A Different Kind of Alyss

I’m coming to the realization that I love fantasy fiction. I do not like giving myself that title, because I lump fantasy in with sci-fi and I don’t enjoy sci-fi. But I love fairies, magical lands, and fairytale-esque storylines. The little princess in me screams for her dresses and Prince Charming. Cliché? Yes I know. Actually I prefer the magic and adventure over the marrying, but sometimes a little romance is fun too.  

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor is my latest fantasy read. Based on Lewis’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Beddor takes the idea of Wonderland to a whole new level. Actually this book is a combination of fantasy and sci-fi, but we’ll get to that later.

Alyss Heart’s seventh birthday is quite the celebration in wonderland. The Princess who will one day secede to the throne of Wonderland is beloved by the people and shows a lot of promise as a practitioner of imagination, but her Aunt Redd has other plans. The rival sister to the queen, Redd has been in exile because of her practice of black imagination, but she has built up her forces and on Alyss’s seventh birthday, Redd overthrows her sister and takes control of Wonderland. Alyss witnesses her mother’s death and barely gets out with her own life. The only way for Alyss to survive is to takeher chances in another world with Hatter, her mother’s body guard. But things go terribly wrong and Alyss and Hatter lose each other. Alyss ends up on the streets in Victorian England, while Hatter makes it his mission to find her. In Wonderland, things are going poorly with Redd’s rule, but after many years, Alyss finally makes her way back to Wonderland. She must learn once again how to wield her powers and stop Redd.

Beddor created a Wonderland that is both magical and technical. The card soldiers and more like robots and there are a lot of devices that fall into the sci-fi aspect of fiction. The story is interesting to see the twist from Victorian children’s fiction to what Alyss’s reality was in Wonderland. The characters were a little shallow for me. Motives and desires were easy to see and I didn’t feel there is a lot of depth to their personalities. The story is engaging and adventurous. It is a storyline that has been done hundreds of times before. Bad guy takes over and reeks havoc, so hero must step up to right things.

All in all, this is an easy read and entertaining. It is the first and a triology along with having offshoots of graphic novels devoted to Hatter. I am not itching to read the next two books, but I may pick them up at some point.

The Plantagenets

Philippa Gregory is known for her historical fiction. Many people know about her because of “The Other Boleyn Girl” a book that became a movie, but she found her nitch in the historical fiction arena, with a focus on English monarchs, more accurately, the women behind the crown.

In The White Queen, Gregory explores the Plantagenet’s, an extended family of English royals and wanna be royals who fought for the crown for years on end, brother against brother and cousin against cousin. In these civil wars known as the War of the Roses, the Lancasters, the red rose, and the Yorks, the white rose, both claimed their family should inherit the throne. Thus begins a war for power.

The White Queen refers to Elizabeth Woodville, a widow who becomes the queen of England by marrying Edward of York. Elizabeth is a descendant of a water goddess, Melusina, and the story weaves this tale throughout it. The magic and Sight that Elizabeth and her mother have are a big part of who they are and their power. It makes for two very independent, for the time, intriguing women. At a time when being called a witch could easily get you killed, Elizabeth, the queen, was proud of her magical lineage and her mother was a proclaimed witch. These are some ballsy women! If you don’t know the myth/legend of Melusina, there are some interesting poems and stories about this mermaid-esque woman who gave up her magic and essence for a mortal man she fell in love with, and this story makes a beautiful juxtaposition with Elizabeth's story.

Elizabeth is a strong woman willing to fight for the man she loves, her family, and her children’s inheritance. Throughout the book you see her grow in ambition and courage, even while she loses and is shamed.

Plots, murder, and war are central to the story. The reader gets a sense of the unease and rockiness of the time period when family cannot be trusted and even in times of peace and harmony, someone is plotting to overthrow the king.

Gregory is a historian. She does her research and weaves as much of the “reality” of the situations in with her own style. Seeing as these events took place over 600 years ago, the records are a bit hazy and there isn’t much information. Gregory admits that she fictionalized a lot of it, but based many of the plots, overthrows, and speculations off of popular theory and what records indicate.

I dove into this book with gusto. The storytelling is beautifully done and engaging. Gregory writes healthy sized books (400 pages), which can be intimidating to me, but I enjoyed reading about the drama and plots. However, I found that around page 300, I started slacking a bit. The plotting, overthrow, and instability during this period becamet overwhelming. Why can’t we all just be friends!? The ending left the book open for sequels, and guess what, there are currently four books in what has come to be called, "The Cousins’ War" series. I look forward to reading the next book, The Red Queen, but think I’ll give myself some time in between.

If you are into historical fiction, you should certainly check out Philippa Gregory. She has made a name for herself with this genre and for good reason.