The Mortal Instruments

Horray! One series down, a dozen (or more) to go!

Last week I talked about The Hunger Games. Now that I finished Mockingjay (the third and last book of the series) I can move on to a series I quit after the first book in order to read The Twilight Saga books. This series is the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare.

———————————–

“When Clary Fray witnesses three tattoo-covered teenagers murder another teen, she is unable to prove the crime because the victim disappears right in front of her eyes, and no one else can see the killers. She learns that the teens are Shadowhunters (humans who hunt and kill demons), and Clary, a mundie (i.e., mundane human), should not be able to see them either. Shortly after this discovery, her mother, Jocelyn, an erstwhile Shadowhunter, is kidnapped. Jocelyn is the only person who knows the whereabouts of The Mortal Cup, a dangerous magical item that turns humans into Shadowhunters. Clary must find the cup and keep it from a renegade sector of Shadowhunters bent on eliminating all nonhumans, including benevolent werewolves and friendly vampires. Amid motorcycles powered by demon energies, a telepathic brotherhood of archivists, and other moments of great urban fantasy, the story gets sidetracked by cutesy touches, like the toasted bat sandwich on the menu of an otherworldly restaurant. The characters are sporadically characterized and tend toward behavior that is both predictable and slightly repellent–Clary finds out who her real father is about 200 pages after readers will have it figured out. Despite the narrative flaws, this version of New York, full of Buffyesque teens who are trying to save the world, is entertaining and will have fantasy readers anxiously awaiting the next book in the series.” – Heather M. Campbell, Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO

———————————–

I read City of Bones last year and it was quite an entertaining read. It has humor, romance, bisexual faeries, action, gay faeries, gay warlocks, bisexual faeries, a few taboo situations, bisexual faeries, nephilim, gay nephilim, magic, demons, werewolves, non-sparkling vampires…did I mention there are bisexual faeries? It sounds like an awful lot of gayness, but it’s really not. They’re not even main characters, but I found it amusing that they showed up in a young adult novel like this one! Too amusing, I suppose.

Anyway, I just started City of Ashes and now I can’t figure out how in the world I chose to read Twilight over this one. Maybe it was because bomshellwithin and Amanda were high on Edward Cullen and I decided to see for myself what all the fuss was about.  They got me hooked, so I’ll just blame them like I blame the mini-blondes, which have been quiet lately…hmm…but I digress.

I kind of regret starting this series now because 3 days ago I found out that there will be 3 more books in the series for a grand total of 6. This news didn’t sit well with me because Cassandra Clare always said there would be 3 books, and now that the series has reached a big enough audience I feel like the back 3 are more of a cash-in than a planned continuation of the series. I guess we’ll see once April 2011 rolls in with City of Fallen Angels, the fourth book in the series.

That’s a lot of 3s in such a short paragraph. Damn.