Parenthetical.net

At the age of seven, Princess Alyss Heart of Wonderland watches her mother murdered in a bloody coup by her exiled Aunt Redd. Alyss escapes to Victorian London, where she is adopted by a middle-class family (friends of a certain Rev. Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, of course…) and tries to live a normal life. Meanwhile, those loyal to Alyss are fighting a doomed war against Queen Redd. Alyss’s personal guard follows her to our world, vowing to bring her back to claim her throne.

I heart (er… pun not intended) retellings. Gregory Maguire may not always make sense to me, and he has a strange fixation on the symbolism of dwarves, but I adored Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. I mention Maguire because Looking Glass Wars is very much in the same vein: if you liked Wicked, you’ll probably like this, and if you didn’t, you might like this anyway because it’s far more straightforward.

In fact, it’s a little too straightforward. This is a pretty standard good vs. evil story. No shades of grey (pink?) here: Redd is the evilest evil who ever ate fried puppies in bunny sauce. Good is dumb, and then triumphs anyway because they’re also loyal. And you want a predestined heroine? Hoo, boy!

Griping aside, though, it’s a fun book, and I’ll be reading the sequel. I’ll also check out Hatter M, Beddor’s spinoff comic, gorgeously illustrated by Ben Templesmith. It follows Hatter Madigan, the guard, on his many-year search of 19th century Earth. This is glossed over almost completely in the book (”Ten years later…”), and I can see it making a cool comic.

(Because book marketing interests me, I’ll note that the publisher is pulling out all the shiny promotional stops. The official website is Flashy and slow (a couple of minutes to load! on my speedy school connection!), and full of games and toys and ooh! sparkly! The author’s from L.A., and it all has a very Hollywood movie website feel. Which I’m not sure the book warrants, but ok.)