Cassandra Clare

Thanks for the heads up on why its titled Clockwork Prince, I missed that too

I have to be honest, its why I am reluctant to read some of these books, the teen romance thing. Its so annoying


I liked Clockwork Angel better, but on rereading Clockwork Prince recently, I find it growing on me.

Mortmain is the Clockwork Prince. There's a flashback to him and his adoptive father, the warlock John Shade, surrounded by mechanical creations. Shade says to the child, "Look well on this, my son, for one day I shall rule a clockwork kingdom of such beings, and you shall be its prince."

(I didn't take notice of that, either, the first time I read it.)


As for the second trilogy of The Mortal Instruments, I was disappointed in City of Fallen Angels when I read it -- although it did have its moments, it seemed to me that the characters were not as well-drawn. It was the dialogue, I think.

When City of Lost Souls arrived last week, I told myself that if it disappointed, too, I'd not be buying the last book. COLS started slow, and I had just about made up my mind not to continue (about 1/4 through) when she hit her stride, the characters came back to life, the action picked up, and I regained my enthusiasm.

There was too much torrid teen romance for my taste. Some of it was good and drove the plot, but some of it was ... a little too much information for me. At my age, there are certain things you don't want to know. I was willing to put up with it, though, because I liked everything else.

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On the very last week of last year's Clarion, I discovered one of my classmate's was Cassandra's husband! She's teaching it this year and he's going along, so the lucky so-and-so gets to go again!
 
Resurrecting this thread because I just saw an article about the film - anyone else read these and recommends? I am wary of the came-from-fanfiction tag because of the 50 Shades of Grey fiasco...
 
I just finished reading Clockwork Princess and although I liked the way it ended Spoiler ahead, highlight to read a case of eating our cake and having it too, as far as the romance went I was very disappointed over all. The dialogue often made me cringe. I don't know what happened. In the other books in that series -- though I liked the first one very much and the second one well enough -- I felt that her attempts at Victorian style dialogue were sometimes a little stilted, but this time a great deal of it was so bad it was literally embarrassing. Why, I kept asking myself, did I ever recommend this series to anyone? Did I not notice how truly bad the dialogue was before because I was caught up in the story (and this time the way she handled the plot was less compelling) or was it better in the other books and she just got sloppy this time?

She does have a knack for finding fabulous quotations for the epigraphs though.

The Mortal Instruments series is much better. For one thing, she does an excellent job with the contemporary setting. And I don't think she takes herself as seriously in those books; she has a sense of humor about her characters. Don't worry about the fan-fic connection. If you didn't know there was one, you would never guess. Her books bear no resemblance to Harry Potter, in theme, characters, style ... anything. I really, really liked the first three (as I read, I was channeling myself at 16 -- if you can't do something similar then the books may not be for you), especially the third one. That may be why the fourth disappointed me, because I was expecting to like it so much. But with the fifth book I felt she was back on track.

The movie ... I've seen the trailer, and I have serious reservations, but I'll still see it.




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Thanks Teresa. I think I'll give City of Bones a go (only £4.27 on Kindle, as long as it's under a fiver it's good value....). From the excerpt it looks very readable so yeah. Fingers crossed!
 
Looking at the post dates I'm a bit late to this thread but hopefully someone is still around here :).

I enjoyed The Mortal Instruments books and I'm looking forward to Heavenly fire in 2014. For me though I really loved the Infernal devices trilogy. I adored Charlotte and especially Henry. Will is in some ways the cookie cutter Herondale but I did like him. I cried over the ending but it felt so beautiful as an ending.
 
I'm running even later than you! :p

I do love the Shadowhunter world - it's really addictive and the series is one of the few that have consistently turned out books that I can't put down once I begin. Cassandra Clare has the gift of drawing you back to that part of you that is still a teen girl with mega-feels (though the type of boy that Jace is would have irritated teenaged me no end).

Looking at the post dates I'm a bit late to this thread but hopefully someone is still around here :).

I enjoyed The Mortal Instruments books and I'm looking forward to Heavenly fire in 2014. For me though I really loved the Infernal devices trilogy. I adored Charlotte and especially Henry. Will is in some ways the cookie cutter Herondale but I did like him. I cried over the ending but it felt so beautiful as an ending.
 
I enjoyed The Mortal Instruments books and I'm looking forward to Heavenly fire in 2014.

Yes, I am really looking forward to that one. I'll probably pre-order it one of these days, so I can get it the moment it comes out.

I do love the Shadowhunter world - it's really addictive

I do, too.

Usually, I would prefer a Victorian setting (by several degrees of magnitude) to a contemporary one, but aside from quite liking some of the characters, I felt she handled the setting so badly that The Infernal Devices was, in the end, a huge disappointment. Also, I have to say that I liked the characters less by the end.

But I have high hopes for the upcoming contemporary series, the one that will take place in Los Angeles.
 
Hi Teresa!

I have only just finished "A Clockwork Angel" but haven't read the other two books in the Infernal Devices trilogy yet. It's okay though I must say that Herondale men (both Jace and his predecessor Will) are fairly typical angsty bad boys. I much prefer the character of James Carstairs who seems much more even-tempered and kind and less self-centred. Then again, I guess Cassandra Clare probably deliberately set-up the Jem-Will parabatai partnership so their differences play off one another.

Can't wait for "City of Heavenly Fire" to come out this year!
 
The movie adaptation of "City of Bones" was horrendous though. They should have made it into a TV series - The CW would have done wonders with it the same way they did with "The Vampire Diaries"... and "The Mortal Instruments" series is by far superior as books to "The Vampire Diaries" books.
 
Yes, the movie was very bad. Fortunately, I had low expectations after seeing the trailer, so I wasn't as disappointed as I might have been. Instead of rushing off to see it at the theater the day it was released, I waited to watch it on my Kindle Fire, which was cheaper.

Granted that movies and books are two different art forms, I couldn't see any good reason behind any of the changes.
 
I can only say "PHEW!" that I watched as at a half-price morning matinee at the local cinema.

Jace was completely miscast and all the changes created a huge mess. Unfortunately, the same people who made it are going to adapt the next book in the series despite dismal reviews and even more dismal box office takings.

*Facepalm*
 
I'm concurrently reading her CLOCKWORK ANGEL and CITY OF BONES. So far, the structure seems parallel with both novels. All in all, I much prefer CLOCKWORK ANGEL. I guess that's because I'm partial to Victorian England than the world of today.

As for the movie, CITY OF BONES, it was okay. Not the greatest, but it introduced me to her books...which brings me to a sore point with the movie. I realize that sometimes a screenwriter has to take some liberties in adapting a novel to a script. Especially, when you have a director breathing down your neck, but as I started reading the novel, I thought, "What the hell was the studio thinking?!? Don't they realize how confusing this is!" Oh, well...I hope they learn if there are any sequels in the pipeline.
 
All in all, I much prefer CLOCKWORK ANGEL. I guess that's because I'm partial to Victorian England than the world of today.

Which may lead you (as it did me) to be disillusioned with that series by the time you've reached the end. Clockwork Angel was good; I thought she did a good job with the setting. Not perfect, but it didn't get in the way of the story. In the later books, however ...
 
The book was so much better than the film. While the film was not as horrible as some make it out to be there were some serious issues with it. For one Magnus' voice was dubbed. So unfortunate as he is my favorite character in the TMI series. IMO I think that the casting was perfect especially Simon. The only one I questioned was Valentine and I am a fan of Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He looked nothing like described in the book and came across creepy. The hair was all wrong. There were holes. The director needs to change and they need to stick to the novel if City Of Ashes is made. They claim it will begin filming this year.

Of all Clare's work I have to say that I really enjoyed The Infernal Devices (Clockwork Angel, Prince, Princess) more than TMI.

As the saying goes don't judge a book by it's movie.
 
SirGeoffrey and Alysheba:

I still think they might have been better off adapting the books as a TV series. That would've given them far more room to get it right and far more screen time to properly recreate the awesome urban supernatural world that Clare built in her books.

As for the second film - apparently the same director (Harald Zwart) is returning. What the what? He ruined the first adaptation and they are bringing him back? ARGH! Get someone else for goodness sake...

Sorry - getting slightly ranty about it because the books are wonderful but they just had to screw up so much when translating it to the screen.

I am really looking forward to the 6th Mortal Instruments book that's due out this summer though...
 
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I still think they might have been better off adapting the books as a TV series. That would've given them far more room to get it right and far more screen time to properly recreate the awesome urban supernatural world that Clare built in her books.

I agree! I love the urban feel of the books (which is not the kind of thing I usually do love) because she brought it to life so well and then blended in the supernatural elements so well. If they'd done a TV series they would undoubtedly have caught more of that than the movie did (they could hardly have caught less). Whether they would have done a lot better overall who can say, but they would have had the opportunity.

I've never understood why movie studios will take a book of 500 pages or so and try to squeeze it into two hours or less. (I mean in terms of doing justice to the book. I understand that they can make money that way.)
 
I agree! I love the urban feel of the books (which is not the kind of thing I usually do love) because she brought it to life so well and then blended in the supernatural elements so well. If they'd done a TV series they would undoubtedly have caught more of that than the movie did (they could hardly have caught less). Whether they would have done a lot better overall who can say, but they would have had the opportunity.

I've never understood why movie studios will take a book of 500 pages or so and try to squeeze it into two hours or less. (I mean in terms of doing justice to the book. I understand that they can make money that way.)

Re TV adaptations: I've seen more quality TV adaptations of books than movie adaptations of books. "The Vampire Diaries" is certainly better as a TV series (the books were abysmal) and the BBC has a fine track record of adapting the classics extremely well. So I've no doubt that if The CW or some other TV network/channel with a good track record in book adaptation takes on The Mortal Instruments, they may well do it justice and be raking it in from the fans... It's just a mystery why they didn't go down that route considering the length of the book series and the extremely rich worldbuilding in it.

True re the films, although they did a fine job adapting The Hunger Games: Catching Fire which is hands down the best recent movie adaptation I've watched.
 
I just finished reading the final book in the Mortal Instruments series and enjoyed it (far more than the final book in The Infernal Devices).

City of Heavenly Fire wasn't my favorite book in the series, but I liked it and it had some very good moments.* It tied things up in a satisfying way. It was very long for a YA book, but it needed most of that length to tell the story properly, so I can't imagine that anyone will complain. (Except that I thought it was a little drawn out at the end, just so that it could bring in a character from TID.

I think it also provided a good introduction to the "cast" of the next series, The Dark Artifices (although I assume they will be much older), who played small but important roles this time.


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*However, SPOILER (highlight to read):
I wasn't happy with the teenage sex (what can I say? I'm a grandmother, and reading about kids having sex makes me squirm, no matter how common it may be in real life, so I had to skip over that part), but after the way they built up to it through so many books, I know that avoiding it would have looked too contrived.
 

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