Book News: Clare, Brennan, and Johnson to Pen The Bane Chronicles

Last week, the trio of Cassandra Clare (the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series), Sarah Rees Brennan (the Demon’s Lexicon trilogy, Unspoken), and Maureen Johnson (the 13 Little Blue Envelopes duology, the Shades of London series) teased that they had exciting news to share with their fans. Today Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life made the announcement: Clare, Brennan, and Johnson are to collaborate on ten serial e-novellas called The Bane Chronicles. The stories will center on Magnus Bane, the immortal warlock made famous by Clare’s Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series.

Sarah Rees Brennan explained on her tumblr how the idea for The Bane Chronicles came about during a group writing retreat:

“We all got to talking about the adventures Magnus must have had over the centuries, the people he’d met, the wacky hijinx he’d got up to, the costumes through the ages. Maureen mimed an escape in a hot air balloon and fell off the sofa…And we got to a point where we were writing a lot of it down, all together, because that is kind of our thing: we get together and write stuff and laugh our heads off about imaginary people. It was all going really well, and we were like, Wait. Could these be REAL stories? Could we do this?”

Brennan went on to explain that some of the stories will be the shared effort of herself and Clare, others by Clare and Johnson, and the rest would be the solo work of Magnus’s original creator.

According to Shelf Life, there will be one e-novella released per month beginning in February 2013. In 2014, these will be compiled into a physical book.

Who’s excited that we get to hear more about Magnus’s life? What do you think of the project being a collaboration? Let us know in the comments!