Kay's Bookshelf

Reading The Looking Glass Wars, my favorite character just had to be Hatter Madigan — he was undefeated and simply cool. I was happy to find him in this book too, looking just the same (“The hat, the dramatic swing of the coat, the spinning blades on his wrists: Hatter Madigan.“). His coolness factor though, in my eyes, has decreased. I know that the author has tried to make him more human by giving him feelings, but having them made Hatter lose his imperturbable ways and become simply yet another character (or at least that’s how I felt). Nothing much has changed when it comes to the other rest of the cast: Alyss is still good, Redd is still evil, king Arch still despises women, Dodge is still obsessed with killing The Cat and so on. There was an interesting new character, Weaver — or at least I had high expectations from her because she was supposed to be a top scientist; she sort of disappointed me but, to her defense, she didn’t have that many lines either (which is too bad as I would have loved to get to know her better).

Overall, while I have absolutely loved the previous book, I have been sort of disappointed in this one. First of all it sort of lacked the magic The Looking Glass Wars had, as the author sort of bothers less with inventing new details for the world he has created (although he does mention a guppy tree with fish-faced leaves :) ). And then, all the real life references that have previously charmed me are now gone. Sure, Lewis Carroll does put in a small appearance, and, most importantly, I know that all the interesting events have already been used; and yet I could not help missing that part of the story.

One of the things I did like, both in the previous book and in this one, was the fact that the problems in Wonderland were not magically erased when Redd disappeared, a detail that I think made the book(s) more authentic:
Redd’s more public works might have been dismantled or renovated into oblivion, but her influence on

Wonderland’s culture was still noticeable. Redd had rewarded the worst in them. Their narrow-mindedness, selfishness, and pessimism had flourished at the expense of kindness, generosity, and goodwill toward others—the fundamental principles of White Imagination. General Doppelgänger insisted on retaining peace-keeping contingents throughout the city, and at least once between every rising of the world’s twin suns, a Wonderlander would approach one of these to report a parent or neighbor for treason.

I have yet to decide how I feel about the writing style. The cinematic qualities of the book(s) cannot be denied, and I had lot of fun while reading imagining how this or that particular scene would look. And yet, perhaps this book has pushed it all a bit too far: I used to enjoy what I call “broken phrases” (phrases broken in the middle by something suddenly happening), but they became too many after a while and I sort of started longing for uninterrupted phrasing. Also, the onomatopoeias, while making the action more dynamic at first, ended up being tiring and just plain strange after a while (“Kccrkchsshk! Pfoooghaashhh!” to give but an example).

What I liked most: The way Redd and The Cat appeared on Earth (show spoiler

What I liked least: I was a bit bothered by the open ending. Meaning the book stops sort of half-way (in an obvious attempt of the author to make the reader buy the next book too). I don’t particularly enjoy it when this happens.

Recommend it to? Anyone who read the previous book (The Looking Glass Wars) and is curious what happens next.

This book is a sequel to:
The Looking Glass Wars

This book is followed by:
ArchEnemy

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