Clary is an ordinary fifteen year old girl. Everything in her life was going fine until one day she went to the Pandemonium Club with her best friend Simon. She saw the murder of a boy and eventually he vanished into the thin air. Three teenagers wearing strange tattoos and holding strange weapons, murdered that boy. On that night Clary was introduced to a new world of "SHADOWHUNTERS".
     She met Jace Wayland on that night and since then her life went upside down. Jace Wayland is one of the Shadowhunters, who has killed the demon boy on that club night. Shadow hunters are assigned to keep the earth safe from the demons and other harmful supernatural creatures.
     Within twenty-four hours, Ravener (demon) kidnapped her mother and she has no clue what a demon could possibly want from her mother. Clary's mom had always tried to keep her away from the Shadowhunter world and stuff. But when her mom got missing, she unravels the truth about herself and her family history.

    I really enjoyed this book. It was filled with adventure and action. I love the villain the writer created. Honestly, he's the most manipulative and attractive villain. I like the Clary's character, she is just like a normal teenage girl with whom the other girls can relate to. Her geeky buddy Simon is the sweetest and supportive friend, we all wish for. Jace Wayland is a fallen angel who is an introvert and lives under the shadows of his father. I think Magnus Bane deserves the award for being the fashionista and coolest warlock.
    The plot is pretty twisted and I wasn't expecting the truth to be so bittersweet and heart wrenching. I was expecting this book to be filled with awesomeness, after all that hype and buzz about it. But it was good and enjoyable.

- See more at: http://letmebefictional.blogspot.com/2014/06/review-city-of-bones-by-cassandra-clarke.html#more

I wonder how many people realize that Jace (aka Draco) is basically Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I mean, she even used Spike's dialogue for Draco in the Draco Trilogy.

What I mean is that when she wrote the Harry Potter fanfic The Draco Trilogy, she merged Draco Malfoy with the Spike character to create her version of Draco. That same character was given a new name, Jace, and turned into a Shadow Hunter, instead of a wizard, for her Mortal Instruments series. Yet the traces of the characters are still there. Especially the similarities to Spike.

Physical Description

"[Jace] is described as having fine, curly, golden blond hair and eyes that look gold in the light with long eyelashes. He has a slim, muscular build and is about 5'11" in height. His face is often described as being beautiful, sexy, gorgeous and angular and Clary often refers to him as beautiful and leonine, with a narrow mouth." [source]

Clare even used actor James Marsters', who played Spike, chipped tooth (that was a the delight of many of his fangirls) in the formation of Jace's physical apperance. "The only flaw in [Jace's] face, as Clary has noticed, is the slight chip in his incisor teeth."

Personality

"Jace gives the impression of holding most people in disdain but is quite chivalrous toward women. He is extremely arrogant, [...] He can also be very sarcastic [...] very confident about his looks and has dated a lot of girls, [...] His charisma, good looks, and charm have made him quite the ladies' man, and he is implied to be somewhat promiscuous among girls." [source]

You can see in comparing dialogue how Clare "rewrites" other people's work to adapt it to her own books, and how poorly she does it. 

Spike: "I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man, and that's..."

Jace: "So I see who I am in your eyes, and I try to be that person, because you have faith in that person and I think faith might be enough to make me what you want."

Clare is hardly the first writer to do this. I recently read a blog post (which I will link once I find it again) about how a lot of the popular Motorcycle Club erotica are complete rip-offs of the FX series Sons of Anarchy. Not only copying characters, and plot points, but even dialogue. 

Then there's the case of the book the m/m romance novel Bear, Otter and the Kid which borrows heavily from the film Shelter. It stirred up such a controversy the publisher of the book, Dreamspinner, had to put out a press release insisting it wasn't plagiarism. 

Where do we draw the line? How do we know when a character or story for that matter is "inspired" by another work or an outright copy? Do you even care if an author borrows heavily from other mediums like tv or movies to create their books?

How far is too far? 

Is the situation with Clare's Jace similar to Joss Whedon admitting Mal from Firefly is based on Han Solo? 

What do you think?

~ Alec, City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

~ City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Beschreibung

Nachdem die Dämonenfürstin Lilith besiegt ist, fehlt von Jace und Sebastians Leiche jede Spur. Durch Liliths schwarze Magie wurde Jace Leben mit Sebastian verbunden und unterliegt nun seinem Willen. Doch die Liebe zu Clary ist so stark, dass er sie bei der Durchführung von Sebastians Plänen dabei haben möchte.

Um Jace Seele vor dem dunklen Einfluss Sebastians zu retten beschreitet Clary einen gefährlichen Weg. Sie mischt sich unter den “anderen” Jace und Sebastian und versucht deren finsteres Vorhaben zu vereiteln. Gleichzeitig hofft sie darauf einen Weg zu finden um ihre große Liebe wieder zurück zu bekommen. Ein schwieriges Unterfangen – vor allem da Jace wie ausgewechselt ist…

Meine Meinung

Nachdem ziemlich offenen Ende von “City of Fallen Angels” war es praktisch unumgänglich gleich in “City of Lost Souls”, dem bereits fünften Band der Chroniken der Unterwelt, weiter zu lesen!

Cassandra Clare knüpf ohne Umschweife an dem Vorgängerband an und die Magie ihrer literarischen Schattenwelt beginnt seinen Zauber zu entfalten. Mit einer zum zerreisen angespannten Atmosphäre beginnt ein neues Abenteuer, dass so einige überraschende Momente bereit hält.

Am schönsten an “City of Lost Souls” finde ich die zahlreichen und ziemlich komplexen Handlungsstränge. Hauptsächlich begleitet man Clary, Jace und Sebastian, bei denen die Situation nervenaufreibend und emotional wird.

Dennoch findet Cassandra Clare genügend Raum um auch die anderen Charaktere einzubinden. Ich finde es phantastisch, dass man dadurch genauso intensiv mit Simon und Isabelle, Alec und Magnus sowie Jordan (Kyle) und Maia mitfiebert. Die Entwicklung der Figuren lässt mich in die verschiedensten Gefühlsregungen verfallen, so konnte ich mir über Alec’s Verhalten einfach nur die Haare raufen und Clary’s Waghalsigkeit hat mir ziemliche Sorgen bereitet.

Die schnellen Wechsel zwischen den einzelnen Perspektiven hat eine tolle Dynamik in die Geschichte gebracht, die keinerlei Langeweile aufkommen hat lassen. Das Buch entpuppt sich nach und nach als reiner Pageturner. Viel zu schnell vergeht die Zeit mit den lieb gewonnen Figuren!!! Cassandra Clare ist wieder einmal ein phantastisches Meisterwerk gelungen für das ich 5 Grinsekatzen + Stern vergebe!

Eine kleine Anmerkung zum Schluss: In “City of Fallen Angels” werden zwar viele offene Fragen geklärt aber mindestens genau so viele neue Fragen aufgeworfen. Deshalb bin ich jetzt schon total gespannt auf den nächsten Band “City of Heavenly Fire” und hoffe, dass ich mir die Wartezeit darauf mit der Chronik der Schattenjäger

vertreiben kann.

Über die Autorin

Judith Rumelt wurde 1973 in Teheran geboren. Unter dem Pseudonym Cassandra Clare machte sie sich einen Namen als Fan-Autorin und schrieb zu bekannten Werken wie z. B. “Harry Potter” und “Der Herr der Ringe” ihre Fan-Romane. Ihr erste eigenständiger Roman “City of Bones” wurde nach seiner Veröffentlichung 2007 zu einem Welterfolg. Seither ist Cassandra Clare nicht mehr aus den Bestsellerlisten wegzudenken.

Information zur Reihe

Cover

Fazit

Ein rasanter fünfter Band der Chroniken der Unterwelt! Ein Muss für jeden Urban-Fantasy Fan!