Published August 31, 2010 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
3 Stars
Goodreads Review
Don’t miss The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, soon to be a major motion picture in theaters August 2013.In a time when Shadowhunters are barely winning the fight against the forces of darkness, one battle will change the course of history forever. Welcome to the Infernal Devices trilogy, a stunning and dangerous prequel to the New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series.
The year is 1878. Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to. Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them....
Review: Clockwork Angel is an interesting novel in that it produces a conundrum. I think it was better than The Mortal Instruments books, but pretty much the exact same story and characters. I would love to see Casssandra Clare write something other than a love triangle of sarcastic teens with modelesque good looks. All of her characters are the same, and it's getting old.
While the writing was better, this did not really work as a historical or steampunk novel. These characters are most certainly not Victorian, they are written in a modern voice with mostly modern sensibilities. Occasionally Tessa will think that something isn't proper or that servants shouldn't act a certain way, but because none of the characters ever seemed to follow Victorian propriety all this did was make Tessa look judgemental and prudish. It felt like all of the ideas about Victorian society came from Wikipedia. Also, just having a cheap imitation of Dr. Who's cybermen doesn't make your novel steampunk. Steampunk is highly stylizied speculative fiction and just inserting a few robots and putting "clockwork" in the title doesn't cut it. This felt very gimmicky and like a way to cash in on a popular trend.
Now with that said, I still did enjoy Clockwork Angel. Third times a charm I guess. I think this is largely due to Jem, the one character that felt new and fresh to Cassandra Clare's world. Tessa and Will are pretty much carbon copy's of Clary and Jace, but Jem actually felt like a fleshed out character with a unique back story. I was actually surprised at how excited I was to read a different character from Cassandra Clare (can you tell that I've been marathoning all of her books back to back?).
Overall the best offering from Cassandra Clare, but when you consider her other novels that's not saying much. I think if I hadn't read The Moral Instruments before Clockwork Angel I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but sadly this comes off as a more polished version of the novel she has already written.
No comments:
Post a Comment