The Looking Glass Wars

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Item number (ASIN): 1405216476
Author: Frank Beddor
Edition: Export Ed
Format: Import
ISBN: 1405216476
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Manufacturer: Egmont Books
Number Of Pages: 224
Package Dimensions: 118 x 598 x 827 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: October 4, 2004
Publisher: Egmont Books
Binding: Paperback

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Average Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A very different Wonderland
The premise of this book is that Alice in Wonderland is actually Princess Alyss of Wonderland. who ended up in Victorian England while escaping her evil Aunt Redd who kills her parents and takes over Wonderland. Alyss (re-named Alice by a teacher who insists that she's spelling her name wrong) finds a sympathetic ear in Reverend Dodgson (i.e. Lewis Carroll) and tells him the entire story of her childhood only to have him make nonsense of it and turn it into the book Alice in Wonderland. Alice continues to grow up in England while Hatter Madigan, her family's bodyguard continues to search for her so they can return to Wonderland (and the city of Wondertropolis) to battle Redd and reclaim Wonderland, as she is its rightful princess. An interesting storyline, no? It is a satisfying read if you're looking for something fast and glossy but you get the sense that the author is hoping you'll be so distracted by his new additions to the story (Redd's Army, White and Black Imagination) that you won't notice that there is really no substance to the story. I actually really liked his reimagining of Wonderland because it gave it a slightly darker twist. I do think he needs to work on character development though and maybe in his descriptions of Wonderland. I saw Redd as a very dominant character who would be difficult to defeat and Alyss didn't seem that strong throughout the book. Also he spends an adequate amount of time describing Wondertropolis but the descriptions of any other location in the book are cursory at best- just enough so you know that is where the character is at that point in time but not enough so you get a feel for the place. I also thought the ending was a little too neat but I like the concept enough that I will continue on with the series.

Rating:

- Highly recommended by my daughter
My 10-year-old daughter read this book and liked it. She says, "I like the way it took an old story and made it into something new and exciting. I could not put it down." If you are seeking books for a precocious reader, this one is recommended. My daughter devoured it within a day. Mom will have to add it to her reading pile, now.

Rating:

- An interesting "re-imagining" of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that doesn't quite connect
"He'd transformed her memories of a world alive with hope and possibility and danger into make-believe, the foolish stuff of children." So says Alice Liddell, or rather, Alyss, about Charles Dodgson's (Lewis Carroll's) new book, Alice in Wonderland. Dodgson has collected all of Alyss' shared recollections about a place from her earliest memories and turned them into...ptui!...popular fiction for young adults. He's even spelled her name wrong. She's very upset about this. In The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor gives us the first installment of a series of tales about Wonderland, from the other side of the looking glass. His Wonderland is a real place, an alternate dimension from the Earth we know, where imagination is the power to create reality. Alyss is the presumptive heir to the throne, the next Queen of Hearts, until her fairytale future is shattered by a bloody coup engineered by her Aunt Redd, a seriously disturbed royal who didn't meet the sanity standard for queenship. Heads roll, and Alyss flees into exile, falling through a watery portal into Victorian England, where she's eventually adopted by the good Reverend Liddell and his family, her memories of Wonderland fading over the years. After her altercation with Mr. Dodgson, Alyss spends another few years in limbo until she's discovered by a long-lost retainer from Wonderland who's been searching for her ever since they were separated during their flight from Redd. He arrives just in time to avert Alyss' impending marriage to a British royal. Together, they return to Wonderland to set things right, but Redd's firmly established on the throne, and unseating her won't be easy. The Looking Glass Wars isn't a bad story. It's well-written and showcases Mr. Beddor's creativity in his vision of Wonderland. Unlike the original Alice in Wonderland, though, there's no poetry or profound feeling of strangeness that immerses the reader in a completely alien realm. If anything, this Wonderland might seem a little too familiar to anybody who's been to the movies in the last five or ten years. It tells a story with a beginning, middle, and end, but it never took hold of me. It was pleasant, but not compelling. Yes, this is a "young adult" book, but I've still got enough kid in me to get wrapped up in a good kids' story, when I find one. The Penguin Speak paperback copy I bought was a nice product. The cover had a coppery sheen to it, the backcover copy told me everything I needed to know about the story inside, and the artwork was attractive. Unfortunately, the depictions of the card soldiers, including the descriptive text within the story, painted a picture uncomfortably like the droid troopers from the Star Wars movies. I was waiting for one of them to sound off with a cheery, "Roger-roger," but they remained mercifully silent. There are interior color plates with more cool artwork, very pretty and creepy in an American McGee's Alice sort of way. One of the reimaginings that I thought was fun and mostly worked was casting the Mad Hatter as a sort of covert agent/bodyguard, part of a network of agents known collectively as "The Millinery." Lots of sharp objects are tossed about, including hats that morph into nasty, razor-edged weapons ala Oddjob from the James Bond movies. Alyss picks up a personal bodyguard toward the end of the story by the name of Homburg Molly, who's a very focused apprentice spy and one of the few characters not cribbed from Alice in Wonderland, which may be one reason I found her so appealing. The poor Cheshire Cat appears as a humorless cybernetic assassin on Redd's team who loses his nine lives one-by-one, mostly at the hands of his homicidal mistress. There are multiple Caterpillars in the story, and they're all mystic sages of some sort (nobody who plays around with the Alice stories seems to be able to think of anything else to do with them), but as in the original, they're not much help. We still have no idea what's getting smoked in that hookah. Bottom Line: The Looking Glass Wars is an interesting "reimagining" of the Alice in Wonderland mythos, but it fell a little flat for me. There's some very creative worldbuilding. The secondary characters created by Beddor for this story are a bright spot, and I expect them to grow into star players by the end of this series. Not a bad read, especially for an older tween, but, for the love of all that's good and true, introduce them to Lewis Carroll's immortal works first.

Rating:

- Absolutely Amazing!
I found this book at a garage sale yesterday and decided to buy it. (the cover was eye-catching) Notice I said yesterday. That's because I read this entire book in twenty-four hours - and not because it had few pages. "The Looking Glass Wars" is a fabulous book that really enchanted me from the very beginning. Normally, beginnings of books are rather boring, the set up for the real entertainment, but not in "The Looking Glass Wars." I was pulled in right away and, before I knew it, I had finished the entire book and couldn't wait for the second one. I have read a whole bunch of books in my life and this one has had a unique feel to it that put it on my "Absolutely MUST Read List." I encourage everyone to read this book, even if you don't enjoy the original book. You might find yourself transported to another world.

Rating:

- The Looking Glass Wars
"The Looking Glass Wars" makes use of Lewis Carrol's famous tale, and makes it completely original, allowing Frank Beddor to expand the Wonderland legacy.The characters are strange(The cat is an assassin with nine lives), the settings are fantastical(Two characters have to enter The Looking Glass Maze), and the abilities are amazingly strange(General Doppelganger splits into generals Doppel and Ganger on occasion.) The story begins with a flashback, a one page story entitled "The Birthday Party", which builds up suspense without actually giving any key story elements away. Beddor's trilogy will let you figure out plotlines without actually reading that particular chapter(s), but it's written in such a way that knowing what will happen makes you know even less about the plot, which in turn builds suspense, if you know what I mean, because I don't! The story begins in Wonderland, where Alyss Heart, the heir to the throne of Wonderland, leaves for the real world to avoid her murderous Aunt Redd, who reminds me of Ryan Leaf, the 1st overall pick of the 1998 NFL draft. After that it becomes a tedious, bland, and weak book, in which nothing of importance really happens. Soon, the Alyssians, as the free peoples of Wonderland call themselves, assault one of Redd's fortresses. From then on, the story returns to its old form, and many creative plot twists happen, including Alyss being engaged to the Prince of England! It becomes an involving and gripping thrill ride. Thank you, Frank Beddor, for writing this trilogy. You've outdone yourself with "The Looking Glass Wars". Rating: A Strongest Point: Diversity Weakest point: Personalities Best Character: Hatter Madigan Worst Character: Prince Leopold Author: Frank Beddor Reviewer: Desmond Conwright Book 2: B- Book 3: B+