Dead dead. Real dead. Double dead.

Remember when I said last year that @KateSherrod had needed multiple showers after reading Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black books?  That was NOTHING compared to the showers, brain bleach and other necessary mental hygiene adjustments one will need after reading Wendig’s zombie+vampire+zombie vampire novel Double Dead.

I am not kidding at all, this book is GROSS.  But still somehow charming? Seriously, this was how I read this book –  ”HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Ew.  Seriously, ew.  But still.  HAHAHAHAHA!”

Our hero (?) is Coburn, a “Noo Yawk” vampire that wakes up from a loooooong forced sleep to find that the world has been primarily taken over by zombies.  There are few humans left, which kind of means REAL death for Coburn, since the “blood” of the walking dead isn’t sufficient to power him.

What’s a hungry vampire to do?  Well, make friends with a fluffy little dog and somehow find himself as shepherd to a road trippin’ flock of blood donors, of course!

“Shhh,” he said. “Chill the fuck out, pup. Last thing I need is for you to call a gaggle of undead assholes my way. Is it a gaggle? What is it? It’s a school of fish. A murder of crows. A parliament of owls. What’s a bunch of fucking zombies? A cluster? A cadre? You know what? I’m going to go with a fuckbucket of zombies. Sound good to you, pup?”

Double Dead would have made my best of list for last year, if I’d read it before all those posts were written.  As it stands, though, I’ll have to make sure to include it for 2013.

Definitely not for everyone, but if you don’t mind some stomach churning gore and intensely disgusting situations that will make you laugh at the same time as you’re trying not to puke – give this one a try.

If this book were a movie, it’d rate about 9/10 on the Faces of Death gore scale.  I’ve learned that Wendig has a knack for making his readers uncomfortable, yet still keeps us coming back for more.

4.3/5 on my own personal book scale.  Maybe higher since I’ll never look at WalMart the same way again.

Thoughts on Justin Cronin’s The Twelve

Once again I find myself unable to actually review this book.  Since it’s a newer release, I certainly don’t want to spoil it for those of you that are looking forward to it.  Seriously, there are no spoilers in this post.

I’m sure you remember my massively edited post for The Passage.  I did not particularly care for it [the book, not my post - dur].  Mostly because I felt that it was both too long and not long enough at the same time.  I realize that sounds rather contradictory, but what I wanted was for the author to take his time with things, instead of just plunging us into new things…but not to drag on with unimportant details.

Was The Twelve better about that?

Kind of.  It’s definitely not going on any end of the year lists for me – unless they’re super snarktastic – but it was shorter, so that counts for something, right?

No, but really, as I was reading, I realized what I think the root of my problem with this series is.

Justin Cronin’s primary background is in the literary sort of fiction.  In fact, he states in the introduction to the first book that The Passage was really only written on a dare from his (at the time) 8 year old daughter.

Indeed, if you look at the Amazon rankings for that first book, you’ll see that it’s #1 in LITERARY fiction for Kindle, and #2 in ALL literary fiction.

I’m currently reading Philip Pullman’s soon to be released retellings of some of the Grimm Faerie Tales (review on that in a few days), and in the introduction, he has this to say about why faerie tales work:

A good tale moves with a dreamlike speed from event to event, pausing only to say as much as is needed and no more. The best tales are perfect examples of what you do need and what you don’t: in Rudyard Kipling’s image, fires that blaze brightly because all the ashes have been raked out. The opening of a tale, for example. All we need is the word ‘Once . . .’ and we’re off.

I bring this up now (even though I intend to expand on it further when I actually review that book) because most of his introduction here was a kind of lightning strike to that section of my brain that always wondered “Wait.  Is there something wrong with me?  This is something that EVERYONE ELSE loves, why do I not?”

I realized while reading this book of faerie tales that  it’s just because I don’t like most literary fiction.

And therein lie my problems with Cronin’s The Passage series.  It’s another example of literary fiction disguising itself as genre fiction, and I can’t stand that.  You may (or may not) remember that this was also my problem with Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, that was literary fiction disguised as sf – this is literary fiction disguised as fantasy.

Yes, I realize that these books are getting all the props for making vampires scary again, and I can appreciate that.  I really can.  It’s about damn time.

But I’m too much of an unrepentant genre geek to enjoy it.  The story drags in too many places with too many revelations of motivations for actions that happened 500 pages ago, and by that point I’ve already forgotten what’s supposed to be being explained.

Will I be reading The City of Mirrors when it comes out in two thousand effing fourteen?  It’s likely.  But then I’ll just rant because I can’t remember anything from the first two, and I’ll refuse to re-read them.

[eta] Thanks to Heather for slogging through this one with me.  She made it almost bearable.

I do have spoilery things I want to talk about, but I’ll add them on at the end on goodreads where I have access to spoiler tags.

Thoughts on Justin Cronin’s The Passage

I’m starting writing this now, before I’m even done with the book because I have a lot of things I want to talk about before I forget.  I don’t think this will even end up being a review at all, which is why I’m not titling it as such.

Listen.  This book…if you follow me on twitter or are my friend on GoodReads, you’ll know I’ve been struggling with this book.  It’s not because it’s terrible, because it’s not.  It’s more that I feel like it has a lot of unfulfilled potential.

David asked me on one of my gr status updates if I thought it might be my editorial eye that made me more willing to continue, because I was able to sift through what was and wasn’t working.  The more I think about this, the more I realize that he’s right.

The Passage could have been brilliant.  The problem here is either that Cronin’s editors and publisher let him down, or he let himself down by trying to fit TOO DAMN MUCH into the almost 800 pages of this book (and, actually, my ebook is over 800 pages, which is one of the reasons it’s so daunting).

It seems that lately, in the publishing biz, trilogies are the thing.  Forget the lengthy sagas or (god forbid) the standalone novel, no one wants those anymore.  Three books and tap out.  Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like that’s the current trend, and I think it’s detrimental to authors AND readers.

I know I’m in the minority with regards to this book (although the further I get, the more people I hear from who say they either gave up on this one, or WISH they had), but I don’t think I’d have struggled as hard to get through it, had this first book been broken into two or three novels, instead of one giant Epic Train Wreck.

Because when it comes down to it, that’s what this book feels like.  We aren’t given enough time to acclimate to one group of characters before we’re moving on because they’re all dead.  What the hell?  What was the point of learning 50 names if NONE OF THEM are important, after all?

If this book had been split up, we’d have had a chance to get to actually KNOW AND CARE ABOUT these characters so that the inevitable deaths meant something to us.

Conversely, if some of the irrelevant things that don’t actually end up meaning anything had been removed, this book could have been cut down to a much more manageable 400-500 pages, and it would have been so much better for it.

~o~

So, I just finished.  All of that up there is totally irrelevant now because I’m pissed.  That was the stupidest book, and I can’t believe I wasted my time.  Even up through the last 15 pages, I was thinking “You know, if the second book is better, maybe I’ll give it a chance.”

Now I’m just mad and wishing I had a physical copy of this book to burn.  Ugh.

~o~

SO.  That first part is what happens when I start talking about a book I haven’t finished.  The second part is what happens when I finish a book and start writing about it while I’m still SO ANGRY ZOMG.

I’ve had several hours to cool off, and while I’m still angry, I’m not all capattack and sweary like I was when I finished yesterday.

This was me when I finished reading (Heather D, avert your eyes):

@katesherrod @tnbbc WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK HOW IS THAT AN ENDING?!?!?!!!!!!!!

— sj (@popqueenie) October 6, 2012

Am I still mad?  Yes.  Do I hate this book with every fibre of my being?  No, that’s reserved for the work of Chuck Palahniuk, thank you very much.

HOWEVER.  I guess I just don’t get it.  I don’t understand how this was, like, the most TALKED ABOUT BOOK of 2010 (which is probably why I avoided reading it until now), I don’t understand why the majority of the ratings and reviews I’ve seen are so positive.

As I said above in that crossed out part, this book COULD HAVE BEEN so excellent.  I kept noticing little parts that would give me shivers and parts that were just so well written, I could ALMOST see what everyone was raving about.

The majority of the book, though (at least 75%) was confusing, boring, and really in need of both paring down AND fleshing out.

So, I’m asking.  I need those of you that have loved this book to explain why.

(DO NOT tell me that it’s because it’s just like The Stand.  I will be very tempted to call you a liar.  I’ve read The Stand many times, and the only similarity between Cronin and King is that they both need to let their editors do their effing jobs.)

 

Trashy Tuesday – City of Fallen Angels

I’m seriously super glad this is the last one in this series for now.  I know most of you have enjoyed reading why I hated these books so much, but I’m really glad to be able to stop talking about them.  While this one wasn’t as obviously derivative as the rest, it was still very bad.  I get frustrated and depressed while reading because I can’t believe this crap is popular when I know so many authors that deserve the recognition much more, for writing actual characters with depth and original voices.  If I haven’t mentioned it before, it’s a good thing we’re constantly told who’s speaking in these books because every character has the same voice.  EVERY.  CHARACTER.  God, if you’re going to rip off every popular thing in the history of pop culture, at least please work on your dialogue.  Anyway, this one was the worst.  The majority of the book was stuff like ”oh, you have two girlfriends, you should stop doing that.”  ”I know I should stop doing that, but how do I pick one?” and “I really really love you, are we going to do it?”  ”I don’t know, do you think we should do it?  Maybe we should, I’m just going to stab you first, ‘kay?”  It was beyond tiring, but I guess you’ll see that now, won’t you?

So we left off with Valentine killed by an angel, Jace killed by Valentine, but resurrected by the aforementioned angel and Jace and Clary making out because they weren’t brother and sister.  Blech.  Simon has the Mark of Cain on his forehead and hasn’t been killed by the Vamp Coven of NYC yet because of it.

Jace is having disturbing dreams about Clary.  Like, start out sexy dreams, but turn into him stabbing her repeatedly and ish.  Clary’s trying to snuggle up now that they’re no longer related, but he keeps pushing her away.  He’s afraid something is wrong with him, and doesn’t want to hurt her.

Oh, and Sebastian?  The one that is actually Clary’s older brother that Jace left for dead in Idris?  Yeah, someone is trying to make other babies like him by feeding the mothers demon blood, but the experiment is failing and only these deformed, clawed babies are being born.  Yuck.

Simon is still living at home, trying to convince his mom he’s just a normal boy.  This becomes difficult as she wonders why he’s not eating and is acting even angstier than most 16 year old boys.  She finds his refrigerator full of blood and freaks out so he puts her under a glamour and runs away.  While on the street (hiding his forehead with his emo bangs and being a babealicious vampire stud), he’s attacked by some thugs in grey tracksuits that try to force him into a van, but before he can even properly defend himself, they turn into pillars of salt.  Mark of Cain in action, baby.

He’s forced into some meeting with the ACTUAL head of the vampires in the area and she asks for his help taking down Raphael, because he’s just a little upstart usurper.  Since he’s got the Mark, the two of them together would be virtually unstoppable.  Simon says he needs some time to think about it.

I know we haven’t mentioned it in a while, but Simon’s got this band.  They’re a typical band of teenage boys that can’t make up their minds what they want to be called, but they somehow manage to get a few gigs now and then.  He’s been kinda sorta dating both Maia (werewolf) and Isabelle (Shadowhunter) for the last few weeks and has to stagger which performances they can come to so that they don’t run into each other.  Not only that, but there’s this little girl Maureen.  She’s, like, 14 and his BIGGEST FAN.  Not in an Annie Wilkes kind of way, but in a “ZOMG, SIMON I LOVE YOU, YOUR BAND RULES!” way.

So, Simon’s band is playing and he hasn’t been feeling too well since his mother destroyed his blood stash.  He starts to get sick on stage and rushes outside.  Maureen follows him out and he bites her and drinks her blood.  He’s interrupted by his newest bandmate, Jordan.  (Jordan turns out to be Maia’s ex-boyfriend, the one that turned her into a werewolf in the first place.  He claims that he didn’t mean to attack her, and that he wanted to apologize, but that after, he was taken in by this Werewolf Secret Service type group that goes around teaching new wolves to control themselves.  Um…okay.)  They decide that Maureen will be okay if they just leave her there in the alley and let her forget about what happened.

The next day, Simon gets a note telling him that his girlfriend has been kidnapped and that if he hopes to rescue her, he needs to show up at XXXX Address by –:– o’clock.  He is calling around to the three girls he thinks it could be…Maia, Isabelle and Clary – but they’re all safe and decidedly not kidnapped, so he thinks maybe it was just a joke.

Meanwhile, Jace and Clary are this close to their FIRST TIME.  They’re hanging out in Jace’s room and down to their undies kissing and junk when Jace pulls a knife out and cuts her.  Say what?  Wow, dude.  Way to ruin sex for her for life.  Good job!  She doesn’t run away screaming, though, she sits and makes him talk to her.  Seriously, I think the hardest part of this book to get through were the endless conversations.  The first 80% of the book was talk about feelings, and Simon’s two girlfriends, and then more feelings.  Blah.  Anyway, so Clary convinces Jace that he needs to talk to one of the Silent Brothers.

I know, right?  They were all killed in the second book?  That’s totally what I thought.  I guess there were a few (like Yoda and Obi Wan) that escaped the massacre, and they’re back in business at the City of Bones.  There, we learn that Jace is – I’m trying to remember how it was put and I’m failing.  When he was killed by Valentine on the shores of Lake Lyn, then brought back by the angel Raziel, his soul was gone from his body for a few minutes.  When it came back, they never told anyone what had happened (I think it’s because Clary didn’t want anyone to know that she’d wasted her one wish on a selfish jerk, but whatever).  All Shadowhunter babies have this ceremony performed when they’re young because for some reason they’re especially susceptible to demonic influence.  Since Jace didn’t have this ceremony performed when he was reborn, he’s being controlled by a greater demon in his dreams.  GET THIS BOY BAPTIZED, PRONTO!

Jocelyn and Luke are having an engagement party thrown by Luke’s pack.  Jace shows up and somehow convinces Clary that the Silent Brothers cured him already and starts talking about how he wants to be bound to her.  The Shadowhunters don’t have weddings, they draw runes of commitment and binding on each other to signify that they’re all soul-matey and stuff.  Stupid Clary for some reason agrees EVEN THOUGH SHE’S ONLY SIXTEEN, but then starts freaking out when she realizes that the rune Jace is drawing on her isn’t the one for marriage.  She gets knocked out and he kidnaps her.

Maureen shows up to taunt Simon about killing her.  After he drank most of her blood, she was picked up and turned into a vampire.  He follows her, realizing that she was the girlfriend the note was referring to.  Isabelle, Alec, Jordan and Maia follow because of this business card that Simon left behind conveniently, that has the address of the building where everything’s about to hit the fan.  They get to the building and start checking out each floor, looking for their friends.  On one floor, they find a room full of cribs, each with its own dead, deformed baby.  The person trying to create more Li’l Sebastians can’t seem to get it right, and this room is evidence of that failure.

Jace is up on the roof with Clary, along with a strange glass coffin-like object filled with some type of suspension fluid…and Sebastian’s body.  Maureen brings Simon up there, and we finally learn the identity of our big-baddie.  It’s Lilith, the first wife of Adam, who was mother to all demons and the biggest, most powerful demon of them all.  She’s the one that’s been possessing Jace in his sleep, and forced him to draw another commitment rune on his chest that allows her to control his actions when he’s awake.

She reveals her terrible plan, which is that since Simon is a daywalker, his powerful blood (which contains Jace’s powerful blood) will be able to revive the demon-blooded Sebastian and help her create a new Master Race.  It sounded kind of stupid when she was telling it, but that could just be my prejudice against this series speaking.  Simon is forced to drain Sebastian (because Jace is under orders to kill Clary if he doesn’t), but since Sebastian is all demon-y, his blood is like poison to Simon.  Clary does something smart for once, by turning to Jace and saying something stupid and girly like “ew, gross, I can’t bear to watch!” but when he puts his arm around her, she steals his knife and slashes at the rune on his chest.  The power of the rune is broken and Jace comes back to himself, horrified at what he’s done to his supposed One True Love.  He yells at Clary to run away, and she does, but she hides behind some plants or something because she’s a stupid gawker that has to see how everything turns out.  She’s back to being an idiot again.

Since Jace and Simon think Clary’s gone, Simon stops drinking and Jace decides to stand up to Lilith.  She reveals that she knows where Clary is hiding and goes all Evil Indiana Jones on her, repeatedly whipping her out of her hiding place.  Simon throws himself in front of the whip, and the Mark of Cain acts once again.  Now it’s Lilith that’s turned into a pillar of salt.

The Shadowhunters all arrive at the scene and Simon heads down to fill them in on what happened on the roof while the rest of the kids were battling the mothers of the demon babies downstairs.  Jace and Clary have a tender moment, once again professing undying love for one another, then Clary goes down to assure her mother that she’s okay.

Once he’s alone, the cut rune on Jace’s chest begins to heal, and even though Lilith is dead…Sebastian isn’t.  Jace starts hearing Sebastian’s voice in his head, and is compelled to finish the resurrection ritual.  CLIFFHANGER ENDING!

I know, right?  So, I guess the next one is coming out in May.  You’ll be hearing about it then, for suresies.  I have yet to decide what to read/write about for next Tuesday.  If you have any ideas/suggestions, leave them on the What is Trashy Tuesday page.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the song I had running through my head while I was reading this, it’s better than anything that happened in the book:

Trashy Tuesday – City of Glass

Oy.  Book Three of the Mortal Instruments series.  Only one more after this (but I suppose I’ll have to read the others when they come out, if only so I can continue to bag on them) but this one is a doozy, guys.  We have fighting and torture and murder and PLOT TWISTS!  But, you’ll probably see most of them coming from eleventy billion miles away.  Since I’ve already wasted a bunch of words bitching, I should get started, yeah?

Okay, Clary is supposed to be heading to Idris with the Lightwoods (Alec, Isabelle, their parents and their little brother Max) and Jace.  Jace tells Clary they’re not leaving until later because he thinks she needs to stay put, and asks Simon (the daywalking sparkly vampire) over to back up the lie he tells his foster family about Clary changing her mind about going.  Simon arrives at the Institute just as they’re attacked by Valentine’s minions.  Magnus Bane holds the portal open for them, and Jace has no choice but to pull Simon through with him.  Clary (of course) is furious and acts a twit, deciding to just open her own damn portal.  Luke knows she’ll manage to mess it up somehow, so tags along with her.  Werewolves aren’t exactly welcome in Alicante (the capitol city of Idris), so he realizes that going is a bad idea.  He knows she’ll end up getting herself killed if she doesn’t have someone with her that knows the ropes, though.

This proves correct immediately, as Clary’s portal doesn’t open in Alicante.  Rather, it opens over Lake Lyn, this cursed lake that the angel Raziel supposedly rose from to create the Shadowhunter race.  Clary swallows the water and starts hallucinating.  Luke drags her over hill and dale to his sister’s home in the city.  His sister was once married to the son of Umbridge the Inquisitor (his name was Stephen Herondale), but when Luke was attacked by a werewolf, Valentine demanded that Stephen divorce Amatis, as her family line was no longer pure.  I know.  It’s not like Luke and Stephen were going to be having babies together so the logic is specious at best, but…whatever.  Anyway, Luke has pack business to take care of, so he leaves Clary with his sister.

The Lightwoods are staying with some friends in the city.  We’re introduced to Aline and her cousin Sebastian.  Jace gets all flirty with Aline (which pisses Simon off for some reason) and everyone thinks Sebastian is kind of a creep, even if he is super handsome.  The new Inquisitor demands that Alec bring Simon to HQ, and Alec assures him that they’re just going to use the main portal to send Simon back to New York, since his kind aren’t really welcome there.

WRONG!  The Inquisitor locks Simon up after he refuses to implicate the Lightwoods as current Deatheaters members of the Circle.  It’s not just any cell, no!  (Actually, I’m going to go on a bit of a language rant here.  The guy in the cell next to Simon tells him that they’re being held in an oubliette.  Now, [and I just looked it up to make sure] an oubliette is usually a dungeon in a castle [which is kind of appropriate here] BUT it is accessible ONLY from a hatch in the ceiling.  This cell that they’re being held in has barred windows AND a door.  I’m sorry Ms Clare, but what you’ve described is most certainly NOT an oubliette.  Moving on.)

Back with Clary, she sneaks out of Amatis’ house to go find her friends.  She gets directions to where they’re staying and walks in on Jace making out with Aline.  Clary gets all pissy and they have this huge fight that leads to her storming off.  Sebastian follows her, and Clary tells him all about her mother in the coma and how she has to find this one warlock (Ragnor Fell, jeez warlock names are stupid) because he might know how to wake her.  Alec and Jace fight about something stupid, and Jace yells at him, telling Alec that he knows Alec thinks he loves him, but it’s just because Jace is the safe choice.

Sebastian shows up to take Clary out to see Ragnor Fell the next day.  Somehow, this kid that just showed up knows all the happening places, I guess.  They get there, and Magnus walks out of the house.  Sebastian is frozen in place (because Magnus thinks he’s skeezy) and he tells Clary about how Ragnor was dead when he got there, but the information he has for her indicates that she needs to head to Wayland Manor and look for a cookbook.  The cookbook is a lie, it’s really a soopersekrit spell book that Magnus wants, and it will also help him wake her mother up.  Sebastian kisses Clary, but she pushes him away (because he’s a creep).

Simon is visited by Raphael’s projected self.  He’s told that he needs to run far far away, because as a sparkly vamp, he’s too dangerous to let live.  He tries to escape from his cell, but  since Simon’s got all this daywalker strength, they’ve taken the added precaution of inscribing the bars and and the door knob with Stars of David.  Cos…you know, Jewish vampire and all.

Jace is at Amatis’ when Clary gets home.  He goes with her to Wayland Manor (since he grew up there and knows where the cookbook is) and while there, they find an honest-to-goodness angel imprisoned in the basement.  The angel shows them its memories, and they learn that Voldemort Valentine was experimenting with Angel and Demon blood, feeding them both to Jocelyn during her pregnancies.  This is apparently why Jace and Clary have super powers.  She was fed dried Demon blood during her first pregnancy (Jace) and dried Angel blood during her second pregnancy (Clary).  The angel uses Jace’s knife to kill himself and the manor implodes, but not before they escape.  As they’re laying in the grass, recovering, there’s another (icky) make out session, but Clary finally stops him to tell him that she won’t allow herself to be used like that.  Yay, she acts like she has a brain!

They get back to Alicante to find the city in flames.  The wards that protect the city are no longer functioning and Max, the youngest Lightwood, is killed by Sebastian.  We didn’t hear much about Max anyway, so there was little emotional impact, but this is where we learn that Sebastian is working with Valentine.  They break Simon out of the prison, and discover that his cell-mate was Hodge.  Hodge tells them that the third Mortal Instrument that Valentine seeks is the Mirror and that the Mirror is actually the cursed lake that Clary took a dunk in a few days ago.  Sebastian kills Hodge, then runs off.

Valentine projects himself into the middle of the survivors and tells them that he will resume the attack on Hogwarts at midnight if they don’t send him Harry Potter.  Wait.  No, he will resume the attack on the CITY at midnight (the following day) if they don’t surrender.  Some of the older members of the Clave are all “hell, yes, we’ll surrender, we don’t want to die!” but others agree to work with the Downworlders (an unprecedented move) in order to save themselves from Valentine and his demon hordes.

Clary and Jace spend the night together (nothing dirty, but they do hold hands all night) and she wakes up to find him gone.  There’s a stupid sappy note left behind.  She goes downstairs, and her mother walks in, because Magnus made good on his word to heal her once he had the book.  We learn that the reason Simon can walk in the daylight is because he drank Jace’s super-enhanced blood, AND that Jace is actually the son of Stephen Herondale (grandson of the previous Inquisitor) and his second wife AND that SEBASTIAN is actually her brother.  YOU STILL KISSED YOUR BROTHER YOU STUPID GIRL!  UGH.  So, to sum up:  Sebastian was the one given demon blood in vitro, Jace got the angel blood.  Clary also got the angel blood, but it was by accident as Valentine wasn’t aware Jocelyn was pregnant a second time.  Clary comes up with a way to bind Shadowhunters and Downworlders together, giving each the fighting prowess of the other.  She also puts the Mark of Cain on Simon’s forehead, so that he can’t be killed by the vampires who despise and envy his abilities.

Jace has run off to kill Sebastian and Valentine.  Valentine leaves his little cave hideout to summon the Angel Raziel.  The one who summons the angel gets one wish.  His wish is to kill all of the Shadowhunters he doesn’t already have on his side, so he can start anew with his little master race.  Sebastian and Jace fight, Jace wins and runs off to stop Valentine.  Clary ‘ports herself to the lake to stop her father, but he binds her with spells to keep her silent and immobile.  Jace shows up and Valentine kills him.  Somehow Clary manages to change the runes on his summoning circle, so when the angel rises from the lake, he ends up getting pissed off at Valentine and kills him.

Clary is given the one wish, since she changed the runes to her name…and she wishes for Jace to be brought back to life.  [sigh]  Really?  You get one wish.  FOR ANYTHING!  Bah.

The book ends at a big party with fireworks and whatnot…and Jace and Clary kissing, only this time we don’t have to be squicked out cos they’re not actually related.