Book: The Looking Glass Wars
Aug. 21st, 2009 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amediaThis was fun! I collect weird editions of Alice in Wonderland - usually parodies or rewrites or pastiches - and this is a very enjoyable re-envisioning! A light, quick read, that will probably reward rereading. I aim to check out the sequels.
Okay, Tin Man fans. This retelling is weird, violent, steampunk, and psychedelic. It alters the original story by positing that this magical matriarchal land has just suffered a violent coup by a relative of the Queen and that the Queen has sent her young daughter into our world for her own protection. The daughter returns at the age of twenty and must rediscover her magical powers, which she has forgotten, in order to save her realm. She is assisted by a motley crew that includes her old tutor, who appears to have been working for the usurper, an embittered young Resistance leader, and fleeting visions of her mother the Queen, who reminds her of her true self.
Of course, there are also ways in which it differs from Tin Man! Unlike DG, this young princess travels to the 19th century and is separated from her home-dimension protector; she winds up being adopted by the Liddell family and becomes the Alice Liddell who tells the story of her early childhood to Lewis Carroll, who thinks it's all a pretty story and makes a book out of it, a fascinating reversal. (Not really a spoiler, as this is revealed in the first four pages.)
Okay, Tin Man fans. This retelling is weird, violent, steampunk, and psychedelic. It alters the original story by positing that this magical matriarchal land has just suffered a violent coup by a relative of the Queen and that the Queen has sent her young daughter into our world for her own protection. The daughter returns at the age of twenty and must rediscover her magical powers, which she has forgotten, in order to save her realm. She is assisted by a motley crew that includes her old tutor, who appears to have been working for the usurper, an embittered young Resistance leader, and fleeting visions of her mother the Queen, who reminds her of her true self.
Of course, there are also ways in which it differs from Tin Man! Unlike DG, this young princess travels to the 19th century and is separated from her home-dimension protector; she winds up being adopted by the Liddell family and becomes the Alice Liddell who tells the story of her early childhood to Lewis Carroll, who thinks it's all a pretty story and makes a book out of it, a fascinating reversal. (Not really a spoiler, as this is revealed in the first four pages.)
