The Looking Glass Wars: 1 - Softcover

Beddor, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142409413 ISBN 13: 9780142409411

Publisher: Speak, 2007

Synopsis

The Myth: Alice was an ordinary girl who stepped through the looking glass and entered a fairy-tale world invented by Lewis Carroll in his famous storybook. The Truth: Wonderland is real. Alyss Heart is the heir to the throne, until her murderous aunt Redd steals the crown and kills Alyss? parents. To escape Redd, Alyss and her bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, must flee to our world through the Pool of Tears. But in the pool Alyss and Hatter are separated. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life. Yet he gets the story all wrong. Hatter Madigan knows the truth only too well, and he is searching every corner of our world to find the lost princess and return her to Wonderland so she may battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.

About this title

Review:

The first of his Alyss of Wonderland trilogy, Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars is a storming, imaginative tour-de-force that deserves to be not overlooked. Using Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s story, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as his inspiration, Beddor has created something new and original, something fresh and exciting.

Beddor imagines that Alice’s wonderland did indeed exist. That it was not fairy tale. Princess Alyss Heart was heir to the throne of Wonderland, but was cruelly usurped when her Aunt Redd stormed Wondertropolis and murdered her parents. Fleeing for her life, Alyss was transported to our world, to the world of Charles Dodgson and literary Oxford in the late 19th Century. Taken in by the Liddells, Alyss at first steadfastly refused to denounce her true bearing as fiction. But after years of convincing nobody of her origins and noble birth--Alyss Heart became Alice Liddell. And it was Alice Liddell who inspired Dodgson to write his legendary novel about her--despite Alyss’s accusations that he has cruelly twisted her story to make light of her heritage for entertainment.

Alyss’s Wonderland is an occupied land that must be freed. And Alyss eventually realises that she must once again go back to her true home and try to reclaim it. And it is going to be a bloody reckoning.

Beddor has pulled off a wonderfully complicated twist of creativity and his ambitious novel is on many levels enormously satisfying. The author has previously been a ski champion, stunt double and actor, but it is perhaps his continuing role as a Hollywood film producer that most influences his debut novel. The book is a visual feast that is begging to be made into a film. But for now, its life as a book is a deserved one. (Age 10 and over) --John McLay

Review:

"Beddor offers some intriguing reimaginings...His attention, happily, put Wonderland back on the map again."--Booklist

"The tale is clever and flows like an animated film,"--School Library Journal

"[Narrator] Doyle juggles an eclectic and other-worldly ensemble, never letting anything hit the ground."--Publisher's Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Speak
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0142409413
• ISBN 13: 9780142409411
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400