Clockwork Prince
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Cassandra Clare... Too Predictable?
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I just feel like life in all fantasy novels is sooooo stupid.They do not have real life lives!!!
Especially in clockwork princess with the whole Jem and Will situation.
Andre wrote: "But still there are coutless readers, writers and viewers who think these people actually evolve into something good or they come with "do you really want perfect people?"It kills me how delusional some people are with books.
In fact, it kills me so much that I can't even keep my diplomatic tone talking about it. No, I don't think Clare fans are actually delusional...but I do think a lot of people who just like to like things are bad for not knowing how or why they like it.
It's just like when I, a huge movie fan, talk to a popcorn movie-goer and hear their opinions on Keanu Reeds' last movie and how he does a great job I just die a little inside. But there isn't anything I can say to them because is it really a joy for me to care this much about movies or books?
Maybe I'd be happier if I could finish a Clare book without my eyes rolling out of their sockets, or if I could even conceive of going to the theatre without finding out who directed the movie first.
Amgeo3 wrote: "I just feel like life in all fantasy novels is sooooo stupid.They do not have real life lives!!!
Especially in clockwork princess with the whole Jem and Will situation."
Then you should read some different sort of fantasy novels. A Song of Ice and Fire has a much more realistic tone to it. There are of course much more, but this is simply the most popular example.
And even if you prefer less mature books, there are still plenty. The Warcraft books by Christie Golden and Richard Knaak are usually pretty good.
@Samantha
I know the problem of keeping my tone down.
And I know the feeling when hearing that people watch movies just because of actors, especially when the actor and/or the film is bad (e.g. the Lone Ranger).
Trust me if you can't finish a Clare book, just skip it.
Andre wrote: "Trust me if you can't finish a Clare book, just skip it."I don't hate them enough to stop what i've started, but I do hate them enough not to start the Bane Chronicles at all :P
And I certainly won't be spending money on the last City of Whatever.
I haven't spent any money on any of Clare's books and although I've read both TMI and TID, I didn't think they were great. I agree they were very predictable and poorly written but I did like the world she created so it wasn't bad enough to put down and never look at again. I did start the Bane Chronicles however, but I left it before finishing the first chapter. I don't think I could have put myself through it. Even the first few pages were a pain and a struggle to get through.
You have no idea. I am still struggling to write the next review, simply because there is so much they messed up. That is something I cannot understand: How can you do so much wrong in so little time?Parts of the first book could at least have been used for a parody, but this fourth book is just plain awful. Every attempt at substance they just bulldoze over and with Magnus I start to ask myself how that guy can still be alive. Also something I noticed. Despite this being the forth book in the Chronicles we never went further back than 1791, it's as though the authors don't want to go further back, or even leave the western hemisphere for that matter.
@AndreI read a multitude of genres with books.... In just saying how this particular one is highly stupid. Thanks for the recommendation anyway.
(I don't know if anyone else here does this.... You can comment with our own methods but...) If I ever feel that a book is, of course, a bad book, I only allow myself to read the first few chapters (at most) then I take the prediction that I have made in my mind and see of it is right. I skip to the end of the book... Read the last few pages, and if I happen to understand the whole plot throughout the book I immediately stop reading it.
It's absolutely astonishing to me how many books I have been able to "read" like this... No that I enjoy doing this at all.
I just feel that if I already know what's going to happen.... Why read the middle?
This happened in 3 out of the 5 TMI
Actually reading the last few pages of a book from the Bane Chronicles usually doesn't help much either since the pages are quite small and the authors throw all sorts of stuff together. Like I said, it is astounding how much they did wrong on less than 41 pages.
The relationships are pretty predictable because Clare can't do subtle. The plot is predictable because Clare isn't a particularly talented writer.Spoiler for Clockwork Princess: The moment Cecily and Whatshisname Lightwood meet, I knew they would end up falling in love (their love is based on appearances, ofc), and not only because it was so very obvious, but also because Clare loves to Pair the Spares and has to have all her characters be in a relationship.
The same goes for Maia and her abusive boyfriend. The moment he showed up in City of Something or Other, I knew Clare would take the easy way out, not have Simon choose between his two girlfriends, and let Maia get back together with her abusive boyfriend.
Yeah, because we all know, people can't be happy outside of a relationship and must always be involved with someone. Singlehood equals hell.
Please, by the end of the Infernal Devices, who of the central protagonists (discounting Magnus because he'll be paired of 100+ years later with Alec; and discounting Jem because he ends up with Tessa 100+ years later) is not in a romantic relationship?
No, I don't find them predictable at all.
inga wrote: The same goes for Maia and her abusive boyfriend. The moment he showed up in City of Something or Other, I knew Clare would take the easy way out, not have Simon choose between his two girlfriends, and let Maia get back together with her abusive boyfriend.Don't get me started with Maia and Jordan. I also knew they would be ending up together and you know what was really sick about it? The account Jordan gave of the night he bit Maia was different from Maia's in City of Ashes. In the first book he clearly talked after biting her but in the second book it is stated that he was in wolf form all the time. Either Clare had them deliberately do that or again messed it up. Like when she had Clary talk about her Shadowhunter muscles in City of Ashes, as if Shadowhunters had special physical abilities in City of Bones.
@Rachel
I just don't get it. How can you not see what is going to happen? I mean could you really not see miles ahead that Clary and Jess and Tessa and Will would end up with each other? Or that Alec was gay? Just to take these two examples.
inga wrote: "The relationships are pretty predictable because Clare can't do subtle. The plot is predictable because Clare isn't a particularly talented writer.Spoiler for Clockwork Princess: The moment Cecil..."
They're all unhealthy relationships, too. I don't think any of them are really in love. It's always some dramatic, angsty-filled relationship founded on lust.
I agree. Not everybody needs to be in a relationship either! Maybe that's what Clare personally believes in. Perhaps she's not happy unless she's in a relationship. I don't know her, so I don't know what she's like in real life... but since it's like this in all of her books, I wonder if she secretly wishes she was in a relationship like Jace and Clary's, Magnus and Alec's, Simon and Clary/Maia/Isabelle's etc. For her sake, I hope not.
I really think she does want a relationship like theirs. Or maybe she had one like theirs and then it ended and she really wants it back. Either way its becoming silly and some of these characters need to end up single in City of Heavenly Fire for all our sakes.
I agree on that, especially Alec, after seeing Magnus in the chronicles I am more convinced than ever that these two are no good for each other. Alec needs someone with whom he can make up for the lost time relationship wise ad personally I don't think Magnus is in any way suitable for that.A friendship with benefits might be good for Alec, but sadly even those don't exist in the Clareverse.
And I think that all of her characters, at least the "important" ones will end up paired in CoHF.
Also Claire needs to get away from her first characters, totally away. Supposedly her next series will feature the Blackthorns and they are, of course, related to the Herondales as it seems. Seriously, we need something different.
Do vampires, or fey, or heck even Luke's time as a werewolf (or any other werewolf) would be better.
Most of the main characters from the immortal instruments and infernal devices are almost the same. It's like I could predict the choices they were going to make.
Well I wasn't interested enough in them to always guess in advance. Except for the really obvious stuff. Well that and for a while I was still surprised by their level of stupidity.
That doesn't sound good. Clare never handled these fey well, they are the epitome of Clare saying one thing but writing the other.
Andre wrote: "Parts of the first book could at least have been used for a parody, but this fourth book is just plain awful."Plain awful? Is that 50 Shades of Grey level of awful? If it is, then it'll be a real achievement of Clare, no kidding!
Andre wrote: "That doesn't sound good. Clare never handled these fey well, they are the epitome of Clare saying one thing but writing the other."I heard that some of the fey characters are borrowed from Holly Black's story? I like Holly Black's novels a great deal, but using her fey in Clare's world simply wouldn't work. Because originally those faeries are taking human babies as Changlings and I can't see why the Shaodwhunters are okay with this kind of practice.
Mizuki wrote: "Andre wrote: "That doesn't sound good. Clare never handled these fey well, they are the epitome of Clare saying one thing but writing the other."I heard that some of the fey characters are borrow..."
Well there are "allusions":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_...
In the novel, Cassandra Clare includes references to the works of Holly Black, who is a friend of Clare's.
In the beginning of the book, Clary is drawing and listening to a band called Stepping Razor. Stepping Razor is the name of Ellen Fierch's band in Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale.
In the scene in Chapter 10 where Clary and Jace are riding in the carriage, Clary looks out the window and sees a few homeless teenagers. One of them is a girl with a shaved head, the other a boy with dreadlocks and facial piercings who appears to be blind in one eye. These teenagers are actually the characters Valerie and Luis from Black's book Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie.
She also includes references to the works of Philip Reeve, whose works Mortal Engines and Infernal Devices she drew inspiration from. Her inclusion of the antagonist Valentine, who is later revealed to be the father of Clary, is a nod to Philip Reeve's main antagonist in Mortal Engines of the same name, who is also discovered to be the father of one of the main characters.
While never explicitly understood, it could be inferred that Clare enjoys the works of Buffy creator Joss Whedon, Harry Potter author JK Rowling, Star Wars' George Lucas, and other evident sources of "inspiration" and "allusions".
The Mortal Instruments series is a reworking of Clare's Harry Potter fanfic The Draco Trilogy (published as Cassandra Claire).[8] Readers documented and reported instances of plagerism committed by Clare,[9] charging she lifted entire passages from movies, television shows, and books. The moderators of FanFiction.Net investigated, found that Cassandra Claire had plagiarized, and deleted her account.[10] Clare has repeatedly denied charges of plagerism,[11] stating that she "borrowed quotes, and quite intentionally paraphrased ... and was quite clear in stating that I was doing so".
Gabrielle wrote: "Andre wrote: "That doesn't sound good. Clare never handled these fey well, they are the epitome of Clare saying one thing but writing the other."
how do you mean?
i didnt think much on it really ..."
The fey are as much plot devices as the werewolves are. The werewolves are covenient canon fodder for the main characters so that they will always have some bodies to throw at the enemy.
The fey are just there to throw some stuff in, like favors, information, tools or like in Bane Chronicles number 3 a sudden danger. They are never true characters and the moment they are no longer needed they dissappear instantly.
Andre wrote: "The fey are as much plot devices as the werewolves are. The werewolves are covenient canon fodder for the main characters so that they will always have some bodies to throw at the enemy.*sighs* You're right.
And the way Clare insert Black's characters into her own books, it's really silly.
The fey are just there to throw some stuff in, like favors, information, tools or like in Bane Chronicles number 3 a sudden danger. They are never true characters and the moment they are no longer needed they dissappear instantly.
My goodness, you're so right!
Thanky you, by the way, speaking of fey and actual ideas, I think you are gonna like these two Kitsune I uploaded this morning:http://fav.me/d6fi8p7
http://fav.me/d6fiam7
The kitsune no.2 picture is amazing!
Thank you, I messed up the raptor a bit, but the Fox-lady came out well, maybe a bit too wolfish around the snout but it serves the purpose fine.
I'm at the point where I'm not even going to read City of Heavenly Fire.... Anyone else?
Amgeo3 wrote: "I'm at the point where I'm not even going to read City of Heavenly Fire.... Anyone else?"Well I already forget how the last book ended so I donno now, I would've but I definitely won't be rereading...
I suppose i started the 5th one having entirely forgotten the 4th and that didn't seem to get in the way of the plot at all.
Is Jace evil again/still?
Is Sebastian dead yet?
I will probably wait till i can get it free at the library, no more money for this series.
Jace is good again and wasn't angry at all at Clary for alerting Sebastian of their escape, Sebastian is not dead and Jace has the power of heavenly fire now.
Amgeo3 wrote: "I'm at the point where I'm not even going to read City of Heavenly Fire.... Anyone else?"I'm doomed, because I know I'll read it when the library has the book.
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My answer is: No. I want believable characters and stories and I will not pay for stuff, that doesn't give me that because then I would only reward those terrible writers.