Book: The Looking Glass Wars

[amedia]

This 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.)

Comments

[maubast.livejournal.com]

Are you going to watch "Alice" on Syfy? (I saw it and thought of you!)

Not Alice, But...

[maubast.livejournal.com]

P.S. Isn't this COOL!?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8214948.stm

[erinm-4600.livejournal.com]

Dude.. that is kinda EPIC! The website for the series is CRAZY, with soundtracks and all.

I have the book, but I haven't cracked it yet. Three years later and I'm still trying to finish the third day of Gettysburg o.O

[surranndie.livejournal.com]

...MY BRAIN. It just want *KABOOM 'SPLODEY*. Wooooooooooow. That is just....freaky. Anndie is wondering (what with the recent revealing of the whole "Alice" connection) if Nick Willing had originally considered making the Alice version but later decided that it would translate better into the O.Z. and Baum storyline. But now it's all one big soup of O.Z-erland. *head tilt*

[oddsbobs.livejournal.com]

haha! I love that book and all its strangeness. I've got the Red Queen (is that the title of the second book?) upstairs waiting to be read.