Cassandra Clare's LJ

Last Post; And: Three things

thegraybook — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:38:58 GMT

One, and this is addressed mainly to booksellers and librarians: I've gotten a lot of emails lately from YA booksellers and librarians who are holding parties for the releases of Breaking Dawn and Brisngr, etc, wanting to know if I had any promo items I could send for party giveaways. The answer is yes I do, and if you want stuff, like postcards, bookmarks, chapter samplers and the like, you can email me at the address on my profile page and I'll send you stuff. Stuff, I got lots of. [ETA: This offer only open to bookseller/librarian types! I should have mentioned that.]

Two, the official release date for City of Glass is March 24, 2009. As of the moment it has a laydown date which means they won't be selling any copies before that day, but you can be pretty sure you'll be able to get it on that day.

Three, this is the last post I'm going to be making on this journal. I've decided to update exclusively from now on at cassandraclare. Long ago, I thought it would be a good idea to have one blog about just book stuff and writing and another blog about personal stuff, but then I realized that my writing stuff and my personal stuff are entirely mixed in together, and since half the time I could never decide which blog to put an entry on, I would just not update. So this is my attempt at streamlining. Thank you to all the people who've been reading here, and I'll be continuing to blog about my writing and the Mortal Instruments books over at cassandraclare, so if you'd like to friend that journal, I'd love to see you there.

All the best,

Cassie

thegraybook — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:39:52 GMT

So I've heard from several UK booksellers (and buyers) that City of Ashes is now out in the UK and Ireland – or, you know, trickling out as books do. I'm not going to be in London for the launch this time, which makes me sad, because I love London and I still get excited seeing my book in bookstores there. And I was hoping to do some signings and meet my readers in the UK. So I am sad about this. But there is a good chance that I will be in London in September, and so hopefully I can set some events up then.

In the meantime, if you're feeling broke, you can pick up free copies of several chapters of City of Ashes at Starbucks all across the UK and Ireland. It's part of a promotion they're doing with the National Literacy Trust trying to get teens (and everyone!) to read more books. Since I won't be over in the UK to actually see my book in Starbucks (a very bizarre idea and one of the few things to have impressed my parents) — anyone who catches sight of the teasers:

in Starbucks and sends me a photo, I'll send you a signed copy of Ashes. :)

ETA: On another note, I'm going to be shutting this LJ down in a short while and doing all my updating over at cassandraclare. I'm suffering from too-many-blogs-itis, and I have to do something to consolidate. So if you're interested in keeping up, I'd love it if you'd friend me over there (and feel free to unfriend here.)

New Shadowhunters series!

thegraybook — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:12:29 GMT

Now that Publisher's Weekly has made the announcement, I can finally talk about my new series, which I am super-mega-yowza excited about! From the press release:

While The Mortal Instruments is set largely in present-day Manhattan, The Infernal Devices takes us back one hundred and forty years to the heart of Victorian England, exploring an earlier era in the history of the Shadowhunters — a time before the Accords, when Downworlder and Shadowhunters were at each other's throats. A time when orphaned teenager Tessa discovers she isn't human after all, but a warlock, capable of changing her shape to resemble anyone she desires to be. Tessa must use her power to descend into London's supernatural Downworld, where vampires stalk the gaslit streets of London, werewolves slink in the shadowy lanes of Whitechapel, and warlocks hold masquerade balls for demons and Downworlders in opium-smoke-filled ballrooms. But living in Downworld isn't simple — Tessa has to learn to trust her natural enemies, the demon-killing Shadowhunters, if she ever wants to control her powers and find her brother. Torn between the darkly gorgeous and devoted Will, a Shadowhunter hiding a deadly secret, and the brooding Jem, whose addiction to a demon drug is slowly destroying him, Tessa must draw on all her strength to save her brother and keep herself alive in this deadly new world.

I always knew I'd be done with Clary's story after City of Glass, but I wasn't done with the world of Shadowhunters and Downworlders. I wanted to do more in that world, with that mythology. On the other hand, I also always wanted to write a historical fantasy novel set in Victorian England, preferably with steampunk elements. At some point, I decided to combine the two — to write about Shadowhunters in a different city than New York, and a different time than now — a time before the Accords, when things between Shadowhunters and Downworlders were considerably less peaceful, and the Shadowhunters lacked some of the technology they employ today. Not to mention a time when there were some truly fabulous clothes, especially for men (Frock coats! Gloves! Boots! So hot!)

The first book in the series, The Clockwork Princess***, will be published in fall 2010****, followed by The Clockwork Prince in fall 2011 and The Clockwork Kingdom in summer 2012. There's a ton more information on the (very basic right now) website, where you can read the full press release, and over at the fansite.

Some people have asked me if Jace, Clary and the others will be in the ID series. The answer is mainly no, because it takes place about 145 years ago. But some characters — like Magnus — who are immortal, do recur; and you'll start recognizing the names of various families, like the Lightwoods and the Waylands, and realizing their relationship to the current characters, as you read.

Anyway, I am super excited about these books and I can't wait to get started on them!

***All titles, at this early date, are subject to change.
**** For those of you in the UK/Aus, The Infernal Devices will be coming out from Walker Books just like the MI series, but we're going to do our level best to make sure the books come out at the same time overseas as they do here.

Magic in the Mirrorstone signing

thegraybook — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:33:45 GMT

Next weekend I will be signing in New York City at Books of Wonder for the anthology, Magic in the Mirrorstone, with contributors Cecil Castellucci, Holly Black, Tiffany Trent, Beth Bernobich, Craig Gidney and editor Steve Berman. The signing will be at:

June 8th, 1pm-3pm
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011

Come on by!

ETA: I am so sorry to all those who attended the event and discovered I wasn't there! I wound up in the emergency room this morning, and though it turned out fine and I'm all right, I wasn't able to make the signing. I hope to make it up to you at the next one!

Cassie

City of Glass cover

thegraybook — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:46:02 GMT

I've been so looking forward to showing this off — the cover of City of Glass! It may be my favorite out of the three, or I may just be loving it because it's so new.

Now to forestall the inevitable questions: the boy on the cover is neither Alec, nor Simon. Instead he's a new character, called Sebastian — if you read my mailing list or the fansite forums you probably know about him already. He's a new character in City of Glass, having been mentioned only in dreams and images previously (astute readers picked out that he's the dark-haired boy with black wings who Clary is dreaming about in CoA.) [Ah here's what I said about Sebastian on my mailing list: "Sebastian is a new character in City of Glass. He's a Shadowhunter. He's a cousin of the Penhallows, who are friends of the Lightwoods', and he grew up at the Institute in Paris. He's about seventeen."] I know it's unusual for a series book to feature a new character on a cover, but we thought he was important enough to go for it. Below Sebastian is Idris and the City of Glass, which Clary and the others visit in book three. The translucent glass-looking structures, are the "demon towers" that keep the city safe from invasion . . . or so they think!

The cover — text, images, etc — isn't final, but it's very close.

first chapter of city of glass, cookie

thegraybook — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:37:24 GMT

I've put up the first chapter of City of Glass (well, actually Emily who I babble about all the time did it because I don't have the slightest idea how to update my web page:

http://www.mortalinstruments.com/COGchapter1.html

Those who went to my signings on tour will be familiar with this already. For you guys, and for fun, I'm also going to paste in a cookie from CoG under the cut. And because it will be a while since I update again, since I am about to 1) turn in the final edits on City of Glass and 2) run away to Italy, where I will stay until stress levels return to normal. Also, I might buy some shoes there. Mmm, shoes.

ETA to add: I'm too wracked with deadline horror to actually be able to post at the moment, but Rachel Caine (you may know her from her terrific Morganville Vampire books) has posted at her LJ about the upcoming Twilight essay anthology from BenBella books; I'm one of the contributors. It was edited by Ellen Hopkins of Glass and Crank fame. Check it out here.

The moment the door shut behind Clary, Jace slumped back against the wall, as if his legs had been cut out from under him. He looked gray with a mixture of horror, shock, and what looked almost like . . .
relief, as if a catastrophe had been narrowly avoided.

“Jace,” Alec said, taking a step toward his friend. “Do you really think —”

Jace spoke in a low voice, cutting Alec off. “Get out,” he said. “Just get out, both of you.”

“So you can do what?” Isabelle demanded. “Wreck your life some more? What the hell was that about, Jace?”

Jace shook his head. “I sent her home. It was the best thing for her.”

“You did a hell of a lot more than send her home. You destroyed her. Did you see her face?”

“It was worth it,” said Jace. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“For her, maybe,” Isabelle said. “I hope it winds up worth it for you.”

Jace turned his face away. “Just . . . Leave me alone, Isabelle.
Please.”

Isabelle cast a startled look toward her brother. Jace never said please. Alec put a quieting hand on her shoulder. “Never mind, Jace,” he said, as kindly as he could. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Jace raised his head and looked at Alec without actually looking at him — he seemed to be staring off at nothing. “No, she won’t,” he said. “But I knew that. Speaking of which, you might as well tell me
what you came in here to tell me. You seemed to think it was pretty important at the time.”

Alec took his hand off Isabelle’s shoulder. “I didn’t want to tell you in front of Clary —”

Jace’s head snapped back and his eyes focused on Alec. “Didn’t want to tell me what in front of Clary?”

Alec hesitated. It was clear that Jace was pushed to the limit right now, and he could only imagine what effect further unpleasant surprises might have on him. But there was no way to hide this. Jace
had to know.

German cover, City of Glass cover, fanart

thegraybook — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:11:07 GMT

I got the cover for the German edition of City of Ashes (which is coming out this June):

With all the foiling and whatnot, these covers are much prettier in person, but they still look nice onscreen.

Also, I got my first-draft cover for City of Glass and it is hot. No shirtlessness this time, but if it keeps on as it looks like it will, it will probably be my favorite of the three. Here's a tiny little piece of it, just for fun:

I also wanted to take a moment to show some of the fanart I've gotten lately, because it always takes a long time to get the pictures up onto the website gallery. So . . .

Alysonwonderland drew me this completely cute picture of Simon and Clary playing video games — possibly Halo —

And Sadie drew the Dumort Hotel scene from City of Bones:

I love the evil little vampire drooling down from the upstairs . . .

A stylized and pretty Jace and Clary . . .

I like how Clary looks sort of naturally anxious in this one, by Tasha . . .

And in this one Alec appears to be gazing up at Jace, amusingly. By Oomikaze.

tourblog 1

thegraybook — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:16:21 GMT

I promised various Powers That Be that I'd blog while on tour, but so far I haven't had a chance. Three things you learn when on book tour:

1) Sleep whenever you can
2) Every hotel, everywhere in America, has cobb salad on their room service menu
3) Free time is a myth

So I'm blogging on the run here at my San Francisco hotel, before I head out to Cody's Bookstore in Berkeley. I decided to cobble together a few of my favorite photos from various events.

At Books of Wonder in NYC, where I signed with Marissa Doyle and Isamu Fukui, reading came bearing these Fabulous Shirts. They gave me much joy:

In Phoenix, I signed with Lisa McMann, author of Wake, at various locations. This is us in Changing Hands bookstore.

At Changing Hands I also picked up this t-shirt for my boyfriend. Everyone says boys in books are better...

We also went to a library where they had totally awesomely decorated the whole place with items themed after our books. Here Jace is sporting the classic sleeveless turtleneck look. :D

In LA, my hometown, I met up with Beth Duncan, a teacher whose whole class had read City of Bones and gave me a notebook full of their reviews and thoughts. It was gorgeous. They also made rune-design demon hunter t-shirts. How cute are they?

They said they would make me a shirt, too. Yay! And then in Glendale, where I regaled everyone with the story of How Holly Could Not Get Enough Coffee To Survive While We Were In Italy, someone made me these gorgeous bookmarks:

And then, in Huntington Beach, I encountered a girl wearing this shirt:

Wait a second — that's a Midnighters shirt! Damn you, Scott Westerfeld!

*I also read Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson while on the plane to Phoenix. It was awesome and I am in love with Spencer. Read it now!

xposted to cassandraclare

thegraybook — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:50:02 GMT

I came back from Italy to a bunch of good news! First, The New York Post featured City of Ashes as a recommended book, and even mentioned my event at Books of Wonder tomorrow.

Secondly, City of Ashes debuted at #3 on the New York Times Children's Bestseller list!

Which is huge! And awesome! But then, just as cool, City of Bones is back on the Times list, this time on the paperback list:

Not to mention that City of Ashes hit the USA Today bestseller list at #96 which is pretty damn awesome considering that the USA Today list counts every single book for sale in the entire country, including self-help, cookbooks, and those Whatever For Dummies books.

Listing with my first book was fantastic, but listing with my second book is in some ways even better, because it means people liked the first book enough to run out and buy the second, and the fact that CoA has moved higher up the list means the audience is only growing. So thank you guys, everyone who went out and bought the book, or forced their parents or loved ones to buy it for them, or put it on reserve at the library, or tortured your local bookstore into carrying it. It's all down to you.

*** Last year when I listed I posted a What Happens When You Hit the Bestseller List" post, including all the phone calls I made that day. Sadly, when your second book hits, mostly only your friends in publishing realize why it's still a big deal. I called my dad after I found out, and he said,

Dad: But you were already on the list.
Me: So every time someone has a birthday, do you say, "Who cares, you already had a birthday?"
Dad: No, I say, "Congratulations on not dying partway through the year."
Me: Well, that's encouraging.

And now, off to celebrate.

Danish edition, paperback

thegraybook — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:40:24 GMT

I got my box of Danish City of Bones in the mail, which means that City of Bones is now out in Denmark, or will be in the next few days. In Denmark, the cover looks like this:

I'm sort of amazed that so many of my foreign publishers are using my US cover. It's very unusual. I mean, I'm happy that they all think it's such a good selling point, but I kind of miss seeing varieties of cover art. I also cannot begin to tell you what "Daemonernes By" means. But I am excited to have a book out in another country! It is very cool.

In other news, City of Bones is now out in paperback. I only found this out myself when I went to the Barnes and Noble in Union Square to see the lovely Libba Bray do her Sweet Far Thing, and there it was on a table. It was kind of a jolt, but in a good way. It also reminds me that City of Ashes will be out soon — 33 days!

wodgets and blogfest

thegraybook — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:01:54 GMT

*points sideways at flashy new icon*

Simon and Schuster has made a cute downloadables site for The Mortal Instruments, with desktop wallpapers, message board avatars, a countdown timer to City of Ashes and screensavers (one that even pulls my blog into the screensaver itself. Though I'm not sure exactly why you'd want that, so I'm considering daily weather updates to keep the screensaver relevant.)

There's also a brand new excerpt from City of Ashes up there (I want to call it a cookie, but it seems strange to call it a cookie when it's all official and stuff!).

The Pulse Blogfest is also coming up, where a ton of authors will be answering questions online for two weeks — including Holly Black, Scott Westerfeld, Ellen Hopkins, DJ MacHale, Claire Dunkle, Annette Curtis Klause, Kenneth Oppel, and Susan Cooper (!!!). I'll be answering questions, too. The questions can be submitted over at the Blogfest's Myspace page and "The questions can be about anything -- about writing, about books, about life -- you name it! However, the questions should be something that any author can answer -- we're not looking for questions that are meant just for one particular author."

So if you have author related queries, go forth and ask them. Sample question: "Why are you writers all so strange?" See, it's easy.

UK cover for City of Ashes

thegraybook — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:17:33 GMT

Walker sent me over the final cover for the UK edition of City of Ashes, and I like it quite a lot. It's going to have gold foiling overlay in real life, so will of course look different than it does here, but still . . . fun!

[CoA is out in the UK in late June/early July.]

City of Bones in German

thegraybook — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:47:57 GMT

ETA to add: City of Bones hit the Spiegel Harcover Bestseller list (Germany's version of the NYT bestseller list) at 43 this week — so CoB is now a bestseller in two countries. Yeow.

Just a note to say that City of Bones is now out in Germany, where the title is . . . City of Bones. Apparently keeping the English title is not that unusual (with the "Chroniken die Unterwelt", which I am guessing is "Chronicles of the Underworld" as a sub-title.)

The website is also up, and since I don't speak a word of German I can vaguely figure out from it that you can send e-cards and download things, but I'm not sure about much else. I also learned the book is about this:

Gut aussehend, düster und sexy. Das ist Jace. Verwirrt, verletzlich und vollkommen ahnungslos. So fühlt sich Clary, als sie in Jaces Welt hineingezogen wird. Denn Jace ist kein normaler Junge. Er ist ein Dämonenjäger. Und als Clary von dunklen Kreaturen angegriffen wird, muss Clary schleunigst ein paar Antworten finden, sonst wird die Geschichte ein tödliches Ende nehmen! Das fulminante Debüt der neuen Bestsellerautorin Cassandra Clare eröffnet dem Genre eine neue Dimension: Urban Fantasy – Die Fantasy des 21. Jahrhunderts! weiterlesen ...

which Babelfish translates thusly: Well looking, darkly and sexy. That is Jace. Confused, in the long run and perfectly notionless. Thus Clary feels, when she is pulled in in Jaces world. Because Jace is not a normal boy. It is a Daemonenjaeger. And as Clary of dark creatures, Clary is attacked must find immediately a few answers, otherwise history will take a fatal outcome! The fulminante debut of the new best-seller authoress Cassandra Clare opens a new dimension to the category: Urban Fantasy – The Fantasy 21. Century!

Poor Jace. It's hard to be notionless in this world. :D I love the word Daemonenjaeger (which I'm guessing is "Demon-Hunter") though. Any of you all lovely readers who read German and happen upon a copy, do let me know what you think.

City of Ashes ARC giveaway contest winners!

thegraybook — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:09:20 GMT

First, I want to thank everyone who submitted an entry. They made me laugh, chortle, grin, sniffle, and inflict them on my friend Emily to get her to help me judge. They really made me feel the love for this book series, and for that, I am grateful. And I hope you all enjoyed the entries as much as I did.

And now, down to the nitty-gritty. I thought it would be hard to choose winners; it was impossible, but I did it. In each category there is now a winner, a second, and a third place.

Once I post the winning entries, if you won a copy, I want you to get in touch with me at the email address on my profile page, and tell me which entry was yours, and where you want me to send the book.

As far as prizes go: If I don't hear from the winner in a week, the book goes to the second place winner and if I don't hear from *them*, in another week it goes to the third place winner. In the meantime, if you got second place, you still get something, but it's a surprise what, so you should email me. If you got third place, well, you get glory. :) I hope that suffices. Now on to:

CATEGORY ONE: Writing

This was the hardest to pick because it had the most entries. In the end, I chose Cyndy Wilson's drabble about Isabelle for featuring an uncompromising and kick-ass Isabelle. Second is Gwen L's drabble about Valentine for taking off from a moment in the books that was mentioned but never described, and because I enjoyed the nastiness of the scene and the 'thirty pieces of silver' reference. And third, kiriel123's drabble from the point of view of a Silent Brother, because I wouldn't dare write from their point of view, so good on you for doing it. :) Special mention also to Hayley's badass Jocelyn (because she WAS a badass) and silverstr114's cute rat!Simon POV drabble.

CATEGORY TWO: Fanart:

This is also a hard one to judge. In the end, I chose minuku's representation of Alec:

because it's very pretty, I like the sword, and I always enjoy the minor-character love.

Second place is venoz's picture of Alec and Magnus at a party — I love Magnus' glitter, and the black-and-white Aubrey Beardsley effect.

And third, thegreenpilgram's Alice in Wonderland-themed character portrait (because Dormouse!Simon is so cute.)

CATEGORY THREE: Video

There were a lot of really cool entries in this category. I chose taurean_muse's entry, because of the cleverly chosen art and footage and the amount of *work* it must have been splicing it all together! I know it's all from different sources but it creates a very cohesive aesthetic.

Second place goes to "edwardandbella" for creating a video using actual movie footage that somehow works shocking well as a trailer – and all the actors I think are extremely well-chosen. I've never been very good at mental casting so I was impressed!

I'm splitting third place between sillyredbunnie's atmospheric promo:

And again, silverstr114's really dramatic and whoa, gothy, trailer.

CATEGORY FOUR: Book in a weird location

So many pictures of destroyed books did I get — books in toasters, books on grills, books covered in snow and/or blood (hope that wasn't real.) Clearly you will all start to think this is some ploy on my part to get you to trash your books so you have to buy new ones. Anyway, this was one of the most fun categories to judge, so here are the winners:

arizona_jones for City of Bones being read by Spiderman, Wolverine, and a guy in a red suit of some sort . . . not sure who he is . . .

Second place: Adaliseranis for recreating Hodge's library with various books about demonology. Not flashy or weird, but clever and a neat meta-construction.

Third: ikel89 for: My book goes to Moscow! It's nice to see it visit places I've never been, but wish I could go.

CATEGORY FIVE: Miscellaneous

This was very hard to judge, because everything was so . . . miscellaneous. :D How to choose between a t-shirt, a layout, buttons, icons, decorated shoes, ice sculptures and what have you. In the end I chose:

1) Winner antistar_e's fanmix, because of the thought she put into each of the songs (you can read her explanations here and the lovely cover design.

2) Second: Serafina Zane's collection of buttons. It was the "Jace Wayland for President" that sold me.

3) And third to obsess_much08 for her t-shirt which says, I suspect, what many think:

ARC contest

thegraybook — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:51:37 GMT

The City of Ashes ARC giveaway contest is now over! Thanks to everyone who entered. I'd planned to post up the winners shortly after the contest ended, but I'd expected a lot less entries than I actually got (more like forty than four hundred!) Not that I am complaining, because I think it's fantastic that people had so much fun with this! — I'll be taking the next few days and judging the entries, and I'll post up the winners when I'm done.

In the meantime I thought I'd show off my pretty German cover. City of Bones will be out in Germany and Austria in January — there'll be an audiobook too and a website is being worked on. Since I don't speak a word of German, the only bit of the book I was able to understand was the rat-Simon bit ("eine Ratte!") so I'm hoping a kind German speaker will glance at a page in January and let me know what they think of the translation. :)

ETA: Apparently the audiobook has its own cover:

Thanks to an astute poster for noticing that. :0

City of Bones in Italian

thegraybook — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:10:51 GMT

My Italian publisher, Mondadori, let me know that City of Bones is out in Italy now! They also sent me a .jpg of the cover art (click to enlarge):

Al Pandemonium Club di New York si fanno strani incontri.
Seguendo un affascinante ragazzo dai capelli blu nel magazzino del locale, Clary vede tre guerrieri coperti di rune tatuate circondarlo
e trafiggerlo con una spada di cristallo. Vorrebbe chiamare aiuto,
ma non rimane nessun cadavere, nessuna goccia del sangue nero
esploso sull¿elsa e soprattutto nessuno
da accusare, perché i guerrieri sono Shadowhunters, cacciatori
di demoni, e nessun altro, tranne Clary, può vederli.
Da quella notte il suo destino si lega sempre piú a quello dei giovani
Cacciatori, soprattutto a quello del magnetico Jace: poteri che non
aveva mai avuto e ricordi sepolti nella sua memoria cominciano a
riaffiorare come se qualcuno avesse voluto tenerglieli nascosti fino
ad allora. Clary desidera solo ritrovare la madre misteriosamente
scomparsa, ma sarà coinvolta in una feroce lotta per la conquista
della Coppa Mortale, una lotta che la riguarda molto piú di quanto creda?

It's unusual for overseas publishers to use the same art as the American edition, so they must really have loved it. Also I note that in Italy it's called the Shadowhunters trilogy, not Mortal Instruments. Anyway, I'm very excited to be being published in Italy — I love Italian and I took it in college, although all I remember how to say now is "But you look so young to be a police officer."

thegraybook — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:34:34 GMT

Advance reader copies of City of Ashes have arrived! (Advance reader copies, for those who do not know, are uncorrected drafts of a book, bound up and made to look book-like for promotional purposes.) Or at least the very very advance ones — I should have more in a little while, and then I'll do an ARC giveaway like I did for Bones.

It's always a neat feeling to see your book bound up for the first time. A month ago, it looked like this:

That's my editing scribbles all over the page. Because the ARC is such an early draft, these scribbled changes are not in it, though they will be in the final book. What these are are proofs, which are when you first see your pages laid out and formatted in big pages that the cat likes to sit on:

Which would make editing much harder, so the cat would be reprimanded by the Giant Hand:

In book form, though, the ARC can go on a shelf! Progress! :) Check back here in the next few days and I'll post about giving away ARCs.

congratulations, Sarah!

thegraybook — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:29:56 GMT

I just wanted to say congratulations to my friend Sarah, who in addition to being a lovely person, is a kickass writer too. (You all may know her better as Maya.) Her first novel (the first in a series) has been bought by Simon and Schuster, and deservedly so — so go congratulate her on her journal! (And on a selfish note, I'm very pleased Sarah and I will be sharing an editor and a publisher, because it means we can party together at official functions and gang up on our editor when need be — always a plus!)

And now to pass out. I just got back from DragonCon and after a nineteen-hour train journey, feel like I am about to die.

Love and the Imagination: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

thegraybook — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:30:10 GMT

Spoilers. Obviously!

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s

I liked it! Much better than 5 or 6. I thought I'd get that out of the way up front. :>

A side note: ... wasn't the last word of the HP series supposed to be "scar"?

So. I worried at the end of HBP that book 7 would be spent hunting Horcruxes and that it was too late to start a quest narrative. ("So Voldemort split his soul and hid it all over the place in little boxes, it seems, cleverly placed in Locations Which Have Been of Significance in the Life of Tom Riddle. Voldemort, I have to say, is an idiot, since this is the worst thing I can think of to do with bits of your soul—why not disguise it as a pebble on a beach amid a million other like-seeming pebbles or something?—but I suppose if you're going to start the Quest narrative this late, it better not be that tough of a Quest.") I was wrong (not about Voldemort being an idiot; he's an idiot, all right): book 7 was spent hunting Horcruxes AND Hallows, and while it may have been too late to start a quest narrative, the quest structure did help replace what was lost by abandoning the familiar structure of the school year. Yes, I wish the concept of Horcruxes had been introduced a little earlier than it was; ditto the concept of the Hallows. As it was, it was much in the vein of "And you now you will spend the book looking for this indispensable thing that you could never possibly have guessed you'd ever be looking for because I only just told you it existed!" For anyone who ever spent time trying to figure out how Harry was eventually going to kill Voldemort, it could be disappointing that there never was any way to figure it out, because it all depended on stuff that only got introduced in this book.

But, it sort of doesn't matter. Harry was always going to kill Voldemort using his power to love and to understand love, and so he did. "I was ready to die to stop you hurting these people...I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. You can't torture them. You can't touch them." So, in other words, Harry died for the inhabitants of Hogwarts, and the love he showed by doing so saves them. I was waiting for Harry to add, "Also, by the way, I'm Jesus," but I guess he figured that bit was obvious.

(As a side note, since I have forgotten a lot of what happened in the earlier books, is the secret to Harry's survival when he was a baby the fact that his mother died for him? Does that mean that in all of Voldemort's long murderous reign, as he went around slaughtering families, no one else ever upped and died for someone else they loved? Lily was the first? Because that seems strange, so I assume I am missing something.)

Harry is hardly the only hero in epic fantasy to off the bad guy with the power of love. Fortunately it was played more subtly than that here: what Harry has going for him is a team. It's significant that of all the Horcruxes, the only one Harry actually destroys in this book is arguably himself. The other are destroyed by Hermione, Ron, Neville, etc. That's because Harry has friends who are working with him toward a common goal. Voldemort just has minions who are terrified of him. I did like the scene where Voldemort's pissed and Lucius and Bellatrix beat the other Death Eaters in a race to the door. Sometimes when the Dark Lord's mad the prudent thing is just to get the hell out of the way. (One might also argue that Voldemort's continued incomprehension of human feelings leads to his downfall in the scene where Narcissa checks to see if Harry's dead. She's willing to do anything, even go against Voldemort, if it means that she can get to her son; it would never even occur to Voldemort that this might be the case. That scene rocked, btw.)

So even though we only learned about Horcruxes and Hallows pretty late in the game, in a sense it doesn't matter. The magic system governing the Harry Potter books has never been one of a deep complexity or stunning originality. What works about it, and what JKR is so good at, is creating emotionally true magic. Magic that feels right and inevitable. The dreadfulness of the Unforgivable Curses. The inevitability that something like the Unbreakable Promise would exist. Thestrals are a way of showing how much you are changed by having seen death. Of course Horcruxes are created the way they are: they're emblematic of the damage evil does to the evildoer. The story of the Deathly Hallows — it's really, really hard to create a fairy tale that feels real, because fairy tales are allegories rooted in our deepest beliefs, desires and fears, and that fairy tale felt real.

(Although I've always wondered, why are there only three Unforgivable Curses? Avada Kedavra can't actually be the only curse that kills you (I have a vague memory of Harry, Hermione and Ron in CoB checking out some book of dark spells that involves one that could turn you inside out.) So Avada Kedavra is Unforgivable, but Turnus Insideoutus is not? I can just see Neville instructing Dumbledore's Army:

Neville: Okay, so we can't use AK because it's an Unforgivable Curse.
DA: What can we use, then?
N: How about Explodius Headus?
DA: That curse that makes your enemy's head explode? That's not Unforgivable?
N: No, Explodius Headus is A-OK!

On the other hand, looking at it that closely seems unsporting.)

There maybe were one or two too many back-and-forths where Harry suddenly pops into Voldemort's head. I kept waiting for Harry to check in on Voldemort and discovering him going to the bathroom, or perhaps adding to his vast Beanie Baby collection in a local trinket store. Voldemort has never been a particularly great villain — he's that sort of mascara-wearing, kitten-eating Big Gay Villainy that always seems like something out of Scooby-Doo. JKR is much better with the lower gradations of evil — Umbridge, with her chilling beaurocratic eviltude, is like one of Hitler's pencil-pushing desk lieutenants, and Lockhart and Pettigrew are all about the evil that grows out of weakness and cowardice. It was good to see Umbridge and Pettigrew again, and when Pettigrew had his moment of compassion and was choked by his own hand, it was satisfying if inevitable.

Aberforth. He is my new favorite character. I just loved him. I also loved the Weasley's crazy aunt, whatever her name was — Muriel? — and I think I ship her with Aberforth, unless he still has that goat hangup. I would prefer to think that was slander, though.

Snape. I never thought Snape was evil, never even entertained the notion, literally couldn't believe there was ever even a debate about it. In fact, I dug up what I said about it in my review of Half-Blood Prince: "Snape: It has not crossed my mind even for a moment that Snape is actually evil and has offed Dumbledore out of the blackness of his heart while Dumbledore begged for his life. Dumbledore wouldn't beg for his life in the first place—I doubt he is any more terrified of death than Nicholas Flamel was—and so I assume he was begging Snape to kill him, and Snape did. Dumbledore seemed to have an ironclad reason for trusting Snape that was never fully revealed, and since it was never fully revealed, it can't be analyzed or supported or relied on for reassurance—but neither can it be disproven. No, Snape is "on the right side", though I fear for his life in the next book."

I am glad to have been right. Normally I think arguing over who predicted what in book series is silly, but in this case I was so deeply annoyed by all the "Snape: Good or Evil" banners and tie-in books I ran across in our nation's bookstores during my book tour that I started to feel I was being sold this fake debate as a marketing concept, and that annoyed me. So bah to you, marketing people. As my boyfriend said, the core of the "Snape: Good or Evil" debate is actually the question "JKR: Terrible Writer or Good Writer?" I am glad to see it turned out to be the latter.

Anyway, the Snape stuff was awesome. I loved getting his backstory, finally seeing things from his point of view — and so he was in love with Lily! — and watching his difficult and painful redemption. It was all the things that I think people were hoping for for Draco, but it looks like the younger generation doesn't have a Snape. I also loved seeing how he had secretly helped Harry every step of the way on Harry's quest: placing the sword where it was, and even sending his Patronus to protect him.

The deaths: It was always clear there would be a lot of death in this book, because it's the War Installment, and indeed there was. It started to feel like one of those disaster movies, like the Poseidon Adventure, where people get picked off one after another in ever-weirder ways, and you're laying bets on who's going to make it out at the end. I wish that beloved characters like Lupin had gotten a bit more of a send-off than being noted briefly by Harry as part of a large corpse pile. But none of the deaths surprised me — they were all pretty much exactly who I'd thought was going to die, and in the order I'd thought they would die. Okay, maybe I didn't expect Hedwig to bite it, but that's mostly because I hadn't given it any thought. I knew one of the Weasleys would get it, and was hoping for Percy; I was sorry it was Fred, not just because I liked Fred, but because I recently read several articles about twin loss, and the prognosis for the surviving twin is really dire. Poor George! I did enjoy Mrs. Weasley taking out Bellatrix, and though I liked the sentiment behind "Stay away from my daughter, bitch!" it sounded very much like a line from a Hollywood action movie, which was a little jolting.

The sword of GG: Poor Griphook, all that effort he went through and then Neville just pulls the sword out of the hat again. Does that mean it disappeared from wherever the goblins stashed it? Anyway, go Neville, with your badass self. In fact, all of Dumbledore's Army kicked ass. And how cool was it that Harry beat Voldemort with Expelliarmus, his lame "signature move" that he'd already been told to quit using? I was happy also to see a reference to his "Seeker's reflexes", a small reminder that perhaps all that endless Quidditch actually provided him with a few useful skills.

The references to other fantasy: It's interesting how, as JKR neared the end of the series and the big fantasy showdown, the references to things like Tom Brown's Schooldays faded and references to other works of fantasy — especially classic British children's fantasy — replaced them. The piece of jewelry that you wear around your neck on a gold chain, that contains the soul of the Dark Lord, that fills your thoughts with darkness and makes you act like a jerk? Wow, that was one explicit reference to LOTR. The martyr-like walk to the Dark Lord's camp, where, surrounded by his/her jeering followers, you willingly allow yourself to be put to death? Hello, Chronicles of Narnia. Godric Gryffindor's magic sword: cf. magic swords in The Dark Is Rising and The Chronicles of Prydain.

Of course, the whole business of magic swords is far more ancient than that: all these swords hark back to Excalibur, which itself harks back even farther than that (in theory, it's based on a sword from Irish myth called Caladbolg, though who knows). The point of good fantasy literature not really originality: the fact that fantasy books share consistent themes and archetypes is exactly what makes them part of the same genre to begin with. Part of what HP is doing in its similarities to works like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings is highlighting the extent to which all these works are based on older works of myth and legend, and the way all these myths and legends form the basis and backbone of even the most modern fantasy. ( It does tend to annoy me when people say "But isn't Harry Potter derivative of Star Wars?" as if 1) this is a bad thing and 2) as if Star Wars itself weren't massively derivative to begin with. Since SW is based on a passel of myths itself, you're in effect saying no one else can base any work on those same myths, which is ridiculous. But, I digress. )

Draco. Well, the stuff with Draco was sort of disappointing, if you're a fan of Draco's. If not, then you probably barely notice Draco continuing to act the way Draco has always acted and apparently always will. For those of you hoping Draco would team up with the Trio: Nope. For those of you hoping that all this time Voldemort was grooming Draco to be his Dark Prince of the Night: NOT SO MUCH with that either. All I had hoped was that Draco would have some realization about good and evil and his place in choosing between them — he certainly seemed set up for it after the last book. Unfortunately the only realization he seems to have is that he is inept at evil. He was inept at killing Dumbledore, and in this book, is inept at killing Harry, nearly gets himself killed, and does get Crabbe killed, not that anyone cares. In the end it seems that Draco is probably going to give up evil, but only because he is really, really bad at it, just like he is bad at most things. He is more half-hearted about the evil he commits, or tries to commit, than he would be if he were a young Tom Riddle, but then Tom was competent evil, and Draco, apparently, is just a loser. I think it's too bad — it would have been nice to see him make a definitive choice either way, but he doesn't, he just sort of trails off feebly, waving his tiny fists in impotent rage. And eventually, is punished for his medium evil ways by medium baldness.

I have a theory (unprovable) that JK Rowling hates writing romance and has to drink a barrel of gin every time she has to sit down and write any. What she is wonderful at is writing about friendship and family and the truly unexpected and strong bonds that can spring up between human beings in the most unlikely circumstances. What is weaker is the romantic stuff, unless she's playing it for laughs. While the Snape-loves-Lily stuff actually was fine, probably because their romance never existed except in Snape's head, poor thing, I never found Harry and Ginny's breakup at the end of HBP credible (I think it was actually Holly who pointed out to me that the scene at the end of HBP is much like the scene at the end of the first Spiderman movie, except lacking the one thing that made the Spiderman scene actually work. But I think I already covered that in my HPB notes), and so I didn't find the following scenes with them at the beginning of DH credible either. The whole business struck me as what Roger Ebert calls an Idiot Plot, in which two characters in a romantic film are kept apart for a reason so dumb it requires them to act in a manner in which no human being ever behaves. Although my boyfriend did enjoy the bit where Harry is made uncomfortable by gazing into Mrs. Weasley's eyes and thinking they look just like Ginny's.

Josh: Harry is totally into Mrs. Weasley!
Me: What? Oh, that. I think that's just awkwardly phrased.
Josh: Not at all. Ginny's mom has got it going on.
Me: Great, you are shipping Harry/Molly now?
Josh: I shall call my ship Holly.
Me: Holly will like that, I'm sure.

Anyway, the vast amount of friendship and family stuff was all really solid and sometimes very moving. Harry and Hermione's long sojourn in the wilderness cemented their bond; Ron coming back and saving Harry was great (and being cruelly taunted by the locket; that scene had a lot of power — poor Ron! I didn't know Mrs. Weasley always wanted a girl. And I guess kept trying till she got one! No spell for that, apparently.) I loved the scene in the graveyard where Hermione made Harry a wreath of Christmas roses for his parents, and I'm glad he got to see their graves. Harry finding Lily's letter; Lily, Sirius and James escorting Harry to his showdown with Voldemort, Lupin having a baby (though the romance stuff with Tonks was also always pretty weak, I'm glad he got to have a kid) — poor old Teddy Lupin, orphaned like Harry at such a young age. I hope Harry isn't a lousy godfather to him in future years; he's someone who can understand what Teddy's going through. Part of what I loved about Snape's backstory was the complex relationship between himself and Dumbledore — Dumbledore may have despised Snape when Snape first came to him, but he grew to care about him over the years that Snape proved himself over and over, to the extent where his sadness that Snape was still in love with dead Lily was deep and sincere.

It all seemed summed up by the drawing of Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Neville on Luna's bedroom ceiling: What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends...friends...friends." Friendship is presented as a transcendent and unselfish bond — Snape only ever had two friends: Lily and Dumbledore, but they changed his life and who he was entirely — and one that finds its greatest expression when those friends become family (Sirius becoming Harry's godfather, Harry becoming Lupin's godfather, Harry saying he loves Hermione as a sister, the Weasleys basically adopting Harry, etc.)

Which was what the epilogue was about. I know a lot of people didn't like it — and epilogues are something that people are generally torn about. They can seem to wrap things up too neatly. But the epilogue seemed very inevitable to me. Ginny, Harry, Ron and Hermione are brought together as family, which is what JKR wanted. That's Harry's big reward for his heroism: a family. An ordinary life. (Though was anyone able to catch anything about what they all did for a living?) We shall skip over his exceptional cruelty in lumbering his poor kid with the name Albus. (And the other kids are James and Lily, right? Oy.) Of course Draco has named his kid Scorpius, but the Malfoys seem like people with a long history of child abuse. The thing that really disappointed me in the epilogue was not seeing how George was getting along. I had hoped we'd hear he was ok. Anyway, I was glad to see things wrapped up neatly and packed away in a box, because it means one significant thing: No more Harry Potter books. I know it's sad, but how much sadder if the books dragged on and on until they sucked? Better to go out on a high note.

So goodbye, Harry, and thanks for not sucking before you went. I'd like to note one other thing: which was that this was the first of the books to have quotes at the front, this time two well-chosen pieces touching on love and death. I was glad to see them, in part because the theme that death is nothing to be feared by those who love and are loved made me think of one of my favorite William Carlos Williams poems — so I'll append it here as an epitaph. This is from Patterson:

If a man die
it is because death
has first
possessed his imagination.
But if he refuse death —
no greater evil
can befall him
unless it be the death of love
meet him
in full career.
Then indeed
for him
the light has gone out.
But love and the imagination
are of a piece,
swift as the light
to avoid destruction.

Locus review

thegraybook — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:03:13 GMT

I got hold of the text of my review in Locus magazine (by the expedient of, you know, buying the magazine and typing it in!) and I was very excited — well, I was excited to see I was reviewed in Locus at all, because Locus is a great magazine and does wonderful reviews of books and interviews with sci-fi and fantasy writers. And I was very happy to see that Faren Miller had done the review for City of Bones. And was even happier that it was a good review — thoughtful and interesting.

City of Bones is a highly readable first novel, refreshingly free of the attitudes — cloying, cutesy, or arch—that make some YA fiction for non-adults only. As Book One in the Mortal Instruments trilogy, it wastes no time with background material but goes directly to Pandemonium, a New York music club where the 15-year old heroine witnesses a murder that bizarrely leaves behind neither clues nor the victim’s body. Clary Fray goes out to all-ages clubs with her best friend Simon, but in all other respects she’s a classic introvert, still at the awkward age. Both mother and daughter are artists—Clary sketching the real and fantastic alike, while her mother specializes in paintings of Manhattan (which sound thoroughly commercial with their “golden light” and “lace-like films of white ice”). As for the father, he seems to have been a military man who died in a car crash before she could get to know him. Or so she believes, until things start to go off kilter. Vanishing killers and corpse? That’s just the start of it.

New York City turns out to be an intersection between the familiar world of mundanes, and various realms of weirdness and magic, and the murder she witnessed wasn’t some gang rubout but the work of young Shadowhunters dedicated to rooting out and destroying particularly dangerous non-human invaders. Clary shouldn’t be able to see any of this, not as a true mundane. It’s easy to guess where this is going (and to note the similarity between the heroine’s first name and the author’s last) but City of Bones skillfully evades the tedium of YA clichés and “Mary Sue” fiction through a combination of wit, imagination, and a sense of place—including the massive presence of New York itself.

Clary’s adventures take her to the unearthly City of Bones and encounters with the Silent Brothers, granting her tantalizing bits of knowledge about Downworlders, the history of angels, the Mortal Instruments whose involvement makes this tale the start of a longer quest, and—of course—herself. Mixing light and dark, teen banter with Miltonic citations, Cassandra Clare manages to make the whole thing work and left me looking forward to the next adventure.

London, Bebo

thegraybook — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 10:30:00 GMT

So here I am in London - mostly lying face-down in my rented flat after the most horrible day of travel ever. Maureen and I left for London on the same day, unrelatedly, and both of us were leaving at 9am. We agreed that the move was to show up at the airport at 2am and just wait around due to all the increased security, so I did that. And of course the security was fine, so I ended up sitting at the gate for hours. This was made up for on the other end when the Heathrow Express broke down at Ealing and we sat on the tracks for two hours. All the English people on board were very polite and resigned about it, while the tourists attempted to mob the conductor and tie him to a scaffold.

ANYWAY. I am here, and since I love London and plan to spend the day bookshopping, I am happy. I have many events lined up, but they are all of the interview/publicity/lunches type, and I do not know yet if I will be doing any booksignings. I am sorry. Will let you know when I know. Maybe I'll just go sit in a pub and invite everyone round to hang out, Joss Whedon style.**

My UK publisher has created a Bebo site for me here:

http://www.bebo.com/cityofbones-book

(apparently Bebo is where it is at in Europe, and not Myspace, which is declasse.) They are giving away free copies of City of Bones (if you can't get one otherwise for whatever reason, this might be the move) and they're also serializing a guide I wrote to the world of the Mortal Instruments that explains more about how magic works in my world, what all the different creatures are like and what abilities they have, how Downworld operates, etc. I wrote it just for their page so it's a fun thing to check out. Also if you have a Bebo page, I'd love it if you friended me or left a comment!

And now, off to book shop with Maya. I shall buy so...many...books...and of course, since mine should be out here now, if I find it in a bookstore I'll take a photo to add to my collection.

Edited to add: Photo taken! This is in Foyle's on Charing Cross Road.

** ETA: Although at the moment this is not looking likely given my schedule. I didn't realize I would be so busy! :( Ah well, I'll be back in six months or so.

Cover art for City of Ashes!

thegraybook — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:09:34 GMT

(click to see pic bigger)

Wow, they actually gave me what I asked for on the cover! I asked for Clary, the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River, and I got it. That hardly ever happens. :>

ah, romance (crossposted to cassandraclare)

thegraybook — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:07:20 GMT

My friend Justine Larbalestier recently posted a great entry about romance — not her own personally, though that would also be fascinating I'm sure, but romance in fiction. What makes it work, and what doesn't.

I can tell you what I like. I like tension and obstacles. I like lots of longing and unrequited love. I like to start a book and not really be sure what's going to happen in the end, if the author's going to mess me around or break my heart, or break up the lead couple and plonk them down with other people, or maybe end the story with them all alone. I like characters who can't tell each other how they really feel for whatever reason (King of Attolia does a great job with that.) Most of my favorite fictional romances are not in books that one would classify as romance. (You can find a whole bunch of them listed here, including explanations of why I like them.) I adoreforbidden love of just about every variety. Internecine family warfare is always good, but I'll take allergies or whatever.

What I really, really like: When the romance works seamlessly with the plot. What I don't really like: When the romance is the plot.

So, my question is, what makes romance in fiction (and hell, media in general) work for you? Turn-ons, turn-offs? I'd love to know what you think. Drop me a note here or leave a post on Justine's blog, since she'd love to hear from you too.

City of Bones is a Chapters JAB team pick for spring!

thegraybook — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:50:47 GMT

Chapters (which is to Canada what Borders is to the States) has this great program called the Junior Advisory Booklovers team where five teens pick their favorite books every summer and those books are highlighted in the Chapters stores. Braden, one of the JAB Team kids, picked City of Bones for the Spring/Summer season. Here it is in a Chapters store (photo courtesy of the lovely Cecil Castelluci)

Kirkus review

thegraybook — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:38:46 GMT

Yay! City of Bones got a great review in Kirkus' First Fiction Special, which, according to them, "highlights exciting first novels that herald the arrival of talented, promising new authors."

New York is the city that never sleeps, but evil spirits, angels, warlocks, faeries, and shadowhunters don't need much rest anyway. The city is home to Cassandra Clare's young-adult debut novel City of Bones, a cool, pleasingly dark and spicy urban fantasy. Clare has experienced New York City as "a place of dark enchantment: cavernous, shadowy and full of secrets, from its huge Gothic cathedrals to its ruined cemetaries to the tiny hidden angels in Central Park. I tried to bring out that sense of urban mystery," she says — and what a success. The book's sharply drawn combination of comedy, love and drama features a hip 15-year-old girl and a demon hunter who is nothing if not a mixed blessing. "I wanted to write a book about the kinds of kids who were like me when I was young," says the author. "IThey're sci-fi and fantasy lovers, they adore anime and television shows with fantastical elements, like Heroes and Supernatural. When they find out there's a whole secret world of warlocks and vampires and demon-slayers, their response isn't shock or horror, but, 'You know, I always suspected that way the way things were.'" The first of a planned trilogy, the story emerges directly from a contemporary world of intense, enveloping conflicts, populated by a cast of contentious misfits, with no easy answers to getting past the misery but the hard slog of pushing on.

And now, back to BEA to snag ARCS...