Shadow and Bone Netflix TV Show is fun

Shadow and Bone just appeared when I turned on Netflix the other day. You know that thing where it automatically plays a trailer? Well, it played this and the trailer got me in. A couple of days later, and I’d finished it.

Shadow and Bone is a fantasy series but one in a time period where they have trains and pistols and so on. Kind of the early 19th century. There are still monsters and magicians and so on.

Here is the premise, fresh from the Shadow and Bone Wikipedia site:

Shadow and Bone is set in a war-torn world plagued by the Shadow Fold, a swath of permanent darkness separating East from West Ravka which is inhabited by carnivorous winged creatures known as Volcra. Orphan mapmaker Alina Starkov discovers that she is a Grisha (a magic-user) who posseses the extraordinay power to create light–making her a Sun Summoner–which could be the key to setting her country free from the Fold. Alina becomes part of an elite army of Grisha serving under General Kirigan, the Shadow Summoner.

Shadow and Bone is a lot of fun. You can tell it was from a book and that it was part of a series. This is hard to say without generalising and coming across a little bit sexist, but you can also tell it was written by a woman for a YA audience. Which it was. The show comes from a series by Leigh Bardugo. But I don’t that to put you off. As a man in his 40s who likes his fantasy dark and violent, I really enjoyed this.

Like a lot of material that comes from books, especially fantasy books, Shadow and Bone has a lot of world-building. It can be a bit confusing at first but isn’t really all that bad. There are some great scenes and the casting is spot on. The characters are a plucky band of ne’er-do-wells and are a lot of fun. Mind you, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.

I really enjoyed Shadow and Bone, even though it is not the sort of thing I would normally watch. If you fancy a bit of binge and enjoy well-made escapism, give it a try. Here’s a trailer: