Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 67
November 19, 2012
City of Bones Chapter 9
It's early, but I'm willing to call it: Nothing happens in this book.
Why do I say this? Jace brings Clary and Simon back to the Institute. NOT!Hogwarts apparently hides as a broken-down church.
It's amazing how all this religious symbolism is starting to irritate me. I'm not sure why. I think part of it is, this is my religion. I know this stuff. I know where demons and angels fit into Christian cannon, and it does not work this way. I think another part of it is, this is chunks of Christian theology--the recognisable, shiny pieces--grafted onto the magic tree without any consideration for what they actually mean. It's like the author went, "OOOH ANGELS SHINY". It's also why I can't watch Supernatural. Third...uh, it's a dumb question, but where is God in all this? No, actually, it's not dumb. Dumb would be asking where God fits into Harry Potter. Clare mentions angels by name. Even if you don't want to drag sin and Christ into this miasma, why aren't we talking about God? How about Heaven? There are fallen angels in this book. Where did they fall from? What determined that these are "fallen" angels? What standard made them "Fallen" as opposed to simply "rebellious"?
This shit doesn't offend me. It irritates me. It reads like Clare didn't give a shit about her sources, she just borrowed what she thought was cool.
Oh, wait. That's exactly how she writes.
I guess we ought to be glad she isn't borrowing from Islam. That would get...messy.
So...church. Simon asks why they live there and Jace says, "We find it useful to inhabit hallowed ground."
.......
HALLOWED BY WHAT, CLARE? WHAT MAKES A CHURCH HALLOWED GROUND?
Anyway, Jace takes Simon and Clary to the kitchen, where Simon sees the beautiful Isabelle failing to cook and decides to stick around and be her guinna pig because pretty trumps nausiating food, I guess. So much for consistant characterization on his part.
Oh, and Isabelle doesn't know how to cook because learning how to cook will lead to feminine repression.
Also, Alec, Isabelle's brother, is an inferior demon hunter because he's never killed a demon. Skill=body count. Oh, Murder Trio, you need therapy so very badly.
So they find Hodge in the greenhouse and relate they day's events to him, including Uncle Luke's real name and the presence of Jace's family's murderers. Hodge pales and says, "The Death Eaters Circle is rising again!" and info dumps the history of the Circle.
Also? No way in fuck would these guys care about the mortal realm. Magic-Nazis will kill the whole world because it leaves more room for them. You know, I can be really forgiving of derivitive work, but this book has the same plot as what it's drawing on. Only this is not History: Repeat. This is History: Xerox. This is a copy of a copy of the worst people in human history ever. And the bad guys so far exist only as a backdrop for the relationship between terrible people who are not significantly different from the people they are fighting.
Yes. I said it. Clary and Co. are not significantly different from xeroxed Nazis.
So Hodge then admits that he was a part of the Circle, and so was Clary's Mom.
BUT HOW COULD SHE?! Clary screams. Hodge replies that she didn't have a choice, she was Valentine's wife.
And the chapter ends.
Congradualtions, I just summed up several pages of boring quite easily. NOTHING HAPPENS. IN. THIS. BOOK.
Why do I say this? Jace brings Clary and Simon back to the Institute. NOT!Hogwarts apparently hides as a broken-down church.
It's amazing how all this religious symbolism is starting to irritate me. I'm not sure why. I think part of it is, this is my religion. I know this stuff. I know where demons and angels fit into Christian cannon, and it does not work this way. I think another part of it is, this is chunks of Christian theology--the recognisable, shiny pieces--grafted onto the magic tree without any consideration for what they actually mean. It's like the author went, "OOOH ANGELS SHINY". It's also why I can't watch Supernatural. Third...uh, it's a dumb question, but where is God in all this? No, actually, it's not dumb. Dumb would be asking where God fits into Harry Potter. Clare mentions angels by name. Even if you don't want to drag sin and Christ into this miasma, why aren't we talking about God? How about Heaven? There are fallen angels in this book. Where did they fall from? What determined that these are "fallen" angels? What standard made them "Fallen" as opposed to simply "rebellious"?
This shit doesn't offend me. It irritates me. It reads like Clare didn't give a shit about her sources, she just borrowed what she thought was cool.
Oh, wait. That's exactly how she writes.
I guess we ought to be glad she isn't borrowing from Islam. That would get...messy.
So...church. Simon asks why they live there and Jace says, "We find it useful to inhabit hallowed ground."
.......
HALLOWED BY WHAT, CLARE? WHAT MAKES A CHURCH HALLOWED GROUND?
Anyway, Jace takes Simon and Clary to the kitchen, where Simon sees the beautiful Isabelle failing to cook and decides to stick around and be her guinna pig because pretty trumps nausiating food, I guess. So much for consistant characterization on his part.
Oh, and Isabelle doesn't know how to cook because learning how to cook will lead to feminine repression.
Also, Alec, Isabelle's brother, is an inferior demon hunter because he's never killed a demon. Skill=body count. Oh, Murder Trio, you need therapy so very badly.
So they find Hodge in the greenhouse and relate they day's events to him, including Uncle Luke's real name and the presence of Jace's family's murderers. Hodge pales and says, "The Death Eaters Circle is rising again!" and info dumps the history of the Circle.
He was carrying a large book bound in brown leather. He paged through it with an anxious finger, blinking owl-like behind his glasses and muttering: “Where . . . where . . . ah, here it is!” He cleared his throat before he read aloud: “I hereby render unconditional obedience to the Circle and its principles. . . . I will be ready to risk my life at any time for the Circle, in order to preserve the purity of the bloodlines of Idris, and for the mortal world with whose safety we are charged.”Clary's response?
“It sounds creepy,” said Clary. “Like a fascist organization or something."Oh, I bet you thought I was exaggerating the simularities between this book and Harry Potter, didn't you? Nope. Both books are Godwin's Law in action.
Also? No way in fuck would these guys care about the mortal realm. Magic-Nazis will kill the whole world because it leaves more room for them. You know, I can be really forgiving of derivitive work, but this book has the same plot as what it's drawing on. Only this is not History: Repeat. This is History: Xerox. This is a copy of a copy of the worst people in human history ever. And the bad guys so far exist only as a backdrop for the relationship between terrible people who are not significantly different from the people they are fighting.
Yes. I said it. Clary and Co. are not significantly different from xeroxed Nazis.
So Hodge then admits that he was a part of the Circle, and so was Clary's Mom.
BUT HOW COULD SHE?! Clary screams. Hodge replies that she didn't have a choice, she was Valentine's wife.
And the chapter ends.
Congradualtions, I just summed up several pages of boring quite easily. NOTHING HAPPENS. IN. THIS. BOOK.
November 18, 2012
City of Bones Chapter Eight
I think I left last chapter off a little too nicely. In the interests of venting my ire, and also reminding you guys where we were when we last left our "heroes," let me remind you:
Clary Frey has jumped into a mystery magic portal without any idea where the fuck it goes.
But CW! you might be saying, Protagonists go into the unknown all the time! So do REAL people! Where would we be without Columbus (...drug lords would be called "Americans" same as the rest of us) or Neil Armstrong? Lewis and Clark! The great explorers who look at "Here there be Dragons" and go off to adventure with a great big stick!
Here's the thing. All of them have an idea of what exists in the unknown AND a reason to go get it. In some cases, it's quite simply that they don't know what's there and they cannot wait to find out. In other cases, it's what's not through that door...IE the giant bug aliens that are chasing them with intent to kill. Maybe they'll get a reward when they come back alive.
Clary will not get an award. Clary has no shown interest in being a "fuck danger" adventurer, and Clary isn't sure her mother is there, or anywhere. Why does she go through the door? She wants to know where her mother WOULD have gone, if Clary hadn't been a frickin' idiot and decided not to answer her phone a few days ago.
Let me repeat that. She wants to go to an unknown place via a door demon fugetives use as an escape hatch because she wants to know where her mother might have gone, if her own actions had not made that escape an imposibility.
This is not yet Strawchick level stupid, but it's getting really close.
So where does it take them? Hell? Some other demon dimension? J.K. Rowling's backyard?
Lower Manhattan. Not kidding. They land in her uncle Luke's backyard. He lives behind a backyard. Jace asks what next, and Clary says they should leave, because Luke told her not to come there. Jesus, kid. You just went through a door when you didn't know what universe it went to. Make it count. EXPLORE.
Jace, of course, doesn't respect grownups and Clary submits to peer pressure and walks up to Luke's sometimes UNLOCKED back door.
He lives in Manhattan. And he sometimes leaves his door open.
...how does he still have a house? I'd think one day he'd come home and find the doorknob with a key in it and thoughtful step-by-step instructions on how to use it, so that the next time he leaves his new house, a theif doesn't come steal everything but the foundation.
But Luke does ONE thing responsibly. He recycles. We absolutely needed to know this. Jace vaults over the bushes and lands on Clary's friend Simon.
You remember Simon, right? The Harry Potter look-alike who was head over heels in love with Clary, who is probably the only non-psychotic human being to put up with her stupid? That Simon? Yeah. So glad you remember, because obviously Clary forgot all about him. Seriously. She's gone for days, her mother is missing, her house is stolen, and Simon has to be worried.
Clary is miffed that Simon isn't happier to see her.
Clary Frey, you are an awful human being. You and Jace deserve each other.
Once Simon vents his ire, Clary tells him what's going on. The exact truth.
Which Simon accepts immediately. Because it's this kind of book.
You know, I hated Strawchick with the passion and fire of ten thousand suns, but at least her character was fucking consistant, at least up until she got locked in the slave box and somehow got a lobotomy in the dark. Clary isn't adventurous, except when she needs to be. She can't fight, except when she needs to do something big enough to impress a nearby man. She is shitty to her friends...okay, she's consistant here. And Simon? Who isn't used to seeing things that are not there? Accepts all this immediatly without any questions whatsoever, other than "Hey, so you're a demon hunter?"
My first question would be, "What did you take on this obvious three day trip to Amsterdam and did you bring enough back to share?"
But Simon can't freak out because the plot needs Simon and Clary to be best buds from here on out. If they are not, there is no love triangle and the dynamic of this book will be ruined. Missing mothers, world-spanning plots for genocide and dominance, and the existance of magic itself are not enough to keep the reader occupied. We must have a love triangle between NOT!Draco, NOT!Ginny and NOT-AT-ALL!Harry. Otherwise our lives would not be complete.
We also get Obligatory Jace-is-not-from-here moment when Simon compares this to "Dungeons and Dragons, only real!" and Jace says "WTF is that?"
One more time: JACE WEYLAND IS LIVING IN NEW YORK CITY 24-7. THERE IS NO REASON FOR HIM TO BE SO CULTURALLY DIVORCED FROM NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS THAT HE CAN'T RECOGNISE MAJOR POP CULTURE REFERENCES. THE THINGS THAT MADE SENSE IN THE HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE WILL NOT MAKE SENSE HERE BECAUSE THIS IS NOT HARRY POTTER.
They wander around in the bookstore for a little while, bumping into things because it's too dark to see. Then Jace produces...*sigh* "Witchlight" (MAGIC!) and shows Clary Uncle Luke's BDSM dungeon. There are chains and "loops of iron" around the room. Chains that have been used because someone has tried to pull them out from the wall, more than once.
They go into Luke's apartment. There's hot coffee on the table, so obviously he hasn't left the apartment yet. Then Clary goes into her room and pulls out a backpack. It is full of her things and...*sigh again* this:
There is one of these for every major character in the movies, with very few exceptions. So we've wasted room in this book that could be spent adventuring on a shout out to everybody who supported Clare way back in the beginning. Hey look, I still remember where I came from.
That's great, Clare. Can you stop waving at your mom and get back to the fucking story already?
(Also, if one of the fucking buttons becomes merch for the movie, I will...will...I don't know. But I'll do something. Because the stupid burns, my loyal blog-readers. It burns so very much)
Jace finds Luke's bag of weapons, and a picture of Clary and her mom that Clary broke when she fought off the first demon in her apartment. Luke went back there and salvaged what he could, and instead of this being "thoughtful, worried friend" it translates into "Nefarious action". Then Luke shows up with two friends, and everybody runs and hides in the closet, the better to hear this conversation with, my dear.
So they all hide behind a screen. One of those old fashioned things that you change clothes behind. I have a big problem with this, but it's a major spoiler for later in the book. Suffice to say that if Clary were to tell Luke he had a big nose, Luke would reply, "the better to smell you with", and since "Shower" has not been mentioned in the last couple of chapters I'm willing to bet all three of them smell like they just ran the Boston Marathon. Luke does magic so they can see through the screen, but still cannot be seen. *coughcloakofinvisibilitycough*
The two men are Pangborn and Blackwell, and they're warlocks. Only not warlocks. It's not real clear. They are with Valentine, though! And they want to recruit Luke. And they're looking for something called the Mortal Cup, which Clary's mother hid. And Clary's mother is still unconsious, and Valentine is so dissapointed because he was "looking forward to their reunion", and given the amount of exposition in this book it should just be renamed "City of Let's Talk About It". Also, let's do some math:
Clary's father died sixteen years ago, before she was born.
Valentine died sixteen years ago...only not. AND!
He and Clary's Mom had a reunion she missed because she's comatose.
HEY, I THINK THIS BOOK WILL HAVE A TWIST ENDING!
There are also many dropped hints about Luke being a monster. You know what? Let's just call him NOT!Lupin and get it over with, shall we?
Then all three men leave at the same time, even though this is Luke's fucking apartment. The kids, you see, have to talk about what they just heard the grown ups talking about. And after repeating what we already know--the bad guys think Clary's mom has the Mortal Cup, and they're looking for Clary--Jace adds something new.
THOSE TWO BAD GUYS ARE THE GUYS THAT KILLED HIS FATHER! GASP!
End of chapter.
Next chapter: THEY GO TO THE INSTITUE AND TALK ABOUT THINGS SOME MORE.
Clary Frey has jumped into a mystery magic portal without any idea where the fuck it goes.
But CW! you might be saying, Protagonists go into the unknown all the time! So do REAL people! Where would we be without Columbus (...drug lords would be called "Americans" same as the rest of us) or Neil Armstrong? Lewis and Clark! The great explorers who look at "Here there be Dragons" and go off to adventure with a great big stick!
Here's the thing. All of them have an idea of what exists in the unknown AND a reason to go get it. In some cases, it's quite simply that they don't know what's there and they cannot wait to find out. In other cases, it's what's not through that door...IE the giant bug aliens that are chasing them with intent to kill. Maybe they'll get a reward when they come back alive.
Clary will not get an award. Clary has no shown interest in being a "fuck danger" adventurer, and Clary isn't sure her mother is there, or anywhere. Why does she go through the door? She wants to know where her mother WOULD have gone, if Clary hadn't been a frickin' idiot and decided not to answer her phone a few days ago.
Let me repeat that. She wants to go to an unknown place via a door demon fugetives use as an escape hatch because she wants to know where her mother might have gone, if her own actions had not made that escape an imposibility.
This is not yet Strawchick level stupid, but it's getting really close.
So where does it take them? Hell? Some other demon dimension? J.K. Rowling's backyard?
Lower Manhattan. Not kidding. They land in her uncle Luke's backyard. He lives behind a backyard. Jace asks what next, and Clary says they should leave, because Luke told her not to come there. Jesus, kid. You just went through a door when you didn't know what universe it went to. Make it count. EXPLORE.
Jace, of course, doesn't respect grownups and Clary submits to peer pressure and walks up to Luke's sometimes UNLOCKED back door.
He lives in Manhattan. And he sometimes leaves his door open.
...how does he still have a house? I'd think one day he'd come home and find the doorknob with a key in it and thoughtful step-by-step instructions on how to use it, so that the next time he leaves his new house, a theif doesn't come steal everything but the foundation.
But Luke does ONE thing responsibly. He recycles. We absolutely needed to know this. Jace vaults over the bushes and lands on Clary's friend Simon.
You remember Simon, right? The Harry Potter look-alike who was head over heels in love with Clary, who is probably the only non-psychotic human being to put up with her stupid? That Simon? Yeah. So glad you remember, because obviously Clary forgot all about him. Seriously. She's gone for days, her mother is missing, her house is stolen, and Simon has to be worried.
Clary is miffed that Simon isn't happier to see her.
Clary Frey, you are an awful human being. You and Jace deserve each other.Once Simon vents his ire, Clary tells him what's going on. The exact truth.
Which Simon accepts immediately. Because it's this kind of book.
You know, I hated Strawchick with the passion and fire of ten thousand suns, but at least her character was fucking consistant, at least up until she got locked in the slave box and somehow got a lobotomy in the dark. Clary isn't adventurous, except when she needs to be. She can't fight, except when she needs to do something big enough to impress a nearby man. She is shitty to her friends...okay, she's consistant here. And Simon? Who isn't used to seeing things that are not there? Accepts all this immediatly without any questions whatsoever, other than "Hey, so you're a demon hunter?"
My first question would be, "What did you take on this obvious three day trip to Amsterdam and did you bring enough back to share?"
But Simon can't freak out because the plot needs Simon and Clary to be best buds from here on out. If they are not, there is no love triangle and the dynamic of this book will be ruined. Missing mothers, world-spanning plots for genocide and dominance, and the existance of magic itself are not enough to keep the reader occupied. We must have a love triangle between NOT!Draco, NOT!Ginny and NOT-AT-ALL!Harry. Otherwise our lives would not be complete.
We also get Obligatory Jace-is-not-from-here moment when Simon compares this to "Dungeons and Dragons, only real!" and Jace says "WTF is that?"
One more time: JACE WEYLAND IS LIVING IN NEW YORK CITY 24-7. THERE IS NO REASON FOR HIM TO BE SO CULTURALLY DIVORCED FROM NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS THAT HE CAN'T RECOGNISE MAJOR POP CULTURE REFERENCES. THE THINGS THAT MADE SENSE IN THE HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE WILL NOT MAKE SENSE HERE BECAUSE THIS IS NOT HARRY POTTER.
They wander around in the bookstore for a little while, bumping into things because it's too dark to see. Then Jace produces...*sigh* "Witchlight" (MAGIC!) and shows Clary Uncle Luke's BDSM dungeon. There are chains and "loops of iron" around the room. Chains that have been used because someone has tried to pull them out from the wall, more than once.
They go into Luke's apartment. There's hot coffee on the table, so obviously he hasn't left the apartment yet. Then Clary goes into her room and pulls out a backpack. It is full of her things and...*sigh again* this:
Kneeling down, she tugged it out from under the bed by its olive green strap. It was covered with buttons, most of which Simon had given her. GAMERS DO IT BETTER. OTAKU WENCH. STILL NOT KING.The thing that made Clare e-famous were a set of fan fiction entries, and I use that term very loosely, called The Very Secret Diaries. They looked like this:
Day One:
Ringwraiths killed: 4. V. good.
Met up with Hobbits. Walked forty miles. Skinned a squirrel and ate it.
Still not King.
Day Four:
Stuck on mountain with Hobbits. Boromir really annoying.
Not King yet.
Day Six:
Orcs killed: none. Disappointing. Stubble update: I look rugged and manly. Yes!
Keep wanting to drop-kick Gimli. Holding myself back.
Still not King.
There is one of these for every major character in the movies, with very few exceptions. So we've wasted room in this book that could be spent adventuring on a shout out to everybody who supported Clare way back in the beginning. Hey look, I still remember where I came from.
That's great, Clare. Can you stop waving at your mom and get back to the fucking story already?
(Also, if one of the fucking buttons becomes merch for the movie, I will...will...I don't know. But I'll do something. Because the stupid burns, my loyal blog-readers. It burns so very much)
Jace finds Luke's bag of weapons, and a picture of Clary and her mom that Clary broke when she fought off the first demon in her apartment. Luke went back there and salvaged what he could, and instead of this being "thoughtful, worried friend" it translates into "Nefarious action". Then Luke shows up with two friends, and everybody runs and hides in the closet, the better to hear this conversation with, my dear.
So they all hide behind a screen. One of those old fashioned things that you change clothes behind. I have a big problem with this, but it's a major spoiler for later in the book. Suffice to say that if Clary were to tell Luke he had a big nose, Luke would reply, "the better to smell you with", and since "Shower" has not been mentioned in the last couple of chapters I'm willing to bet all three of them smell like they just ran the Boston Marathon. Luke does magic so they can see through the screen, but still cannot be seen. *coughcloakofinvisibilitycough*
The two men are Pangborn and Blackwell, and they're warlocks. Only not warlocks. It's not real clear. They are with Valentine, though! And they want to recruit Luke. And they're looking for something called the Mortal Cup, which Clary's mother hid. And Clary's mother is still unconsious, and Valentine is so dissapointed because he was "looking forward to their reunion", and given the amount of exposition in this book it should just be renamed "City of Let's Talk About It". Also, let's do some math:
Clary's father died sixteen years ago, before she was born.
Valentine died sixteen years ago...only not. AND!
He and Clary's Mom had a reunion she missed because she's comatose.
HEY, I THINK THIS BOOK WILL HAVE A TWIST ENDING!
There are also many dropped hints about Luke being a monster. You know what? Let's just call him NOT!Lupin and get it over with, shall we?
Then all three men leave at the same time, even though this is Luke's fucking apartment. The kids, you see, have to talk about what they just heard the grown ups talking about. And after repeating what we already know--the bad guys think Clary's mom has the Mortal Cup, and they're looking for Clary--Jace adds something new.
THOSE TWO BAD GUYS ARE THE GUYS THAT KILLED HIS FATHER! GASP!
End of chapter.
Next chapter: THEY GO TO THE INSTITUE AND TALK ABOUT THINGS SOME MORE.
November 17, 2012
Buy Day...conclusion
You guys are awesome.
It wasn't as great as I would have liked, but first...no WAY is what happened on the blog coincidence. You came, you kept on coming, and sure, you didn't buy much, but I wanted to know if you would, and now I know. Bad news is, it'll probably be a while before I feel comfortable releasing anything major. Good news is...I know you guys are there. Active, and awesome, and you totally freaking rock, every one of you. Hopefully I can convince you of my own awesomeness in the months to come.
So...let's make this a little more fun. I wanna build an e-mail list for stuff. First and foremost, so I'll stop having to spam the blog when I want to get you guys' attention. Also, I don't wanna post smashwords coupons on the blog anymore. I just...don't. So here's what we're gonna do. If you want to get a copy of This Found Thing, for free, it'll be on smashwords tomorrow. With coupon. Which I will e-mail you, as soon as you e-mail me at christwriter@gmail.com.
That's all you gotta do. E-mail me. You get free book. Peaks at books before anybody else...past that IDK. I've never run one of these things before. I promise to observe email rights, no spamming, no giving of addresses to other persons, no whining, no whinging, no sales tactics. Nada.
Sound good?
It wasn't as great as I would have liked, but first...no WAY is what happened on the blog coincidence. You came, you kept on coming, and sure, you didn't buy much, but I wanted to know if you would, and now I know. Bad news is, it'll probably be a while before I feel comfortable releasing anything major. Good news is...I know you guys are there. Active, and awesome, and you totally freaking rock, every one of you. Hopefully I can convince you of my own awesomeness in the months to come.
So...let's make this a little more fun. I wanna build an e-mail list for stuff. First and foremost, so I'll stop having to spam the blog when I want to get you guys' attention. Also, I don't wanna post smashwords coupons on the blog anymore. I just...don't. So here's what we're gonna do. If you want to get a copy of This Found Thing, for free, it'll be on smashwords tomorrow. With coupon. Which I will e-mail you, as soon as you e-mail me at christwriter@gmail.com.
That's all you gotta do. E-mail me. You get free book. Peaks at books before anybody else...past that IDK. I've never run one of these things before. I promise to observe email rights, no spamming, no giving of addresses to other persons, no whining, no whinging, no sales tactics. Nada.
Sound good?
Buy Day continues!
Well...either the counter glitched or you guys REALLY like my blog today. Cool.
Apparently the book? Not so much. Well, that's what I wanted to know.
So time for POST buy day plans. I've got a few, but they won't amount to much without your support. So....What do you guys want to do?
(It'll go on smashwords tomorrow. So stuff other than that.)
Apparently the book? Not so much. Well, that's what I wanted to know.
So time for POST buy day plans. I've got a few, but they won't amount to much without your support. So....What do you guys want to do?
(It'll go on smashwords tomorrow. So stuff other than that.)
November 16, 2012
Buy Day!
And now for my one post (I promise) of nothing but self indulgance, self promotion and outright begging. If you guys intend to ever actually pay me for one of my stories? Please do it today.
Please. It will make me feel good. And that will be quite a thing, as currently I feel as if my head is full of bees. If you buy this book it will make my day:
But at the moment ANYTHING will make me smile like a kid in a candy store.
And kids? just as added incentive? I'm using what ya'll do today to decide when I release my full leingth novels...and if there will be more novels to come. Because if you guys make it clear you will PAY me for my work? Especially longer/bigger work? I will make bigger longer works to publish. And the only way I know you guys will do that IS IF YOU DO THAT THING.
So go buy my books. You can find them all here.
(if ya'll do nothing and/or bitch me out in the comments I promise to never do this exact thing again. I just wanna know what ya'll are capable of doing.)
Well? What are you waiting for? GO SPEND MONEY.
Please. It will make me feel good. And that will be quite a thing, as currently I feel as if my head is full of bees. If you buy this book it will make my day:
But at the moment ANYTHING will make me smile like a kid in a candy store.And kids? just as added incentive? I'm using what ya'll do today to decide when I release my full leingth novels...and if there will be more novels to come. Because if you guys make it clear you will PAY me for my work? Especially longer/bigger work? I will make bigger longer works to publish. And the only way I know you guys will do that IS IF YOU DO THAT THING.
So go buy my books. You can find them all here.
(if ya'll do nothing and/or bitch me out in the comments I promise to never do this exact thing again. I just wanna know what ya'll are capable of doing.)
Well? What are you waiting for? GO SPEND MONEY.
City of Bones chapter 7+ Buy Day information (read both)
Alright kids, business first. TOMORROW is "Buy Day". What is that? Um...support CW day? Self important stuff? Basically IF and only IF you intend to ever buy This Found Thing, buy it tomorrow. If you don't, and you're here for the blog reviews and cake (...is a lie...) then sit back and get comfortable. If you DO intend to buy it? Get it from Amazon tomorrow. It's 2.99. It's twice as long as everything else I've published to date, hence 2.99.
Support your CW! Buy her books tomorrow!
Okay. Selfish stuff over, book review now.
The title of chapter seven is "the five dimensional door". The setting, however, is the crazy psychic's apartment.
Okay, so so far in this book we have been to: A club, Clary's normal apartment, a poetry slam, Clary's Demon infested apartment, NOT!Hogwarts, Clary's still demon infested apartment, and now Madam Dorothea's apartment. There is a pattern here, is all I'm saying. And I don't want to go back to Clary's apartment. Also, there has been a lot of wandering around, trying to figure out what's going on, but not a lot of doing of things, especially on the part of the main character. She's good at standing and screaming is all I'm saying.
Right. Now for the crazy psychic who knows all about the Shadowhunters. What's her apartment like?
*Sigh* moving on.
...so this is basically Whoopi Goldberg's character from Ghost. Right. It's Wal-mart incense, kids.
After implying that she can read fortunes in hands and tea, she asks the kids if they want any. Which means we will probably have a tea-reading scene in three...two...
Actually, launch is delayed because Jace hates bergamont and Clary is fascinated by this.
And here we are, folks, the moment when everything we've established about the Shadowhunters goes out the freaking window.
Oh, we haven't been reminded how different Shadowhunters are from humanity for a while yet.
After more pointless non-characterization (Jace also hates cucumbers) Dorothea says that she's not a witch, but her mother was. Jace insists this is impossible. Witches and Warlocks are crossbreeds between humans and demons, and so they can't breed.
...I'm not going on another religious rant here, but that's what the Nephilum are. Not this shadowhunter shit. Just saying, it's kind of stupid to redefine a term and then include the stuff it used to define in the story.
And then we get an info dump conversation that has nothing to do with anything and it is very full of theological wrongness. See, Demons are Demons in this universe, and Fairies are fallen angels, because they are beautiful, and vampires and werewolves are the demon version of herpes. So again: Redefining terms, and then including the thing the old term defined under a different redefined term. Is there a reason we couldn't keep the old terms? If the Shadowhunters purpose were to hunt Demons (aka fallen angels) and the Nephilum (the products of angel/human breeding) I...would totally read the shit out of that story. And that plot would hold water, given that the last time Nephilum were allowed to be all breedy with normal humans God nearly wiped humanity out. (Theologically speaking, of course. You can chose to believe or disbelieve the bible all you want, but once you start pulling things from the source material you need to at least study the damn thing) Whereas here, I am not sure, AT ALL, why the Shadowhunters exist.
Anyway, at the end of it, Dorothea is revealed to be the adopted daughter of a witch, and all is well. She is just a guardian now. A guardian of what, you ask? LET'S READ TEA LEAVES. Seriously. that's how it reads. She guards something, but we don't find out what because the psychic must be mysterious and read their cups for the future.
Clary's future can't be read. There must be a block on her mind! Jace latches on to this idea as if he hadn't thought of it at all, and Dorothea decides to try something else. She brings out her tarot deck.
My biggest guilty spiritual pleasure is tarot. Guilty not because I don't think God likes it (he and I worked that out quite a few years ago) but rather because I mention tarot and people FLIP THE FUCK OUT, because it's evil and evil and eeeeevily evil. In reality, it's like a rosarch test. You know, the blobby pictures that form flowers or boobs, depending on how dirty minded you are? The cards are a VERY loosely agreed upon set of symbols...depending on which book you use to define those symbols (IE most books define The Star as "Hope", whereas Rider-Waite, who was behind the KJV of tarot decks, defined it as more or less "you're fucked") that you use most effectively as...well, I call it a "thought focus". It gives you a framework to start brainstorming on. It sucks for doing future readings because the cards are too general, but it's pretty good for working out why your depression isn't getting any better, or how you really feel about that relationship.
I say this, because the moment they set foot in the damn psychic shop I knew they were going to drag on out the Tarot deck and that I'd get pissed off by research fail of the drastic type. And I do. On one hand, it could have been worse--most books cannot stay away from the Major Arcana and dive for the scary cards (Death or the Devil if they've got no creativity. The Tower or the Moon if they did minimal research. The Hanged Man by Jeffery Deaver kind of put this on its head by having a major plot point be research fail on the part of a serial killer)--but Cassandra Clare goes for the Minors, which are a little more WTF territory unless you 1. have been doing readings for years and 2. have a mind like a freaking computer. But the whole thing is just...ugh, let's just go through this.
Dorothea fans the cards out and basically says "Pick a card, any card." Clary does. I have no idea what this would accomplish. Pulling out one card from the deck is like pulling out one scrabble tile. It's really general. Like "How's my day going to go today?" sort of general. And they don't want general in this scene. A problem--the block on Clary's mind--has been discovered and Dorothea wants to use the cards to define it further. To me, that would imply a full layout of some kind. But nope. Pick a card. Okay.
Clary picks the ace of cups. And Dorothea goes "The Love card."
No. No no no no no no NO NO NO THAT IS NOT WHAT THAT CARD MEANS. It's close to right, I'll give you that, but it's "close" in the way that an asteroid passing where the Earth would be in December when it's actually March is "Close".
I'm gonna try to make this short and sweet, but the suits each relate to an aspect of life. I'm going to leave off my personal definitions of coins and wands, as they're not exactly kosher, but swords=intellectual activity and conflict and cups=emotions and relationships. Every book will tell you the same thing. Aces are the start cards for the suit. An ace indicates the start of something new. Ace of cups indicates the start of a new relationship, or pregancy, or a new emotional phase in your life, or...like I said, these things are vague. But it's still more specific than "the love card".
And what makes it all stupid is the new relationship the card would indicate is sitting right next to Clary. Literally two minutes of research, (ten, if it's a bad connection) would provide this book with competent foreshadowing. Instead we get vague pronouncements of love, and we move on to the fact that Clary's mom painted this picture. Painted the whole deck, in fact.
Also, I need to point out that this card does become important later in the book, but Clary didn't pick it because it felt special. She picked it at random.
Then Dorothea reveals that she's part of the Downworlder (aka demon spawn) underground railroad, and that yep, Clary's mom was an ex-Shadowhunter, that she REALLY wanted to watch out for Valentine, and that there's a Five Dimensional Door hidden behind a curtain. Clary realizes that her mom was running for her life when she said "We're going on a vacation for the rest of the summer" and that her mom stayed behind because Clary wanted to rebell, and thus may have been killed. Because of Clary. When she could have escaped through the magic doorway whenever she wanted.
And now, because the plot says she has to, Clary goes running through the magic door. Without first finding out what's on the other side.
Our heroine, ladies and gents. End of chapter.
Support your CW! Buy her books tomorrow!
Okay. Selfish stuff over, book review now.
The title of chapter seven is "the five dimensional door". The setting, however, is the crazy psychic's apartment.
Okay, so so far in this book we have been to: A club, Clary's normal apartment, a poetry slam, Clary's Demon infested apartment, NOT!Hogwarts, Clary's still demon infested apartment, and now Madam Dorothea's apartment. There is a pattern here, is all I'm saying. And I don't want to go back to Clary's apartment. Also, there has been a lot of wandering around, trying to figure out what's going on, but not a lot of doing of things, especially on the part of the main character. She's good at standing and screaming is all I'm saying.
Right. Now for the crazy psychic who knows all about the Shadowhunters. What's her apartment like?
The entryway, reeking of incense...Okay. What kind? Frankincense resin? Kyphi? Some special house blend (My personal fav is cinnamon, rosemary and mace, although chamomile, roses and myrrh can be pretty good if I'm in the mood) Nag Champa? If it's Nag Champa the author loses the universe. The "reeking" part makes me think this is Wal-Mart two-for-one special, buy a pack of "Dragon's Blood" and get "Spring Rain" and a migrane, free! (True Fact: When I started blending my own incense, I stopped being able to use the store bought stuff. It smells like chemicals and gives me a truely obnoxious headache.)
*Sigh* moving on.
was hung with bead curtains and astrological posters. One showed the constellations of the zodiac, another a guide to Chinese magical symbols, and another showed a hand with fingers spread, each line on the palm carefully labeled. Above the hand Latinate script spelled out the words “In Manibus Fortuna.” Narrow shelves holding stacked books ran along the wall beside the door.
...so this is basically Whoopi Goldberg's character from Ghost. Right. It's Wal-mart incense, kids.
After implying that she can read fortunes in hands and tea, she asks the kids if they want any. Which means we will probably have a tea-reading scene in three...two...
Actually, launch is delayed because Jace hates bergamont and Clary is fascinated by this.
Clary raised an eyebrow at Jace. “You hate bergamot?”
Jace had wandered over to the narrow bookshelf and was examining its contents. “You have a problem with that?”
“You may be the only guy my age I’ve ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it’s in Earl Grey tea.”...we needed this why?
And here we are, folks, the moment when everything we've established about the Shadowhunters goes out the freaking window.
THEN YOU ARE USING MAGIC, NIMROD. And MAKING magical tools for your own use. You're taught how to use magic. You're trained how to create spells via runes. YOU ARE A MAGICIAN.
He scowled furiously, silencing her. “I do not do magic,” he said. “Get it through your head: Human beings are not magic users. It’s part of what makes them human. Witches and warlocks can only use magic because they have demon blood.”
Clary took a moment to process this. “But I’ve seen you use magic. You use enchanted weapons—”
“I use tools that are magical. And just to be able to do that, I have to undergo rigorous training. The rune tattoos on my skin protect me too. If you tried to use one of the seraph blades, for instance, it’d probably burn your skin, maybe kill you.”
Oh, we haven't been reminded how different Shadowhunters are from humanity for a while yet.
“Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on eBay,” Clary muttered.
“Selling them on what?”
Clary smiled blandly at him. “A mythical place of great magical power.”
Jace looked confused, then shrugged. “Most myths are true, at least in part.”These are both horrible human beings and they deserve each other. Moving on.
After more pointless non-characterization (Jace also hates cucumbers) Dorothea says that she's not a witch, but her mother was. Jace insists this is impossible. Witches and Warlocks are crossbreeds between humans and demons, and so they can't breed.
...I'm not going on another religious rant here, but that's what the Nephilum are. Not this shadowhunter shit. Just saying, it's kind of stupid to redefine a term and then include the stuff it used to define in the story.
And then we get an info dump conversation that has nothing to do with anything and it is very full of theological wrongness. See, Demons are Demons in this universe, and Fairies are fallen angels, because they are beautiful, and vampires and werewolves are the demon version of herpes. So again: Redefining terms, and then including the thing the old term defined under a different redefined term. Is there a reason we couldn't keep the old terms? If the Shadowhunters purpose were to hunt Demons (aka fallen angels) and the Nephilum (the products of angel/human breeding) I...would totally read the shit out of that story. And that plot would hold water, given that the last time Nephilum were allowed to be all breedy with normal humans God nearly wiped humanity out. (Theologically speaking, of course. You can chose to believe or disbelieve the bible all you want, but once you start pulling things from the source material you need to at least study the damn thing) Whereas here, I am not sure, AT ALL, why the Shadowhunters exist.
Anyway, at the end of it, Dorothea is revealed to be the adopted daughter of a witch, and all is well. She is just a guardian now. A guardian of what, you ask? LET'S READ TEA LEAVES. Seriously. that's how it reads. She guards something, but we don't find out what because the psychic must be mysterious and read their cups for the future.
Clary's future can't be read. There must be a block on her mind! Jace latches on to this idea as if he hadn't thought of it at all, and Dorothea decides to try something else. She brings out her tarot deck.
My biggest guilty spiritual pleasure is tarot. Guilty not because I don't think God likes it (he and I worked that out quite a few years ago) but rather because I mention tarot and people FLIP THE FUCK OUT, because it's evil and evil and eeeeevily evil. In reality, it's like a rosarch test. You know, the blobby pictures that form flowers or boobs, depending on how dirty minded you are? The cards are a VERY loosely agreed upon set of symbols...depending on which book you use to define those symbols (IE most books define The Star as "Hope", whereas Rider-Waite, who was behind the KJV of tarot decks, defined it as more or less "you're fucked") that you use most effectively as...well, I call it a "thought focus". It gives you a framework to start brainstorming on. It sucks for doing future readings because the cards are too general, but it's pretty good for working out why your depression isn't getting any better, or how you really feel about that relationship.
I say this, because the moment they set foot in the damn psychic shop I knew they were going to drag on out the Tarot deck and that I'd get pissed off by research fail of the drastic type. And I do. On one hand, it could have been worse--most books cannot stay away from the Major Arcana and dive for the scary cards (Death or the Devil if they've got no creativity. The Tower or the Moon if they did minimal research. The Hanged Man by Jeffery Deaver kind of put this on its head by having a major plot point be research fail on the part of a serial killer)--but Cassandra Clare goes for the Minors, which are a little more WTF territory unless you 1. have been doing readings for years and 2. have a mind like a freaking computer. But the whole thing is just...ugh, let's just go through this.
Dorothea fans the cards out and basically says "Pick a card, any card." Clary does. I have no idea what this would accomplish. Pulling out one card from the deck is like pulling out one scrabble tile. It's really general. Like "How's my day going to go today?" sort of general. And they don't want general in this scene. A problem--the block on Clary's mind--has been discovered and Dorothea wants to use the cards to define it further. To me, that would imply a full layout of some kind. But nope. Pick a card. Okay.
Clary picks the ace of cups. And Dorothea goes "The Love card."
No. No no no no no no NO NO NO THAT IS NOT WHAT THAT CARD MEANS. It's close to right, I'll give you that, but it's "close" in the way that an asteroid passing where the Earth would be in December when it's actually March is "Close".I'm gonna try to make this short and sweet, but the suits each relate to an aspect of life. I'm going to leave off my personal definitions of coins and wands, as they're not exactly kosher, but swords=intellectual activity and conflict and cups=emotions and relationships. Every book will tell you the same thing. Aces are the start cards for the suit. An ace indicates the start of something new. Ace of cups indicates the start of a new relationship, or pregancy, or a new emotional phase in your life, or...like I said, these things are vague. But it's still more specific than "the love card".
And what makes it all stupid is the new relationship the card would indicate is sitting right next to Clary. Literally two minutes of research, (ten, if it's a bad connection) would provide this book with competent foreshadowing. Instead we get vague pronouncements of love, and we move on to the fact that Clary's mom painted this picture. Painted the whole deck, in fact.
Also, I need to point out that this card does become important later in the book, but Clary didn't pick it because it felt special. She picked it at random.
Then Dorothea reveals that she's part of the Downworlder (aka demon spawn) underground railroad, and that yep, Clary's mom was an ex-Shadowhunter, that she REALLY wanted to watch out for Valentine, and that there's a Five Dimensional Door hidden behind a curtain. Clary realizes that her mom was running for her life when she said "We're going on a vacation for the rest of the summer" and that her mom stayed behind because Clary wanted to rebell, and thus may have been killed. Because of Clary. When she could have escaped through the magic doorway whenever she wanted.
And now, because the plot says she has to, Clary goes running through the magic door. Without first finding out what's on the other side.
Our heroine, ladies and gents. End of chapter.
November 15, 2012
City of Bones chapter 6
I have an hour before Diwali party, and I currently smell like an east Indian spice rack, so I'm going to take a second to pound this chapter into the ground.
I have been astounded. Pounded into the ground, mouth open, knock-me-over-with-a-feather shocked at the first sentence of this chapter:
NO, REALLY? YOU THINK?!?
I priced print books day before yesterday, on the tiny consideration that maybe I'd want to put stuff in print, eventually. This Found Thing comes kind of close to being print-worthy, and (up until yesterday) I definately wanted to put Project: Dragon in print come next year.
And then I saw what I'd have to charge to see a dollar from the printings. For TFT? About six bucks. It's not worth six bucks. An actual book? OVER twelve bucks. For a paper back book.
My point? EVERY word in a book costs something. And that sentence there? Could have been what pushed this book over a page or two. AND IT SAYS NOTHING. WOW, the armory looks like an armory. AMAZING. WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?
...like an armory. With metal walls, special pretty brackets for weapons, and...uh...
And no. These aren't quivers. If they were quivers the text would fucking say quiver. Clare obviously doesn't research ANYTHING, at all, ever, but she's read/watched both Harry Potter and LOTR, and she has to know that arrows go in a quiver when you're using them. So these are not quivers. If we are extremely lucky these are just leather backpacks stuffed full of arrows...but my first impression was that they were "filled" with arrows the way John Wayne "fills" things with bullets. And that's just fucking NO.
Clary finds Jace and Alec here, and Jace is working on something. Whatcha workin on, Jace?
These weapons are not awesome. These are shiny shit. The fighters in this book are fucking magpies.
And then they have a conversation about magic. What is magic, Jace?
One: J.K. Rowling called. She said as long as you're eating at her table, stop shitting in her sand box.
Two: Dark and elemental. Okay. What the fuck are you talking about? Dark=evil, that part I get, but elemental, to me, implies basic building block. Kind of like the four elements, or the periodic table of elements. It's a basic part of life, in other words, but it's evil and you shouldn't touch it.
The point of this conversation is that the Shadowhunters don't do magic, okay? They are totally not wizards.
This could be one of two things, or both of them:
Clare is trying to distance her book from Harry Potter (...try not naming the series after your RON/GINNY INCEST FIC, if that's your goal)
OR
Clare is a Christian of some flavor (entirely possible, given the angel/demon/theology in a blender the book is filled with) and she wants to make it very clear that MAGIC IS BAD and MURDERING DEMON HUNTERS ARE GOOD. Because...uh, Harry Potter.
So Clary tells Jace that she can go home now. And after he freaks out, she adds just to look through her mother's things, to prove that Mom totally wasn't a Shadowhunter, even though she totally is.
...Once. JUST. FUCKING. ONCE. I want the main characters of one of these books to be normal human beings who survive the magical onslaught because normal human powers rock. You know. Just saying.
Okay, we've had exposition after exposition, so it's time to cue the romantic tension. On the way, Clary asks Jace how he knew she had Shadowhunter blood. Jace says he guessed, but he was pretty sure anyway because how else could she see the Murder Trio while they did thier murdering?
This is pretty important. I glossed over it in the last review but the likelyhood of Clary's lineage is revealed when Jace tells everybody he drew a rune on her (AKA magic) and it hid her from the bad guys while she was unconsious. (MAGIC) and because she's human, it should have killed her. It didn't, so obviously she's a Shadowhunter!
So our romantic lead, who is introduced to us and Clary via MURDER, decided to test a THEORY by drawing a potentially fatal diagram on Clary's arm...without asking her consent or telling her what it could do, because he had to be right.
...this is going to be a movie. And unless it's an Eragon level fail, it's going to influience a lot of girls. We have Edward Cullen, we have Christian Gray, and now we have Jace...whatever the fuck his name is. Informed consent? Who needs that.
How does Clary react?
She bitchslaps the everloving shit out of him. No bullshit.
We won't see a lot of standing up for ourselves out of these characters, so I'll take what I can get.Moving on.
Okay, so we're on the way to Clary's house after a demon tried to kill her. What exciting thing is going to happen next?
A train ride.
So that we can have every girl in the world flirt with Jace. Not kidding.
Two: GLAMOUR. MAGIC. YOUR CHARACTERS USE FUCKING FAIRY MAGIC AND RUNE SPELLS. GET OVER IT.
Three: THIS GUY DOESN'T CARE IF CLARY LIVES OR DIES. HE IS NOT COOL. HE IS A PSYCHOPATH AND NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM SOCIETY.
So they get to Clary's house and he scans it with his Sensor. This is, I shit you not, a demonic shortwave radio signal detector. They don't have electricity, they can't update their houses to the fucking twenty first century, but they have plastic devices that detect demons.
They get into her apartment and discover that someone has taken everything. EVERYTHING. Right down to the tabasco stains on the floor and the last can of Who Hash.
Even the Grinch read this book.Deciding that she wants to see her room--because, you know, finding your PS3 missing is so much worse than your missing mother--she discovers yet another demon in her house!
They fight it off with the magic wands, which can apparently produce swords.Yo, Jace? Why didn't you just bring swords?
I don't remember if Clare ever addresses what the FUCK the Shadowhunters are doing if it's not magic. If magic IS a thing in this world, then "magic" is what you're doing. There's a bad metaphore several pages about how calling an electric eel a rubber ducky doesn't make it a ducky. Well, Clare, calling an electric eel a ducky doesn't make it not an electric eel, either. If it involves wands, chanted words, runes and flashy FX, guess what? It's magic.
The giant chases them around the house, and Jace kills it dramatically with the magic sword-wands.
And then he reveals that no, people marked with runes don't die. They go insane, and become the Forsaken. Ravenous, hunter-killer monsters like the one they just killed.
Which is what Jace would have done to Clary.
OUR HEROES BOYS AND GIRLS.
Then the nutzo psychic lady, dismissed earlier as a nutzo psychic lady, reveals that she knows everything about the Shadowhunters, mostly by dropping lots of important words we haven't heard yet, as well as some that we have. Jace freaks. Madame Dorothea invites them in, Jace is grumpy that Dorothea knows his last name (Weyland. Not far from Whatthefuck, now is it?) and Clary just pumps him for more expositional conversation that amounts to de nada. The chapter ends.
NEXT UP: Clary and Jace talk, a lot, and Cassandra Clare not only fucks up tarot, she shoots her whole universe in the face.
I have been astounded. Pounded into the ground, mouth open, knock-me-over-with-a-feather shocked at the first sentence of this chapter:
The weapons room looked exactly the way something called “the weapons room” sounded like it would look.
NO, REALLY? YOU THINK?!?
I priced print books day before yesterday, on the tiny consideration that maybe I'd want to put stuff in print, eventually. This Found Thing comes kind of close to being print-worthy, and (up until yesterday) I definately wanted to put Project: Dragon in print come next year.
And then I saw what I'd have to charge to see a dollar from the printings. For TFT? About six bucks. It's not worth six bucks. An actual book? OVER twelve bucks. For a paper back book.
My point? EVERY word in a book costs something. And that sentence there? Could have been what pushed this book over a page or two. AND IT SAYS NOTHING. WOW, the armory looks like an armory. AMAZING. WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?
...like an armory. With metal walls, special pretty brackets for weapons, and...uh...
Soft leather bags filled with arrows dangled from hooks,No. See, the point of an armory is to store weapons and armor. Putting on a pretty display I can see--kind of--as long as it's not a working armory, but rather that thing the lord of the castle keeps around to remember what life was like before pistols and cell phones. But this room is not a museum. It is not where you go to look at the shiny pointy bladey things. It's where you put swords, bows, arrows and armor so that they 1. remain in good condition and 2. are easy-ish to access. So yes. Swords would be in brackets...probably several rows of them, if not on a shelf, wrapped in some kind of cloth to keep the metal from oxidizing. Otherwise, these kids do a lot of polishing. I have no idea how to properly store armor, but the arrows? You'd want them stored somewhere where fletching, string and shafts aren't damaged by weather fluxuations and mice. Also, arrows have multiple heads, so you'd probably store the finished shafts in one (dry, protected) place and the heads in another. That's not in "bags" out in the open.
And no. These aren't quivers. If they were quivers the text would fucking say quiver. Clare obviously doesn't research ANYTHING, at all, ever, but she's read/watched both Harry Potter and LOTR, and she has to know that arrows go in a quiver when you're using them. So these are not quivers. If we are extremely lucky these are just leather backpacks stuffed full of arrows...but my first impression was that they were "filled" with arrows the way John Wayne "fills" things with bullets. And that's just fucking NO.
Clary finds Jace and Alec here, and Jace is working on something. Whatcha workin on, Jace?
...three long slim wands of a dully glowing silver. They did not look sharp or particularly dangerous. “Sanvi, Sansavi, and Semangelaf. They’re seraph blades.”...a blade, by definition, has an edge. At this point we're leaving aside "weaponry" and going for "Shiny shit". There are a few things that get on my nerves with books. One of them is scrabble-tile names (See L. Ron Hubbard) and the other one is shiny shit for the sake of shiny shit. Sparkly glittery oh so pretty weapons especially. You know why the blades in Lord of the Rings got names? Because they were swords that their owners used. They had names the way soldier's guns had names. And if you look at the replica weapons from the movie? They are not very fancy, and are also too fancy for any reasonable human being to use. They're made to look cool first, to be used second. In the universe of TFT, and I'm sorry to be name dropping my own books so much this review, I wound up giving the "good" guys silver plated swords because it hurt the bad guys, and even that turned into a kind of sort of major flustercluck, given that silver doesn't make for a good blade edge, but (for obvious reasons) my faeries aren't going to let humans run around with solid steel swords all the time. And that's as fancy as it gets in that universe, in terms of bladed weapons. No frills, no fancy gimmicks. The pointy end goes in the other man. This is what makes the weapons awesome.
These weapons are not awesome. These are shiny shit. The fighters in this book are fucking magpies.
And then they have a conversation about magic. What is magic, Jace?
Magic is a dark and elemental force, not just a lot of sparkly wands and crystal balls and talking goldfish.”
One: J.K. Rowling called. She said as long as you're eating at her table, stop shitting in her sand box.
Two: Dark and elemental. Okay. What the fuck are you talking about? Dark=evil, that part I get, but elemental, to me, implies basic building block. Kind of like the four elements, or the periodic table of elements. It's a basic part of life, in other words, but it's evil and you shouldn't touch it.
The point of this conversation is that the Shadowhunters don't do magic, okay? They are totally not wizards.
This could be one of two things, or both of them:
Clare is trying to distance her book from Harry Potter (...try not naming the series after your RON/GINNY INCEST FIC, if that's your goal)
OR
Clare is a Christian of some flavor (entirely possible, given the angel/demon/theology in a blender the book is filled with) and she wants to make it very clear that MAGIC IS BAD and MURDERING DEMON HUNTERS ARE GOOD. Because...uh, Harry Potter.
So Clary tells Jace that she can go home now. And after he freaks out, she adds just to look through her mother's things, to prove that Mom totally wasn't a Shadowhunter, even though she totally is.
...Once. JUST. FUCKING. ONCE. I want the main characters of one of these books to be normal human beings who survive the magical onslaught because normal human powers rock. You know. Just saying.
Okay, we've had exposition after exposition, so it's time to cue the romantic tension. On the way, Clary asks Jace how he knew she had Shadowhunter blood. Jace says he guessed, but he was pretty sure anyway because how else could she see the Murder Trio while they did thier murdering?
This is pretty important. I glossed over it in the last review but the likelyhood of Clary's lineage is revealed when Jace tells everybody he drew a rune on her (AKA magic) and it hid her from the bad guys while she was unconsious. (MAGIC) and because she's human, it should have killed her. It didn't, so obviously she's a Shadowhunter!
So our romantic lead, who is introduced to us and Clary via MURDER, decided to test a THEORY by drawing a potentially fatal diagram on Clary's arm...without asking her consent or telling her what it could do, because he had to be right.
...this is going to be a movie. And unless it's an Eragon level fail, it's going to influience a lot of girls. We have Edward Cullen, we have Christian Gray, and now we have Jace...whatever the fuck his name is. Informed consent? Who needs that.
How does Clary react?
She bitchslaps the everloving shit out of him. No bullshit.
He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. “What the hell was that for?”
We won't see a lot of standing up for ourselves out of these characters, so I'll take what I can get.Moving on.Okay, so we're on the way to Clary's house after a demon tried to kill her. What exciting thing is going to happen next?
A train ride.
So that we can have every girl in the world flirt with Jace. Not kidding.
Jace assumed an air of mellow gratification. “Of course they are,” he said. “I am stunningly attractive.”
“Haven’t you ever heard that modesty is an attractive trait?”
“Only from ugly people,” Jace confided. “The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. Like me.” He winked at the girls, who giggled and hid behind their hair.
Clary sighed. “How come they can see you?”
“Glamours are a pain to use. Sometimes we don’t bother.”One: reguarding that "only from ugly people" comment: FUCK YOU CASSANDRA CLARE. Fuck you for thinking that I would find a stuck up ASS like that attractive. Yep, the outside probably would have gotten me to talk to him, but once he opened his mouth I'd be on the other side of fucking town.
Two: GLAMOUR. MAGIC. YOUR CHARACTERS USE FUCKING FAIRY MAGIC AND RUNE SPELLS. GET OVER IT.
Three: THIS GUY DOESN'T CARE IF CLARY LIVES OR DIES. HE IS NOT COOL. HE IS A PSYCHOPATH AND NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM SOCIETY.
So they get to Clary's house and he scans it with his Sensor. This is, I shit you not, a demonic shortwave radio signal detector. They don't have electricity, they can't update their houses to the fucking twenty first century, but they have plastic devices that detect demons.
They get into her apartment and discover that someone has taken everything. EVERYTHING. Right down to the tabasco stains on the floor and the last can of Who Hash.
Even the Grinch read this book.Deciding that she wants to see her room--because, you know, finding your PS3 missing is so much worse than your missing mother--she discovers yet another demon in her house!Jace, flat against the wall, was fumbling in his pocket, his face a mask of surprise. Looming over him like a giant in a fairy tale was an enormous man, big around as an oak tree, a broad-bladed axe clutched in one gigantic dead-white hand. Tattered filthy rags hung off his grimy skin, and his hair was a single matted tangle, thick with dirt. He stank of poisonous sweat and rotting flesh. Clary was glad she couldn’t see his face— the back of him was bad enough.
They fight it off with the magic wands, which can apparently produce swords.Yo, Jace? Why didn't you just bring swords?
I don't remember if Clare ever addresses what the FUCK the Shadowhunters are doing if it's not magic. If magic IS a thing in this world, then "magic" is what you're doing. There's a bad metaphore several pages about how calling an electric eel a rubber ducky doesn't make it a ducky. Well, Clare, calling an electric eel a ducky doesn't make it not an electric eel, either. If it involves wands, chanted words, runes and flashy FX, guess what? It's magic.
The giant chases them around the house, and Jace kills it dramatically with the magic sword-wands.
And then he reveals that no, people marked with runes don't die. They go insane, and become the Forsaken. Ravenous, hunter-killer monsters like the one they just killed.
Which is what Jace would have done to Clary.
OUR HEROES BOYS AND GIRLS.
Then the nutzo psychic lady, dismissed earlier as a nutzo psychic lady, reveals that she knows everything about the Shadowhunters, mostly by dropping lots of important words we haven't heard yet, as well as some that we have. Jace freaks. Madame Dorothea invites them in, Jace is grumpy that Dorothea knows his last name (Weyland. Not far from Whatthefuck, now is it?) and Clary just pumps him for more expositional conversation that amounts to de nada. The chapter ends.
NEXT UP: Clary and Jace talk, a lot, and Cassandra Clare not only fucks up tarot, she shoots her whole universe in the face.
This Found Thing is LIVE!
On Amazon!
Watch this space. I'll have it up on Smashwords and probably Barnes and Noble later tonight.
I have to go to work now.
November 14, 2012
This Found Thing Status
And we are publishing on KDP as we speak.
Frankly, kids, I am completely burned out on this one. Is it TMI to confess that I cried on the way home from work? I cried. On the way home from work. And it was actually a good day at work (I got to make indian food) It's just...between the emotional fallout still going on from publishingfail, the run of bad luck I've had trying to get this book out, and the increase in responsibility at work, I am TIRED CW tonight.
I hope it goes well...I encourage you all to buy it, preferably on the 17th as a huge show of support...you guys rock and I am going to go hit the hey. I will keep you updated on publishing status as we go.
Frankly, kids, I am completely burned out on this one. Is it TMI to confess that I cried on the way home from work? I cried. On the way home from work. And it was actually a good day at work (I got to make indian food) It's just...between the emotional fallout still going on from publishingfail, the run of bad luck I've had trying to get this book out, and the increase in responsibility at work, I am TIRED CW tonight.
I hope it goes well...I encourage you all to buy it, preferably on the 17th as a huge show of support...you guys rock and I am going to go hit the hey. I will keep you updated on publishing status as we go.
COVER IS DONE! COVER IS DONE!
THERE. Now I can go to silly party and serve people wine and "indian" food in peace (Look. I have never eaten indian food prepped by a real indian before, nor have I ever experianced Diwali for real. So until I do, this is "White boss's idea of Diwali" and not the authentic thing)Anyway. There. There is the cover. Look at it. Enjoy it. Be ready to buy it (preferably on Buy Day, which is the seventeenth. Participate in Buy Day only if you already intend to buy the book.)
I'ma go soak my hands now.
EDIT: Also, blog makeover for new book! Yes!
