, no epic fantasy sprawl—and honestly, managing my expectations up front helped a lot. Even so, this book kept surprising me with just how much world it packs into a fairly compact page count. The setting is the real star here: a stratified society where the wealthy buy their way to immortality and everyone else is stuck with a countdown clock. Islington keeps layering in new wrinkles on that premise as the book goes, and it's genuinely the most interesting thing on the page: more inte…”

    ★ 4/5anon on Hardcover

Frequently asked

What is Scion rated?

8.1 out of 10, from 45 reader ratings across 1 independent sources.

Is Scion worth reading?

Readers give it 8.1/10 from 45 ratings in open sources.