Sword Catcher

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Sword Catcher was by far one of my most anticipated reads of 2023, so it is much to my disappointment that I did not love this. It was hard to rate, too, but I ended up giving it a 2.5 stars.

The book really has two plots running parallel to one another with occasional moments of intersection. Kel/Conor are purely wrapped up in the events happening at the Court. It's where a lot of the city buidling is going on, it's meant to be a political intrigue situation. Conor seemingly is going to need to marry for an alliance in the very near future and there are some things that could get in the way of that. As a scholar once said, the only difference between a poison and a remedy is the dose. The deadliest poison is not fatal in a single grain, and milk or water can be lethal if you consume too much of it.” The Shadowhunter books succeed in the scaffolding that they are able to do, never really set in the fictional country of Idris aside for plot-related excursion, they are able to enjoy the fantasy tidbits while existing in very real metropolitan locations like Los Angeles, London, and originally New York. So when tasked with creating a world of her own to set the story in, it falls flat. Once again she seems to look to the Bible for some inspiration, and who can really fault her when so many fantasy authors have done the same. The titular book in Brandy Sandy's The Way of Kings is very Bible coded, Jay Kristoff's Empire of the Vampire is very much a horny fantasy Catholic France. It's a cute little tradition for the fantasy girlies. In Clare's world though things simply just don't add up. Information often contradicts, which is actually pretty par for the course given the genealogy issues she had to retcon in her most recent Shadowhunter works. So while playing with a well travelled path the ideas never really came together for me. So.. That didn't work in my favour at all. This was my first book by Cassandra Clare and it was a HUGEEE disappointment.

I think much is being made of the fact that Clare has finally written what is being marketed as an adult book, but as someone who has reluctantly at times followed the Shadowhunter Chronicles since childhood it really deserves to be underlined that it's just the first book to be marketed to an adult audience. Her middle-grade work aside I think Clare has long ceased writing for an actual teenage demographic, and the price of her books has been on the rise long before the YA category as a whole has seen the slow creep out of books that are readily accessible to every teenager. In some ways this being a non-Shadowhunter book feels more important, and honestly, the more telling factor in whether this was enjoyable. The Last Hours is a Shadowhunters trilogy set in 1903 in Edwardian London. It follows the children of characters from The Infernal Devices, though you can certainly read it without knowing those books. Now is a great time to start catching up to be ready for book three! I can’t say the pacing of this book was off because there wasn’t much to pace. There wasn’t much going on to really move the plot forward. Halfway through the book, I started feeling like I wanted things to wrap up so I could finish reading, which isn’t a fun way to feel while reading a book, especially one I was so excited about! After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina’s world travels and Britney Spears’ wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favourite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.

The characters in Sword Catcher are vibrant. Their relationships are well-crafted to a degree rarely seen in YA/NA books nowadays. The book is narrated through the points of view of two characters: the eponymous sword catcher Kel Saren and Lin Caster, an Ashkari physician. The other main characters, including Prince Conor Aurelian, are seen through Kel and Lin’s eyes, so we get their biased perspectives. It’s clear to see there is more than meets the eyes to most of them, but only time will reveal their true colors. Then there is a character named Lin who is given a strange, magical stone by someone in a manner of passing just as Kell was given one, being known for his travels between the worlds. I for one must agree with Martin on every point. Clare’s first high fantasy novel is set a wonderfully built world that’s introduced bit by bit, something fantasy often forgets to do. Moreover, Sword Catcher finds a triumphant balance between plot and character, but more on that later.Wanted to stand between him and a forest of bristling fléchettes. Wanted to stare down and demolish any enemy that wished Conor Aurelian harm. In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, a young orphan named Kel is stolen from his old life to enter a new one of luxury and peril. He’s to become Prince Conor Aurelian’s body-double, shielding the Prince from all dangers. As his ‘Sword Catcher,’ he and Conor become close as brothers – yet Kel lives for one purpose: to die for Conor. I was so excited when Cassie announced a new series that she is working on that is actually not in the Shadowverse and is adult fantasy. My pre-reading review said that I am so ready to read 20 novels in this world. The book came out and then there were accusations that she ripped of Schwab this time -who is also one of my favorite authors- and after getting my hardcover copy, I was having second thoughts, and my excitement was waning. The characters were all one dimensional. I could not understand them at all. Their motives were pretty clear in the beginning but it soon tried to develop into something more and eventually got all messed up.