Cassandra Clare's & Holly Black's New Series News!

Last week it was announced that Cassandra Clare, the author of The Mortal Instruments & The Infernal Devices, was starting a new series with friend Holly Black. The first book, titled The Iron Trial, is out 2014. And Constantin Film, who has developed The Mortal Instruments, has already nabbed the film rights!

But the thing about this series is that it's going to push up every book in Cassandra Clare's series. Yes, push up! Here's what Cassandra posted on her Tumblr:

They’re not going to push back the Shadowhunters books. And you are not getting Dark Artifices late. The Iron books have in fact not pushed back the dates of the publication of City of Heavenly Fire and Clockwork Princess. They have pushed them up.

Yes. Up. Because of the books I am doing with Holly, you are going to get the next Shadowhunters books sooner, not later.

Let me break this down. Originally, when I scheduled the publication dates of the Shadowhunter books with Simon and Schuster, we were trying to get one out about every nine months. This is an insane schedule. It is, I was told by everyone, a “not-doable” schedule for a writer, because these books are long — about 120,000 words each — and writing a book takes a while. Generally, it is assumed, a year. But I thought “I can do this! I write fast and who needs sleep!” Clockwork Angel came out September 2010, then CoFA March of 2011, and Clockwork Prince was scheduled for September 2012. Except, because I was writing so much that I wasn’t doing other things like sleeping or regularly eating, I started having intervals where I blacked out, and eventually I fell down the steps of my driveway and broke two ribs and my wrist.

And that was something of a wake-up call, because I realized if I kept on at the pace I was at, I would be dead soon, and there would not be more books.

So (because of the broken bones) Clockwork Prince was pushed from September 2011 to December 2011. City of Lost Souls was pushed from March to May. And my agent went in and talked with Simon & Schuster, and pushed back Clockwork Princess to September 2013, and City of Heavenly Fire to December 2014.

Then came the idea of the "Iron" books:

Meanwhile, Holly and I had had the idea for the Iron books (we actually had it ages ago when it was a particularly crazy theory and we thought ‘what an awesome book that would make! Someone should write it!’ and then realized that probably … we should) and I was trying to figure out how they would fit in my schedule. One thing you don’t want is two books of yours coming out too close to each other. That is very bad for writers, for reasons complicated and boring to go into, but it’s true. If you have two a year, you want them as far apart as possible.

So while scheduling ourselves, I decided the Iron books would be fall books, which meant the Shadowhunter books would have to come out in spring. 

Here's how the publication schedule was changed:

• Clockwork Princess got pushed up from September 2013 to March 2013.
• City of Heavenly Fire got pushed up from December 2014 to March/April 2014.
• The Dark Artifices got pushed up from Winter 2015 to Spring 2015.

Now honestly, I hate this. I mean, I don't want the books to come out earlier. I don't want Cassandra to rush through the books, and then they'll turn out bad. And honestly, I'm so scared to read City of Lost Souls not just because it seems really scary and dark, but because it revolves around Sebastian, and not much around Clary & Jace. City of Fallen Angels was a big let down because it revolved around Simon and not much around Clary and Jace, and now I'm very scared for City of Lost Souls. I don't want her to rush through all the series. 


It's such a pain when I start slowly not liking my favorite author anymore, and right now, that's how I feel about Cassandra Clare. And right now, I honestly like The Infernal Devices much better than The Mortal Instruments, but that's just me.


Are you excited for Cassandra's & Holly's new book series?