The Infernal Devices is an interesting trilogy due to its time
period. Fantasy books tend to take place in the medieval times or in more
recent day they have started to take place in modern times, but the Infernal
Devices takes place in the late 1800s in Victorian England. I have read a
few other fantasy books in that time period but no more than five that I can
think of, without getting into the steampunk genre.
What really make the Infernal Devices stand out in that time
period is they affectively use their setting to help the plot, it is not just a
time period Cassandra Clare happened to throw her characters into. She
shows this through her use of machines. This is extremely different from what
the same story would look like if it was told today (which we can see if we
read the Mortal Instruments).
Each of the is titled with the work
Clockwork in it. This is an important
aspect of each of the books, as they are all centered around the rise in “new”
technology. I put new in quotation marks
because it was only new for their time.
They had creatures made of cogs and wheels running around working for
the antagonist. There was also a load of
inventions such as flash bombs and wheel chairs that came into being while the
books were going one. They also
described the architecture and how it was getting build and how it doesn’t match
the current day. All of these elements
helped control the characters and kept them from doing outrageous things,
therefor helping the plot along and not just being a fancy sight note.
