Sneak peek at ‘The Shadowhunter’s Codex’ coming October 29

Something to help ease the wait until City of Heavenly Fire, which will be released in May 2014, is the forthcoming Shadowhunter’s Codex. The Codex, which is the same Codex mentioned in The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments, will be released on October 29.

Simon Schuster Canada shared a sneak peek at the contents of the Codex, which includes handwritten inscriptions from Clary, Simon and Jace.

Here’s a synopsis of the Codex:

With Valentine Morgenstern’s plan to disrupt the Shadowhunters’ world foiled, her mother awake from her coma, and her relationship with Jace Wayland finally getting off the ground, Clary Fray’s life has finally calmed down a little—just in time for her to begin training to fulfill her destiny and become a Shadowhunter, like her mother before her. She’ll immerse herself in their history, in their magic, in the Downworld of vampires and warlocks. She’ll learn to fight, to identify demons, to know the Shadowhunters’ places and territories like the back of her hand. And she’s racing to catch up with her fellow Shadowhunters, who have been doing this a lot longer than she has. Doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun, of course…

The Shadowhunters’ Codex is intended as a guide for fans to the world of Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. It provides a concordance to the many fantastical creatures, places, and things of the books, but also fleshes out the world of the Shadowhunters with new details, new monsters, new runes, new magic.

The Codex is the Codex itself, a textbook for new Shadowhunters, and also notes and art added in by Clary, commenting and updating things. (For one thing, the Codex’s official take on things is often not quite the same as what Clary knows to be true. The facts it claims about warlocks alone are outrageously incorrect!) It also contains many stories not yet touched upon in the Shadowhunter novels: the story of Jonathan Shadowhunter and how the Shadowhunters came to be, the creation of the Silent Brothers, the invention ofparabatai and much more.

Unlike the Shadowhunters novels, but befitting an encyclopedia of their world, the Codex’s articles are illustrated by a number of great fantasy illustrators: Rebecca Guay, Charles Vess, Jim Nelson, Theo Black, John Dollar, Michael Kaluta, Elisabeth Alba, and Cassandra Jean. It will be available for purchase by mundanes in late fall 2013.

You can pre-order The Shadowhunter’s Codex from AMAZON and BOOKS-A-MILLION.

How excited are you for the Codex?