This book is the third and final installment in a trilogy, but I have not reviewed the first two here. This is a good thing for you. Having read all three, I can prevent you from wasting your time.
Where to start? The trilogy is called The Looking Glass Wars and is also the title of the first book. The second book is called Seeing Red. The premise behind the series is that Alice and Wonderland are real, but Lewis Carol got the story wrong. I would describe the series best as Alice in Wonderland meets The Matrix.
Why did I gravitate to the book? You see that people collect things. You know someone who has a collection of sheep or birds or turtles or piano music. They mentioned at one time that they liked "sheep" and from that moment on they were gifted with sheep of every shape, size or color. Well, I love Alice. Always have and probably always will. I can identify with Alice one day and the Cheshire cat the next. And I have a collection of various editions of the book, various tea pots, Christmas ornaments and stuffed animals. They were even on display at the library recently. So of course, I hear of a new version of Alice and I own it.
Alice's Adventures in Quantumland is better reading. Seriously. I'm thinking of reading it again. I've got a copy if anyone would like to borrow it. Want to understand quarks? It's right here at my library desk.Lovely, it is.
Characters … you have Alyss Heart, the rightful Queen of Wondertropolis.To protect her, she is sent through the Pool of Tears to London where she is placed with the Liddells and meets Charles Dodgson. She tells the story of who she is and where she has come from to the Reverend Dodgson and he believes she has a fabulous imagination. Which, by the way, is true. However, while she is telling the truth, he believes it to be a story and decides to immortalize it in the now famous book. And he transforms a world at war into nonsensical fluff!
For instance, the White Rabbit is an anagram for Bibwit Harte, the longevous tutor for the royal family that happens to be very pale and have very long ears. The Mad Hatter is a spoof of Hatter Madigan, the Milliner. Consider him the best of an elite special forces group. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are based upon General Doppelgänger, the General of the troops who happens to be able to split into Generals Doppel and Gänger seemingly to infinite numbers as needed to direct military actions. And the hookah-smoking caterpillar seems to be a right-on description of the Oracles of Wonderland who reveal the future to the Royal Family, but instead of one, there are six.
And then there is the most frightenly magnificent - The Cat who became the Cheshire Cat. Imagine a killing machine/assassin, a humanoid cat who can transform into an innocent looking kitten at a moment's notice. Oh, and The Cat has nine lives.
There was so much potential there. I enjoyed the first so much. Second was all right. This, the third, well, it fell flat. It took forever to read. Most of it was confusing. There wasn't a whole lot of Alyss and she's the main character! The villains became more clownish than anything. And the true scary characters could have come out of a Hellbound/Pinhead movie. Nightmares!
So, if you're a diehard like me, go ahead and try it, but there is so much better out there in the way of books. Maybe the movie will be fantastic. I here the author is really a screenplay writer …
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