City of Unoriginal Writing... BLAH (2 Viewers)

[Plodygon]

I'm currently (and regrettably) reading a book called City of Bones. I don't know if any of you have heard of it, or actually read it for that matter, but I'm finding it horribly unoriginal and frustrating. It's the first book of a trilogy by Cassandra Clare called 'The Mortal Intruments'. Basically, in a nutshell, it's about a secret underground world with secret underground creatures living in New York. Demon hunters, demons, vampires, werewolves, faeries, etc.

When I first started reading it, I though I was in for a pretty good read.

But no. This book is so unoriginal, well, at least in my opinion. Basically, it's a crossover of Twilight and Harry Potter. Harry Potter, not so much because of the mythical creatures, but more because of the names given to some of the characters. Observe:

Valentine (main villian) - Voldemort?
Mundies (name for non-magical humans) - Muggles?

And it is a rip off of the Twilight series because we've got:

a) A stunningly beautiful main character who, of course, thinks she's not beautiful. Even though she constantly compares her looks to those of her mother, who is supposedly 'the most beautiful woman alive'.

b) Two rivals for her affections, human Siman and badboy demon Jace (Jacob and Edward?).

c) Her name is bloody Clary Fray... isn't that a pretty little name? (Bella Swan, Bella Swan, BELLA SWAN!!!!!).

:burn:Hmmm... so yes. Sorry about that rant, just really needed to get that out of my system.

Any disagreements? Comments? ... that's if you've read the book, I guess...

Read anything else completely unoriginal lately?

 

[russianROULETTE]

i thought exactly the same thing when i read it, first i thought Valentine's group was exactly like the Death Eaters, then i strated to draw a series of parallels. but then you get to the weirdo incest plot and you're like 'no... comparing this to harry potter would be wrong'.

but cassandra claire (yes, it used to have an i) was a harry potter fanfiction writer before she wrote original fiction. go figure.

i do disagree about her having a pretty name though. 'clary fray'... what's pretty about that, sounds like some sort of venereal disease.

 

[Plodygon]

Clary Fray... to me it seems gentle like the flapping wings of a butterfly. Which is revolting seeing what a horrible character she is.

About the author writing HP fanfiction, that's quite interesting. Who knows where she might have got her ideas from?

 

[russianROULETTE]

haha fair enough, i'll agree to disagree then. i do agree with the second sentence, though, she is horribly irritating for a large portion of the books.

the fanfiction she wrote was a trilogy on draco malfoy in which - from what i've heard (can't say for certain since it was actually deleted) - he was sort of a 'wounded bad-boy' (her interpretation of draco). i kind of feel like this is the image she tries to create for jace, and for that reason jace makes me think of an idealised draco malfoy.

also, for valentine - i always saw him as a bit like lucius. mind you valentine is no coward, but he has that sophisticated, aristocratic sort of upbringing and manner of carrying himself and speaking. and he's nowhere near as evil or creepy as voldemort was.

but yeah, clare definitely gleaned a lot of ideas from HP and twilight.

 

[0hNivlek]

Interesting. I'll start reading these after the trials heh.

 

[u-borat]

ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

ripoffs of harry potter and twilight?

you can't get much more cliched than those two.

 

[many-eyeshere]

I got given the book for a present. I haven't read it yet, but really if anything is popular and/or found in Dymocks or Angnus and Robertson you know it's badly written main-stream crap.

The only reason it's there is for the 13 year old girls and people with Twilight withdrawals.

I'm not dissing Pegiun Classics though, some of those are good.

 

[SylviaB]

Fuck man I thought the same thing.
Ever since Rowling and Meyer invented the idea of Wizards and Vampires respectively, all anyone's done is copy off them.
It's so sad.

 

[bleu]

Fuck man I thought the same thing.
Ever since Rowling and Meyer invented the idea of Wizards and Vampires respectively, all anyone's done is copy off them.
It's so sad.

haha nice

 

[mggail]

currently reading them atm, thought exactly the same thing, liked it at the start then the whole twilight/harry potter ripoff.. ew anyway still gonna finish them and see what happens but pretty much over it...

 

[miss_literature]

... kind of disagree

I really liked the series though.. it might be a bit stereotypical and yeah, I agree, it's a mix of Harry Potter and Twilight, but it's still pretty good.. Although I'm one of those people who gets really really really attached to characters, and I judge a book bad or not very good if I don't get attached to one of the characters.

Another good series.. anyone read Obernewtyn? Anyone in love with Rushton or Swallow like I am? haha

 

[iiinsane02]

I thought the books were alright, though, I did not enjoy reading about the 'incest' bit. IMO, I believe Meyer in Twilight uses mediocre language.

 

[disorder]

This is the series that involves angels too, yes?
I remember reading the summary and rather felt like tearing my eyeballs out when I got to the part about the nephilim. As though Meyer's comment about them wasn't enough to turn me off.

I'm of the opinion that more and more published authors should be writing bad romance on fanfiction.net rather than filling our bookshops with their trash.

 

[melli-girl]

Hmm, I dunno, I love that series
To me, it's pretty different to Twilight and Harry Potter - they aren't the only books to have wizards and vampires you know.

Mundies = Mundane, which means boring.

I don't think you could really compare Jace and Simon with Edward and Jacob, they're completely different characters..

It's like you're trying to dislike the book, and come up with parallels.

But yeah, I respect your opinion, my friend and I argue this all the time =P

 

[russianROULETTE]

Fuck man I thought the same thing.
Ever since Rowling and Meyer invented the idea of Wizards and Vampires respectively, all anyone's done is copy off them.
It's so sad

Hmm, I dunno, I love that series
To me, it's pretty different to Twilight and Harry Potter - they aren't the only books to have wizards and vampires you know.

there aren't any wizards in city of bones... no idea where both of you got that idea from. anyway, my main question is did either of you read the original post?

it's a crossover of Twilight and Harry Potter. Harry Potter, not so much because of the mythical creatures

no one's saying she copied the concept of vampires and werewolves from meyer/rowling, obviously that would be retarded. they're saying that there are so many elements of the plot which parallel twilight/HP that it seems hardly coincidental.

 

[HalcyonSky]

because twilight was so original, right?

 

[russianROULETTE]

because twilight was so original, right?

if this post was directed at me... no. twilight was a piece of rubbish, run of the mill vampire story with clever marketing (meyer got lucky). but city of bones annoys me more in a way because it had the potential to be original and instead decided to rip off elements of the most popular crazes of the moment. which were already ripped off in the first place.

 

[melli-girl]

there aren't any wizards in city of bones... no idea where both of you got that idea from. anyway, my main question is did either of you read the original post?

no one's saying she copied the concept of vampires and werewolves from meyer/rowling, obviously that would be retarded. they're saying that there are so many elements of the plot which parallel twilight/HP that it seems hardly coincidental.

magnus bane is a warlock - pretty much a wizard.

and i think that there are so many parallels, cause she really admires JK Rowling

 

[russianROULETTE]

magnus bane is a warlock - pretty much a wizard.

there's no standardised canon for warlock. look at the wiki heading 'in popular culture', male wizard is just one of the definitions. you can't just say warlock = wizard.

why am i defending cassandra clare anyway

 

[melli-girl]

there's no standardised canon for warlock. look at the wiki heading 'in popular culture', male wizard is just one of the definitions. you can't just say warlock = wizard.

why am i defending cassandra clare anyway

lol now i'm just confused, i thought i was the one defending Cassandra Clare !