strange and random happenstance

The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication Date: November 11th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Fans of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices can get to know warlock Magnus Bane like never before in this collection of New York Times bestselling tales, in print for the first time with an exclusive new story and illustrated material.

This collection of eleven short stories illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality, flamboyant style, and sharp wit populate the pages of the #1 New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.

Originally released one-by-one as e-only short stories by Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Rees Brennan, this compilation presents all ten together in print for the first time and includes a never-before-seen eleventh tale, as well as new illustrated material."

You might be finding it odd that I would even mention this book given my Cassandra Clare hatred... well, Magnus Bane was the only ok character and it's not all written by Clare, so I guess it's a meh, kind of interested in it feeling I have. Or I'm a masochist.

The Laws of Murder by Charles Finch
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: November 11th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"It’s 1876, and Charles Lenox, once London’s leading private investigator, has just given up his seat in Parliament after six years, primed to return to his first love, detection. With high hopes he and three colleagues start a new detective agency, the first of its kind. But as the months pass, and he is the only detective who cannot find work, Lenox begins to question whether he can still play the game as he once did.

Then comes a chance to redeem himself, though at a terrible price: a friend, a member of Scotland Yard, is shot near Regent’s Park. As Lenox begins to parse the peculiar details of the death – an unlaced boot, a days-old wound, an untraceable luggage ticket – he realizes that the incident may lead him into grave personal danger, beyond which lies a terrible truth.

With all the humanity, glamor, and mystery that readers have come to love, the latest Lenox novel is a shining new confirmation of the enduring popularity of Charles Finch’s Victorian series."

Because duh, obviously I'd buy this.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cassandra Clare, Charles Finch, Charles Lenox, Magnus Bane, Mauren Johnson, Mortal Instruments, Sarah Rees Brennan, The Bane Chronicles, The Laws of Murder

City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments Book 6) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 752 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

The Shadowhunter Institutes all over the world have been attacked. Emma Carstairs and the Blackthorn children saw the fall of the Los Angeles institute first hand. The Dark War with Sebastion has officially begun. All the Shadowhunters have been recalled to Idris to plan their next move. But Sebastian is unstoppable. They can't even locate where his base of operations is. He has made only one demand, hand over Clary and Jace and the Shadowhunters and Idris will be spared. Clary and Jace are willing to go, but the Clave doesn't want to bargain with terrorists. It's Emma Carstairs who gives Clary and Jace the key to destroying Sebastian. She tells them that she believes he is hiding out in a demon dimension called Edom. Jace, Clary, Alec, Isabelle and Simon travel through fairy and enter Edom where Sebastian reigns. Will this group of kids be able to win the Dark War when all the other Shadowhunters combined aren't a match for Sebastian and his army of Endarkened?

"I'm free-I'm free, AN' I'm waiting for you to follow me!" Yes, finally finishing this series has led me to break into spontaneous song. In particular "I'm Free" from The Who's Tommy. It's better then earlier in the week when I was singing Queen's "I Want to Break Free." Why is it better? Because the freedom is here! The reading is a fait accompli. I never ever have to pick up a book written by Cassandra Clare EVER AGAIN! The Mortal Instruments series, which is quite possibly the worst series of books I have ever read, has put a serious cramp in my reading mojo this summer.

I hate having my reading mojo sapped. It would have been one thing if the book was draining me from sheer awesomeness, but that was not the case here. I think my previous reviews of the preceding five books covered my feelings quite well as to why I hate these books, no character development, no continuity, atrocious writing, but I will take a little time here to muse on what the final installment brought home. And yes, there's a part of me that doesn't want to waste my breath (or in this case, my words) on talking about this book further... but I can't let Clare get away with her crimes against writing, I just can't.

I seriously thought that the overwhelming integration of Clare's "universe" couldn't get worse then in City of Lost Souls... I should not have underestimated Clare's ability to lower the bar. A third of this book was references to her Infernal Devices series that just went over my head (I will NOT be drawn into another badly written series), another third of this book was setting up her new series, The Dark Artifices (wherein she finally just embraces she's writing Buffy Fanfic and sets it in California with a character named Dru), and the final third was actually about this series, The Mortal Instruments. I can not tell you how aggravated I was by this. Instead of focusing her efforts on writing a passable finale for the series she was more concerned with setting up her new series then wrapping up the old.

I mean, seriously? Here are what, twenty children and now you must remember all their names because they'll be so important in the future series. No! No more! I'm walking away from the series and NEVER looking back. In time hopefully I can rewrite my brain so that all this stupid Shadowhunter bullshit stops taking up valuable space in my memory. Oh, and that's not even the product placement for her one-off books, The Bane Chronicles and The Shadowhunter's Codex, oh, and fuck me, it looks like she's doing a Simon book... no more. NO MORE!

Ok, maybe a little more... ranting that is. I think Clare's inability to write is most obvious in how she always tells and doesn't show. Her books are very much about what makes us family and how we redefine this for ourselves. Blood doesn't make us family in this day and age so much as these connections we forge. In other words, just go watch the amazing Buffy season five episode "Family" and realize that in the time you read this series you could have been watching quality television, not reading sub par drek that wishes it was written by Whedon.

Ok, getting off topic. Instead of showing us these connections, Clare must always label them. This is my "sister" this is my "daughter" you get the point. We should know that the connection between Clary and Luke is strong without Luke every second yelling about his "daughter." Technically, she's not. Yes Luke, she's your family, but you don't need to label it. Family just IS. Family doesn't need signifiers. Right there, that's the fatal flaw. This series spends so much time justifying itself and being composed of other things that it just can't be itself. This book just isn't.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy, Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire, City of Lost Souls, Dark Artifices, Family, Infernal Devices, Joss Whedon, Magnus Bane, Mortal Instruments, Queen, The Bane Chronicles, The Shadowhunter's Codex

City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments Book 5) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication Date: May 8th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 535 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Jace is now bound to Sebastian. He has unwittingly turned to the dark side and is the center of a world wide manhunt. Yet the Clave think it's a simple kidnapping, little do they know that the two are bound together. One cannot be harmed without the other getting the same wounds. Therefore, if found, Sebastian cannot be killed if Jace is to live. The two want Clary to come and join them, which she secretly does, but only because she feels that by going with her brother and her true love that she can find some way of separating them and saving Jace. Clary is unprepared for the depths her brother will sink, but luckily her friends are willing to sink to equal depths in order to save her and Jace. Team Good is on the job, raising demons and summoning angels all to find a way to save Jace. Yet even if the separation succeeds can they find out Sebastian's plans and stop him before it's too late?

One thing that is really big right now is to have everything interconnected. Now, I don't mean everything as in EVERYTHING, but it's becoming so that book and television series are no longer independent. You can't just read or watch one thing without having to read and watch all this other stuff as well, from online exclusives to ebooks. Now more then ever it is about the whole universe a story inhabits. The worst perpetrator of these crimes against consumers is Marvel. The Marvel Universe is so interconnected that you literally have to watch everything to know what's going on. You can't just watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., oh no, you have to also go see the new Captain America movie because apparently the whole first season was building to the reveal in the movie, which someone could have warned me about.

I mean seriously, I got so lost between two episodes because I didn't have the time to go see Captain American: The Winter Soldier and everything on S.H.I.E.L.D hinged on that movie that I almost swore off Marvel then and there. And yes, I know Marvel has always had this interconnected universe, but these days it's getting out of hand, being more about forcing the consumer to want it all then just letting them stick to what they like, and FYI, I like Captain America in WWII, not in modern times, so there.

For series I love, I do want it all, but with the caveat, they can be connected not dependent. Thor and S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America and The Avengers, they can have jokes and characters crossing over all they want as long as I can enjoy each one individually. They must be separate and enjoyable on their own. Cassandra Clare has fallen prey to this trend and it's making me want to throttle her more then usual. After the third book in the Mortal Instruments series she had her first Infernal Devices book come out, Clockwork Angel. This series is set in the same world but in the 1800s, and due to some of her characters being immortal, well, those characters carry through, most notably Magnus Bane.

Flash forward to present day and the Mortal Instruments and book four, City of Fallen Angels, and references to Clockwork Angel pepper the text, liberally. I was kind of ok with it... at first. By the time this book, City of Lost Souls, was released another book in the Infernal Devices series had been published and Clare doubled down on the references. Now not only is her book lacking in plot, believable characters, and continuity, it is now at the point where tons of references are going over my head because I didn't read two of her other books. The thought of having to read more of her writing makes me want to scream. The fact that this book has a whole new level of things to infuriate me makes me wonder how I will ever finish this series.

But here's the nail in the coffin for me and Clare, she doesn't care about her writing so why should I? You might be wondering how I reached this opinion, well, it's right there on every page of her books if you look. Her writing is lazy. And by lazy I mean the writing feels like it was just vomited onto the page without anyone ever going back and checking for overuse of words (seriously, don't use the same phrase two sentences in a row), not to mention continuity, where windows randomly appear in windowless rooms (a common occurrence) and futons have bedposts.

Yet for me the issue this all ties back to is her plagiarist tendencies. A good author will create a unique and wonderful world that has originality and won't make you think that the book is half Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix half Buffy the Vampire Slayer season two. But even if the world did feel like that, a good author could make it their own with character development and dialogue. Instead Clare just relies on the words of other writers versus coming up with her own. I actually lost count as to how many direct lifts there were from Buffy. I knew from the end of the previous book that City of Lost Souls was shaping up to be very much Angelus wreaking havoc on Sunnydale, but seriously, this is how it ended? THE EXACT SAME WAY AS BUFFY!?! Look to the screencap as proof because you don't need to take my word for it!

Does assembling real work by others into a vague plotless book make you an author? I don't think so. It makes you a lazy bitch who is just churning these books out as fast as you can to rake in the cash probably only stopping to call your lawyer to see if a sentence is changed just the right infinitesimal amount so that you can't be sued. And it looks like Clare is going to keep on doing this... it's people like her that make me worry about the future of writing; lazy ass people who feel entitled to do whatever they want, damn the consequences.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Agents of SHIELD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Captain America, Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls, Clockwork Angel, Harry Potter, Infernal Devices, Magnus Bane, Marvel, Mortal Instruments, Plagiarism, Thor

City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments Book 4) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Every action has it's consequence. There is a price to pay for bringing Jace back from the dead, as there is for Simon being a vampire who can now walk in daylight and repel attacks on his person because he bears the mark of Cain. Yet when Jace was brought back or when Clary traced the mark onto Simon's forehead, none of them thought that the punishment for that one action would be so severe. They all are trying to resume their normal lives and are planning for Clary's mom's wedding to Luke when the repercussions start to be felt. Simon has apparently the most to deal with, what with his mom finding out about him being a vampire, resulting in his being kicked out having to move in with one of his band mates. But that family squabble could happen to anyone, minus the vampirism, it's the threats on his life that are more disturbing, as well as different factions of supernaturals having an unhealthy interest in his ability to walk in daylight. Though it's Jace's problem that could be their undoing. Nightmares seem like a mundane concern when stacked up against Simon's problems. Though the nightmares might be what undoes them all.

Have you ever been reading a book or a series of books that just turns you off reading altogether? There's just something or a lot of somethings that piss you off so much that the thought of picking up another book and reading any written word makes you panic and flee into fits of hyper productivity in anything other then your "to be read" pile. This is a rare occurrence for me, the last time happened to coincide with the final Twilight book and put me off reading for the entire month of August. I'm thinking that I can overcome this malaise quickly... or at least I hope I can because I really have other books to read, but in the meantime, well, my office is getting clean!

As you have probably guessed I am not the biggest fan of this series, even if I have been taking a sort of gleeful revenge by writing scathing reviews. Yet after this forth book I almost think I can't take it anymore. And there's two more books! OK, I am getting a little twitchy thinking about those final two volumes. Power through, power through. Yes, I have developed a mantra in an attempt to just get done. Also, it's not that these Mortal Instrument books are the worst I've ever read, it's just lazy writing (how can a windowless room have a stained glass window later in the scene?) with predictable plots, like, stop hitting me over the head with you "subtle" foreshadowing Clare! I just don't like these books. There. I've said it. I. Don't. Like. These. Books.

I shall now illuminate my reasoning like a window magically appearing in a windowless room, seriously, editors, how could you not fix that. I had hope with City of Fallen Angels because the book did shift it's primary focus off the angtsy Jace and Clary (have I mentioned before how much I hate these names?) and Simon has became our protagonist, and I was all hyped. Simon, someone different, a geeky little vampire and how he's handling his transition... which somehow became the most boring story ever. One is that Simon's vampirism has made him sexy so he's juggling two girls, please, no. Stick to who he is. The other is that there are SO MANY good becoming stories out there about newbie vampires and this one didn't even come close. I think my common refrain for this series is just go watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and leave it at that. But other great shows with becoming stories... how about Being Human? I'm talking UK NOT US people. If it wasn't for the fact that I know there is so much great literature, films, and television shows about vampires, this series would have sworn me off them for good. As it is, I could do with a supernatural reprieve for a few months. Thankfully I swore off True Blood awhile ago otherwise I wouldn't be able to watch it's final season.

But nothing is getting to me as much as Clary and her budding artistic abilities. Thank Lilith that Clary has stopped talking about the sky, it literally made this book shorter by a hundred pages. As an artist, illustrator, and designer myself, I have one thing to say: Get the Terms Right Clare! It is very apparent when someone is writing about things outside their skill set and they don't bother to do the research. This gets on my nerves. I'm sure that everyone who has a specific trade or knowledge of something will cringe when it's wrongly applied. I sometimes catch it with things I have a passing knowledge of, but like when I'm watching the new series of Father Brown, I'm not the person on the message boards posting about how his vestments are wrong for the time period. Also, this guy does exist, go check out the imdb boards!

However, on art, I'm going to call you out! Firstly, art terms and writing terms aren't interchangeable. So while artists sometimes use the word "draft" it rarely means the same thing, but I'll let this one slide, because sometimes common vernacular ends up trumping actual meaning. But you're not getting away with Clary calling her drawing of Jace an illustration. It could be a drawing, a sketch, or a portrait, but NOT an illustration. See, an illustration is an image that accompanies text. I mean just look at the freaking definition in a dictionary! An illustration is "something that illustrates, as a picture in a book or magazine." Unless Clary is writing some erotica about Jace that she needs an illustration of his sleeping body for IT IS A DRAWING. I'd say do better Clare, but after four books, I see you can't do better, it's the same thing over and over again. I'll finish your series, but then we're done.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art, Being Human, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels, Clary, Father Brown, Illustration, Jace, Mortal Instruments, Simon, Summer Series, True Blood, Twilight, Vampires

City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments Book 3) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: March 24th, 2000
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

The final battle with Valentine is coming. The Clave have called all Shadowhunters home to Idris to discuss the options before them. Jace doesn't want Clary to come because he is worried that she will be in harm's way, and his whole purpose in life now is to protect Clary. If they can't be together, she can at least be safe. Jace should know by now that Clary does what Clary wants, and in violation of every law the Clave has set up, she creates her own portal to Idris to find the cure for what ails her mother. Her arrival with Luke luckily remains secret, but Simon's inadvertent arrival with the Lightwoods causes a stir. Downworlders are not allowed within the city! Instead of sending Simon home, the Clave secretly hold him prisoner, proving that perhaps Valentine is right and the Clave is irreparably corrupt. With spies within the capital and no one being who they seem, can the destruction of Valentine really save the Shadowhunters, or are they a dying breed?

When you're a teenager every little crisis feels as if it's "THE END OF THE WORLD." You're just a giant ball of angst and hormones. This might be why I connected so strongly to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even if I didn't start watching till I was out of my teens, I still remembered what it was like. The genius of Joss (yes, we're on a fist name basis, I did meet him once and talked about Upstairs, Downstairs with him) is that he not only empathized with the plight of the teenager, but he deftly skewered it. He created a show wherein the hyperbole of teenagers was actually true with the fate of the world resting on Buffy Summers's shoulders every week. I think I can safely say that "The Mortal Instruments" books wouldn't have been written if Joss hadn't been a trailblazer for the kick-ass teenage girl. In every page of Clare's work we have a paean to Joss, and in some instances lines lifted directly from Buffy, sigh. Yet, it is very obvious Clare isn't Joss. She clearly lacks the inability to know when to employ irony and humor.

While reading City of Glass, I kept thinking of the season three episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Zeppo," where we follow Zander's misadventures while only catching glimpses of the earth shattering apocalypse Buffy and Angel are dealing with. Why this episode? Because in the Buffy and Angel parts the writing was purposefully over the top and nothing but angst, angst, angst. Every single scene with Clary and Jace is encompassed in that overwrought acting by Sarah Michelle Geller and David Boreanaz. Or, in a non Buffy example, the "Potter Puppet Pals" sketch with Harry banging his head on the wall just saying angst over and over again. Clare is blind to the fact that she needs to lard her angst (and her faux incest, see, I knew it was going to be fake) with a little levity now and then. Because the truth is that Jace and Clary are quickly becoming the couple you hated to be around in high school because every second of their relationship is fraught with drama. Just because a book is YA doesn't mean it's obligatory to be so childish with your hormonal emotions. But then again, everything I've read about Clare's own behavior seems to indicate that she hasn't left this mindset herself, so perhaps it's not her writing that needs to grow up, but her?

Speaking of her writing... besides City of Glass encompassing everything I hate about "final" books in a series, ie, spending too much time waffling between politics and punching, with epic battles that bore me to tears with little to no respite for character development, her writing has started to become even more predictable, I know, that's hard to believe, but it's true. There comes a point when you've read enough of an author that you start to know their "tricks" and there turn of phrase. Certain words are used maybe a few too many times, a romantic moment will "stop her mouth with a kiss" (yes, I'm looking at you Shakespeare loving Lauren Willig). One of the worst perpetrators of this repetition is Tolkien, who, while I have been criticized by Tolkien geeks as overly stating the issue, I say, read his books again and on almost every page someone will stoop and look to the compass points, north, south, east, west. I certainly don't need this information every two seconds, thank you. J.K. Rowling must have read too much Tolkien at a young age because she also overuses stooping, but I always lay the blame on Tolkien, not Rowling.

A good editor should fix these problems for you, say, "Hey Jo, lay off on the stooping, how about crouching or hunching?" Tolkien is forgiven a bit because he was more a historian then a writer, so, well, you don't read his books for language. Clare's fatal flaw is her need to describe the sky, CONSTANTLY. Not just once or twice in a chapter, but as the sun keeps setting she repeatedly and stiltedly talks about the color shift. I think I will literally kill someone if I have to read yet another unrealistic description of the sky, which erratically shifts colors in ways no sky could. Blue hour my ass. Clare obviously knows nothing about color, but that is a rant for another day. Today's rant has concluded.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Angel, Angst, Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cassandra Clare, City of Glass, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joss Whedon, Lauren Willig, Mortal Instruments, Potter Puppet Pals, Upstairs Downstairs, Zander Harris

City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments Book 2) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: March 25th, 2008
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Clary's mom is still in a coma. But her mother isn't her only family anymore. Clary not only has an evil father planning world domination under the guise of the greater good, but a brother in Jace, whom she was starting to fall for, luckily they found out about their shared genes in time, no matter how much they wish it wasn't true. Jace and Clary being the offspring of Valentine has caused quite a stir among the Shadowhunters. Because Clary is new to this "other" world she is basically ignored by the Clave, but Jace... Jace isn't getting off that easy. Until Jace can prove his past ignorance of his lineage and that all his motives where for the good of the Clave he is to be locked up by the Silent Brothers.

While he is detained awaiting his "trial" by the sacred Soul-Sword that will know if he is telling the truth, his father Valentine arrives at the Silent City and massacres the Brothers and steals the sword, the second of the Mortal Instruments. Even if Jace wasn't under suspicion because of his father and being at the scene of another crime, he'd want to get to the bottom of this because it's in his blood as a Shadowhunter to protect the world from the downworlders. Downworlders who are flocking to Valentine as he uses the sword to call them to his side. Can Jace, Clary, and the younger Shadowhunters work secretly for the good of all without being accused of ulterior motives?

I'm sure you've all experienced this phenomena. You're reading a book, it's good bordering on great and because of some reason you set it down. It could be work, it could be prior commitments, it could even be another book you've been dying to read and it has finally come out and you can't wait another minute to start it. But you set down your book and when you pick it back up the magic is gone. There's a part of you that's thinking, it's not the book, it's me, the common refrain of all breakups. You try to make it work, but no matter how hard you try you can't reconnect.

The book is now a chore to read and you're just pushing through, trying to finish, all the while wondering what happened. This happened with me and City of Ashes. In the beginning I was flying through it, surprised by how much I was enjoying it after the first book was, well, wasn't up to my high expectations. I was even able to forgive Clare's habit of unbelievable predictability. She's so heavy handed with the foreshadowing that it's laughable. She telegraphs every punch so that there is no surprise when the blow falls. But I was ok with all this and then I wasn't.

I am not sure if it was the superiority of writing and worldbuilding of the book I forsook City of Ashes for or just that City of Ashes had reached it's apex and was quickly declining, but we irrevocably had a falling out. Yes, it was my mistake to set down this book, because who knows if I would have grown to dislike it as much as I did. I have an inkling that I would, and that inkling is Jace. I hate Jace with the fury of ten thousand suns. He is an unlikable arrogant ass. What's the refrain all good writers should abide by, show don't tell. Having all the characters say that Jace isn't really all that bad doesn't counteract the douchebaggery he's perpetrating on every single page. He's not a misunderstood misanthrope, he's a dick. An unrepentant ass isn't ever going to be a good hero or even an antihero, they're just going to be always an ass. And in this case an ass surrounded by a whole lot of flat two dimensional characters.

But what I despise about Jace is that he's basically the love interest. I was relieved when at the end of the first book that it turned out Jace and Clary are siblings because then Clare could drop this stupid budding love affair. Of course, I can see that they are somehow going to miraculously not be related just so they can get it on, and that is where the book tipped for me, when Jace was brought back as the taboo love of Clary. By having Jace, all be it temporarily, not the love interest I became interested in the book. Clare quickly cured me of all I liked, hence I think our breakup was inevitable.

So about this love. Let's say that Jace and Clary are related and there's no deus ex machina waiting in the wings to make their love acceptable, then we're in familiar literary trope territory, incest! Man, authors love incest, consensual, non consensual, startling revelation, secretive, scandalous, fabulously camp, it's out there from Flowers in the Attic to Game of Thrones to Veronica Mars to Arrested Development. And, it's just overdone already people. Using it as a shocking plot device over and over makes it lose it's shock value.

I could spend hours sitting here just listing all the books I've read or shows I've watched where this was supposed to be a big icky reveal and instead had me rolling my eyes going, oh please, not again. Donna Tartt, Diane Setterfield, Charlaine Harris, George R R Martin have all pulled this and have desensitized me to this trope once and for all. THE ONLY way this trope would have helped this book would have been to permanently part Jace and Clary on the romantic level, but that's not happening, so just, cut it out, ok, it's bad that I just got Dave Coulier from Full House in my head just then... but that's the level this trope has reached... bad and tacky 80s comedian level.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arrested Development, Cassandra Clare, Charlaine Harris, City of Ashes, Diane Setterfield, Donna Tartt, Flowers in the Attic, Full House, Games of Thrones, GRRM, Incest, Jace, Mortal Instruments, Veronica Mars

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments Book 1) by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: March 27th, 2007
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Clary's life has been turned upside down. One night her and her best friend Simon are at a club when she sees something no one else can. There's apparently a shadow world in New York and for some reason Clary is starting to see it. After this shocking discovery Clary's mom Jocelyn is kidnapped and this new world of demons and angels and vampires and werewolves holds the key. There is a group of humans known as the Shadowhunters, and they protect the world from the demons from the downworlds. They keep all of humanity safe and ignorant. Clary has spent her life safe and ignorant, but only at her mother's behest. Jocelyn was once a Shadowhunter, part of the elite Circle lead by her husband Valentine to overthrow the Clave, the organizing body of the Shadowhunters. Jocelyn came to hate the purity of blood the Circle demanded and fled her husband and that world to raise her daughter as a mundane, safe from the dangers of this shadow world. But everyone's past comes back to haunt them. Valentine isn't as dead as everyone hoped and his ideals haven't changed in the fifteen years he has been in hiding. Can Clary, a girl just thrust into this other world, be able to help stop history repeating itself?

The concept of plagiarism is horrifying to me, yet in our society it is oddly pervasive and somewhat accepted. As a creative person who has artistic output the thought that someone would take my work, my blood, sweat, and tears, and claim it as their own, it makes my blood boil. I am so wary of the taint of plagiarism that I have this obsessive self-policing instinct that recoils at the thought that I would cut corners to get a faster or better end result even using just the bones of another person's idea. Plagiarism in any form is abhorrent to me. Yet there were many instances at school where students would get caught showing the work of others as their own. They would lift artwork straight off of deviantART and an observant student or teacher would call them out. Why you might be wondering am I ruminating on artistic copyrights? Well, even if you've only been half aware of the controversy, Cassandra Clare is an author who has, apparently, been rightly tarred as a plagiarist. She is an author who, while the taint has stuck, has also been accepted by the YA community and become very successful. An odd conundrum of our times where theft and unoriginality are king.

While the roots of the story start in fanfic, I want to make it clear that this is just one cast against one person and that fanfic is a thriving and interesting genre that uses pre-existing characters in new ways and isn't being denigrated by me. The bones (haha) of the case against Cassie is that in her fanfic trilogy devoted to Draco Malfoy she basically was ripping off not just witty dialogue from Buffy to Pratchett to Red Dwarf (classified by her as "an obscure British sitcom" and yes, in my mind she should go to hell for saying that) but full scenes and settings from other authors. She was called out, her work was categorized as plagiarized and was pulled from the site it was on. Yes, there was also a lot of name calling, Cyberbullying, and other horrid stuff you can read all about elsewhere, but the fact is she got a book deal from this. This alone disgusts me. But with the eyes of the world on her she wasn't able to rely on the witticisms of Joss Whedon anymore, she took her plot structure from her fanfic trilogy, stripped it down, rebuilt it, and what is left is boring. Even if you were unaware of all this controversy swirling around her you could not help but notice that this book lacks originality, it lacks that spark that's needed to make it more then just a mish-mash of other tropes and plot devices as old as the written word. Cassandra Clare, in my opinion, is a bad writer, not to mention morally corrupt and a bad human. She used the reflective glory of other "true" writers to give her work a shiny allure, that while tarnished, is still there.

But I can't ignore the fanfic roots of City of Bones mainly because this is so obviously Harry Potter from Draco's point of view. And even if I didn't know about the Draco Trilogy, once a flying motorcycle shows up, there's no doubt it's Harry Potter. This book is giving us front row seats to life with the Death Eaters, with a little more Nazism thrown in, sieg heil! In fact it's just too much of everything thrown in, too much borrowed and re-interpreted in a flat way. Here's some Harry Potter (a stele is so a wand no matter what Clare says), add some Rick Riordan, a little Piers Anthony/Bill Willingham (mundies, really, Fables much?), an aroma of Celtic mythology, a dash of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, just have at it. But never once does all this thisness convert into something it's own, something cohesive and original. All this translates into major worldbuilding issues. I'm ok with a magical world coexisting alongside a mundane world, as long as it makes sense. Whether it's willful ignorance on the part of the mundanes, or spells and wards keeping them away, something has to be explained as to how this ignorant coexistence works. Having carriages going over cars and slipping in and out of traffic with not an eyelid batted, please.

The laziness in the worldbuilding though is never so obvious as in the characters that inhabit this world. City of Bones has this feeling of one epically long night of party crashing, much like the aforementioned Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a book and movie I detest. When you go to these parties you meet people, you get vague impressions, and then they're out of your life forever. That's how I felt about all the characters. They are flat two-dimensional people who will maybe have a defining characteristic, but overall, they are forgettable. After almost five hundred pages with Clary all I know about her is she's a short red-head who draws. Seriously, this is ALL I KNOW about the protagonist of this book? Um... major flaw here. While I know people will jump down my neck for this, but I actually think Bella Swan has more of a personality then Clary. There, I said it. I do think that this issue would have been fixable it there was some buildup before throwing us into the action of the book. How about a few days spent with Clary living her normal life? Some way for us to identify with her and the world she's about to lose. A way for the reader to forge a connection, because without this bond I have no conduit to help me in this book's world, and it makes me care about nothing. Valentine could kill them all for how much I care about them and perhaps I would help him, especially with Jace.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, Clary, Draco Malfoy, Fables, Fan Fic, Harry Potter, Jace, Joss Whedon, Mortal Instruments, Nick and Nora, Plagiarism, Shadowhunter, Vampires, Werewolves

City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 752 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Shadowhunters and demons square off for the final showdown in the spellbinding, seductive conclusion to the #1 New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series.

Darkness has descended on the Shadowhunter world. Chaos and destruction overwhelm the Nephilim as Clary, Jace, Simon, and their friends band together to fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother. Nothing in this world can defeat Sebastian—but if they journey to the realm of demons, they just might have a chance…

Lives will be lost, love sacrificed, and the whole world will change. Who will survive the explosive sixth and final installment of the Mortal Instruments series?"

The end is here!

Skin Game by Jim Butcher
Published by: Roc Hardcover
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 446 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day…

Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful.

He doesn’t know the half of it…

Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains—led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone—to break into the highest-security vault in town, so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.

It's a smash and grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world—which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he's dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry.

Dresden's always been tricky, but he's going to have to up his backstabbing game to survive this mess—assuming his own allies don’t end up killing him before his enemies get the chance…"

Does Harry ever have good days?

The Given by Vicki Pettersson
Published by: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
" The dramatic conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Vicki Pettersson's critically acclaimed Celestial Blues trilogy—an inventive blend of paranormal romance, noir mystery, and urban fantasy—involving a fallen angel and a flesh-and-blood rockabilly reporter.

After learning that his wife, Evelyn, survived the attack that killed him fifty years earlier, angel/PI Griffin Shaw will risk everything to find her. But to do so, Grif has to forsake his new love, journalist Katherine "Kit" Craig—the woman who made his life worth living again.

Yet when Kit is attacked again, it becomes clear that there are forces in both the mortal and heavenly realms determined to protect secrets long buried in the past. To survive, Grif must convince Kit to put aside her personal hurt and help him discover the truth—a dangerous journey that will put them in the crosshairs of enemies old and new . . . and test the limits of what one angel will sacrifice for love."

Finale time!

The Secret Life of Violet Grant by Beatriz Williams
Published by: Putnam Adult
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Passion, redemption, and a battered suitcase full of secrets: the New York Times-bestselling author of A Hundred Summers returns with another engrossing tale.

Manhattan, 1964. Vivian Schuyler, newly graduated from Bryn Mawr College, has recently defied the privilege of her storied old Fifth Avenue family to do the unthinkable for a budding Kennedy-era socialite: break into the Madison Avenue world of razor-stylish Metropolitan magazine. But when she receives a bulky overseas parcel in the mail, the unexpected contents draw her inexorably back into her family’s past, and the hushed-over crime passionnel of an aunt she never knew, whose existence has been wiped from the record of history.

Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason: for all his faults, he provides the necessary support to her liminal position as a young American female physicist in prewar Germany. The arrival of Dr. Grant’s magnetic former student at the beginning of Europe’s fateful summer interrupts this delicate détente. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband’s perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel’s shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life of her own conviction with a man whose cause is as audacious as her own.

As the iridescent and fractured Vivian digs deeper into her aunt’s past and the mystery of her ultimate fate, Violet’s story of determination and desire unfolds, shedding light on the darkness of her years abroad . . . and teaching Vivian to reach forward with grace for the ambitious future––and the love––she wants most."

Um, yes please?

Dubliners by James Joyce
Published by: Penguin Classics
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For the centennial of its original publication, an irresistible Graphic Deluxe Edition of one of the most beloved books of the 20th century.

Perhaps the greatest short story collection in the English language, James Joyce’s Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of “dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead,” delve into the heart of the city of Joyce’s birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners’ speech and portraying with an almost brute realism their outer and inner lives. Dubliners is Joyce at his most accessible and most profound, and this edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate."

Look at that cover and tell me you don't want to own this beautiful new edition!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beatriz Williams, Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire, Dubliners, Harry Dresden, James Joyce, Jim Butcher, Mortal Instruments, Skin Game, The Given, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, Vicki Pettersson