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The Bane Chronicles

Cassandra Clare,

Sarah Rees Brennan

Start date: February 1, 2015

Finish date: February 28, 2015

Discussion: Series

Why we're reading this: It won the poll for the series BOTM
[close] It won the poll for the series BOTM

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Series

* Continuing Series- Nightbane
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last updated Aug 12, 2025 07:32AM

* New Series- The Princess Trials
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last updated Aug 27, 2025 04:41PM

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What Members Thought

Jan 16, 2014 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult-teen-new-adult, library-has-a-copy, fantasy-science-fiction, cover-i-love

Over the years, I have read well over a thousand books and many thousands of characters. Characters that I have loved, characters that I have loathed. Characters utterly forgettable, characters utterly unforgettable. And out of them all, Magnus Bane is one of my absolute favorite characters. I loved him from the first moment that he stepped onto the page in City Of Bones and I eagerly followed his character development and storylines throughout The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. As Over the years, I have read well over a thousand books and many thousands of characters. Characters that I have loved, characters that I have loathed. Characters utterly forgettable, characters utterly unforgettable. And out of them all, Magnus Bane is one of my absolute favorite characters. I loved him from the first moment that he stepped onto the page in City Of Bones and I eagerly followed his character development and storylines throughout The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. As you might imagine, I was quite thrilled when Clare announced that she would be doing an entire series of short stories about Magnus. So, how did I end up liking them all? Quite a lot! I always knew that Magnus had a rich and fascinating history and life, but even I couldn't have guessed at everything he'd gotten himself involved in. I certainly wouldn't have expected him to cross paths with Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution or have crossed paths with (view spoiler) and it was interesting seeing his first meeting with (view spoiler). There's also fascinating backstory given for some of the characters she'll be writing about in The Last Hours and we get to see (view spoiler). I had not expected as much sadness from these stories as I got. Not in a bad way, but the reader definitely feels the weight of Magnus' years and all that he has seen and all that he has lost. With his overall fun loving, flamboyant, outrageous and frivolous persona, one can sometimes forget that he's hundreds of years old and has experienced so much pain and heartache and loss in that time and it weighs heavily on him. But this book is absolutely not an angst-fest nor is it likely to have you reaching for the tissues, there's many, many scenes of hilarity and I spent a good deal of this book laughing heartily. Clare has a gift for snarky and humorous dialogue and it shines here. She used this book to even further develop Magnus' character and I'm so glad that she did. Between this book and The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices, she has painted a very thorough and complete picture of who Magnus is. I also enjoyed her using this book to further the characters of people such as Catarina Loss and Ragnor Fell and Raphael Santiago and Edmund Herondale and to kind of fill in the blanks about what happened with people that she won't or hasn't yet written about in much depth. And I enjoyed her using these books to in general further develop the world of the Shadownhunters and the backstory of many of the famous Shadowhunter families. All in all, this is a very well written anthology and definitely something any Cassandra Clare fan needs to read. Given how this spoils some very pertinent plot points in Clockwork Princess, I would not advise reading this before one reads The Infernal Devices. Oh, and I loved Cassandra Jean's illustrations! ...more

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Jan 27, 2015 Kim rated it it was ok

Shelves: vampire-werewolves-such, boring, young-adult, book-club, blogged, not-for-me, 2015-botm-challenge-addicted-to-ya

I was willing to give this one a shot. I liked a lot of the City of Bones, but I feel like the work here is not the same quality as was given the other books. Magnus wasn't my favorite character before, but in these stories, wow, he is such an incredibly obnoxious jerk. Not one of those characters you love because they are themselves or whatever, but I cared even less for the character after these stories than I did before. I was hoping we'd get to see the "real" Magnus and really love him for w ...more

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Sep 11, 2020 Kate H rated it really liked it

Shelves: goodreads-yajuvenile

Cassandra Clare is an author whose books I do not exactly enjoy but who I cannot seem to stop reading. Everything about her stories, characters, and writing style should appeal to me and yet something about it just doesn't work. I have tried them as physical books, e-books, and audios and they don't really hold my interest but still I soldier on hoping I will enjoy them... ...more

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Aug 22, 2014 Courtney rated it liked it

Shelves: teens, audio

I listened to these on audio. It was interesting because every story was narrated by a different man, so Magnus had a different voice every time. In general, it wasn't a problem for me, but there was a least one reader I didn't care for at all. Overall, I enjoyed the stories. There were a few that were not really interesting at all and others I rather enjoyed. I loved getting to know Raphael better, and learning about his origin story. It was a lot of fun to learn more about a lot of side charac ...more

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