When Clary Fray's attention is caught by a gorgeous looking guy at the all ages night club Pandemonium she's intrigued. When he follows an equally gorgeous, willowy brunette into a store room she's unsurprised, and when she notices two young men clad in black surrepticiously stalk the couple she's indignant. Clary asks her closest friend Simon, who's come to Pandemonium with her even though he hates trance, to talk with security, and she goes to investigate. Surprisingly the strangest thing isn't that the two men and the girl join forces to kill the gorgeous guy, but that she can see it - Alex, Jace and Isabelle are Shadowhunters. Also known as Nephilim, a race that may be the product of angels and humans, they are supernatural warriors who fight demons and share the Shadow World with Downworlders like werewolves, vampires and faeries.
This is the first of a planned trilogy, subtitled The Immortal Instruments - each novel deals with one of the tools integral to the Shadowhunters. In City of Bones Clary discovers that the Nephilim were ideologically split in two fifteen years earlier, when a charismatic and intelligent Shadowhunter, Valentine, tried to wrest the Mortal Cup from the control of the Clave, the Shadow Hunters' ruling body. By coincidence Valentine was man married to Clary's mother at the time.
Worried that the Shadow Hunters were losing ground against the demons, and believing they should also fight the Downworlders, Valentine wanted to use the Cup to create more Nephilim. When humans (or Mundies) drink from it they become Nephilim, or at least the 10% of those who survive the experience intact do. The rest become Forsaken, zombies loyal to those who created them. For many of the Nephilim this was too high a cost, but Valentine believed the cause was great enough to risk the lives of (potentially) thousands of Mundies.
This is an ambitious and absorbing debut novel that combines elements of a number of paranormal/supernatural/urban fantasy novels, that has themes and archetypes that reminded me of both the Harry Potter and Star Wars universes, while creating something unique and readable.
The protagonist is likeable and believable, and the supporting characters are strongly drawn. The plot is convoluted but not unduly so, fast-paced and gripping, and the world building/background is well integrated into the text. There's a little lightness, some inspired moments, and the tangled relationships between the teens (Alexc and sister Isabelle, Isabelle and Simon, Simon and Clary, Clary and Jace, Jace and parabatai [closer than brothers] Alec) are convincing.Though City of Bones is satisfactorily resolved, there are enough loose ends to be followed up that I'm eager to read the sequel, and frustrated that the final book has not yet been released. - Alex
No comments:
Post a Comment