Sam Downing

I’ve been a reader of Cassandra Clare for a while: in the early ’00s I enjoyed her Harry Potter Draco trilogy (pretty much the only fanfic I’ve ever read, I swear!), I lapped up the Very Secret Diaries like everyone else on the internet, and last year I consumed her The Mortal Instruments trilogy in about a week.

Thus I am qualified to say that Clockwork Angel, the first instalment in The Infernal Devices trilogy, is her best work yet.

So Devices is basically a prequel to Instruments (it’s not necessary to have read Instruments to get Devices, though I’d recommend it), set in a late-19th century London infested with demons and “Downworlders” – Clare’s term for vampires, werewolves and other supernatural beasties. Fortunately regular humans, or “mundanes”, are protected by the Shadowhunters: an elite band of warriors descended from angels (more or less).

Tessa Gray comes to this world from New York City, searching for her missing brother Nate, and soon encounters two teenage Shadowhunters and best friends: the beautiful, arrogant Will (who’s basically the same character as Jace from Mortal Instruments, at least at this stage in the trilogy), and the sensitive, sickly Jem¹ . Naturally a love triangle begins to blossom, as Tessa is pulled into a dangerous mystery building in the Shadowhunter world.

The individual elements of Clare’s works are rarely that original, and that goes for Clockwork Angel – there’s the usual steampunk tropes, familiar demon-hunting tropes, the character-types you’ll find in most YA novels, all wrapped in customary snark – but that isn’t an insult. Clare has a knack for combining stuff we’ve seen into an enjoyable, compelling story.

Clare’s writing adopts a Victorian style which suits her well, but be warned that Angel is very heavily geared towards setting up the next two parts, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess – don’t pick it up yet if you’re the type of reader who interprets “tantalysing clues” as “frustrating loose-ends”.

Fortunately I am not that type of reader. Clockwork Angel is entertaining, dare I say ripping stuff, crammed with invitingly detailed world-building – I even read it during my lunchbreak at work, and let me tell you, I don’t do that for just any book.

1. for the record: Team Jem! Will is the Bad Boy, and I’m not into the Bad Boy. [↩]

I was chatting with a friend not long ago about Neil Gaiman’s writing style, and we agreed that his is an authorial voice you either like or you don’t: my friend doesn’t like it, but I do. A lot. Gaiman has a knack of adapting to whatever genre he’s writing in, but his work always has a sense of the very old, the very deep, and the very strange.

I started The Graveyard Book with high expectations, and wasn’t disappointed: Like all the best children’s literature, it’s wildly imaginative, seductively scary, and a sophisticated read for both kids and adults.

Loosely inspired by The Jungle Book, Graveyard is the story of a baby who escapes from the ruthless killer who’s murdered his parents, and escapes to a very old graveyard. Rechristened Nobody “Bod” Owens, he’s raised by the graveyard’s ghostly  inhabitants and encounters vampires, werewolves, witches and other beasties as he grows up. (The Guardian has a more detailed, though mildly spoilery, synopsis; I recommend going into it without knowing about the plot’s direction.)

It kind of reminded me of Harry Potter, if Harry Potter‘s sprawling story was condensed into a single book: Graveyard has the same magical, captivating and adventurous tone. I felt really sad when I turned the last page, both because of the way the plot wrapped up, and because I’d finished a really great book.

Each chapter advances Bod’s age by around two years and stands alone as a story (more or less), making this a breezy read. If you never read anything of Gaiman’s before, this is a fine entry point.¹

Gaiman has proposed writing more books exploring the backstory of the Graveyard universe, but with a darker, more adult tone – a sort of “The Lord Of The Rings, to which The Graveyard Book would have been The Hobbit“, in his words. I want to read that book so bad. Right now. (Especially since the propects of a Graveyard Book movie aren’t looking so hot right now.)

1. After you finish Graveyard, try his short story collection Fragile Things. Then move along to American Gods and Anansi Boys, or maybe Coraline (which I haven’t read, yet, though the movie adaptation is stellar), if you’re looking for more “kiddie” stuff. I haven’t sampled Sandman yet, but I plan on getting to it one day. [↩]

Cards on the table: I am no fan of Twilight. Luckily no one reads this blog, or I’d probably be flamed by fangirls wearing Team Edward tees for writing that. (For the record, I am Team Jacob. One. Hundred. Per. Cent.)

But while I’m happy to sit around picking Twilight apart, there’s one criticism that sticks in my craw. One criticism that actually inspires me to – gulp – defend Twilight:

“But vegetarian vampires is stupid! Vampires don’t sparkle in the sun! A vampire would tear a human apart, not fall in love with her!”

Uh, yeah. Vampires aren’t actually real, don’tchaknow. It’s impossible to decide what a real vampire would or wouldn’t do – there are no real vampires. Pop culture has many things to say on what a vampire is, those things aren’t laws.When people complain that Twilight‘s vampires aren’t “real” vampires, they’re really just complaining that Twilight‘s vampires aren’t the same as the vampires in a book/film/comic/etc that they like better. Any writer is free to interpret vampire lore how they choose.

Maybe this only bugs me because I, like Stephenie Meyer, have written a book featuring non-traditional vampires. (Sadly, unlike Stephenie Meyer, I am not an uber-bestselling bazillionaire.) (Yet.) But if you want to rag on Twilight, don’t rag on its vegetarian vampires. Rag on the fact that Edward Cullen is a creepy stalker.

The main character in my book is a vampire. I started writing said book in around 2005 (from an idea that first came to me in the late ’90s), back in the day when vampires weren’t totally off the cultural radar, but you probably had to be a Buffy fan to care much about them.

Fast-forward to 2009, when my book is finally done, and vampires are everywhere.

I kinda thought this might pose a dilemma. Like, I’d submit my book to an agent who’d be all, “Oh, jeez, another bloody vampire novel. Pass me a form rejection letter.” I was so concerned about this that when I wrote my first query letter, I tried to write around the fact that my book included a vampire by not mentioning the vampirism at all.

Yeah, that didn’t turn out so great.

Eventually I just laid out the vampire-ness of it all in the query’s first paragraph. So what if it’s yet another book about a vampire? My protag isn’t anything like the vampers dominating pop culture right now. Hopefully that’ll work in my favour when I’m ready to start querying.