THE BANE CHRONICLES debut to be pushed back to April?

It looks like fans might have to wait until April for the first installment of THE BANE CHRONICLES. Cassandra Clare took to Tumblr to talk some more about the highly-anticipated 10-story cycle series centered around Magnus Bane and among the things she discussed was that the first story, which was originally slated to be released in February, might be closer to an April release due to behind-the-scenes production.

I am actually still waiting on some details — the first installment is likely to be out closer to April than February, just because of the amount of time it takes in production to get it ready for Amazon, and the amount of time to create a cover, etc. After that they should come out roughly every month online until there have been ten. At some point after that, for those who do not like reading things online, they will be bound up into a book.

Clare also shared a snippet from one of the stories that was written by co-author Sarah Rees Brennan:

You could not tell a potential customer, expecting a learned and ancient magician, that you were not even fully grown. Magnus had started lying about his age young, and never dropped the habit.

It did get a little embarrassing sometimes when he forgot what lie he’d told to who. Someone had once asked him what Julius Caesar was like, and Magnus had stared for much too long and said ‘… Not tall.’ ’

The cover, which will appear in whole in the printed version due out sometime in 2014, will be broken up into 10 segments that will ultimately come together to form the full cover.

Each installment will be priced at something reasonable for what is basically a novella (somewhere between 1 and 3 dollars I’d guess) and the cover will be like a regular Mortal Instruments book, featuring Magnus, and for the online publication it will be broken up into ten sections, which as each installment is released will come together to form one big picture.

Clare talked about experimenting with this new e-book installment format:

This kind of project is something of an experiment, as in — not really done much in publishing these days but we thought it would be a fun opportunity to collaborate, to write about a character we all like, and experiment with serial fiction, as in, a story in installments. I feel like there’s a special pleasure to reading a story in installments that is like watching a TV show with episodes in installments. Dickens used to write in installments because his stories were serialized in magazines (Ditto Conan Doyle); we don’t really have that any more, but we do have the internet and online publishing.

Clare shared what inspired THE BANE CHRONICLES:

Basically the Bane Chronicles were born out of me being in France with Maureen Johnson and Sarah Rees Brennan and me mentioning that people often asked for a novel about Magnus, but that I didn’t feel like the novel form really fit Magnus, though I’d like to do a series of linked short stories but I didn’t have time.

Maureen and Sarah had both written essays for Shadowhunters and Downworlders, so their grasp on all things Shadowhunter and Magnus related was particularly keen at the moment. It turned out they had many brilliant ideas for stories about Magnus, including What Happened in Peru, and also What Happened When Magnus Met Will’s Father, and What Happened When Magnus Met Camille, and What Happened When Magnus Was in A Hot Air Balloon and How Magnus Figured Out What To Get Alec for His Birthday.

So basically we got the idea of writing what amounts to ten linked novellas about Magnus that would add up to the Bane Chronicles.

The first story due out is called “What Happened in Peru.”

How excited are you to read THE BANE CHRONICLES? Sound off in the comments!