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Seeing Redd: Looking Glass Wars, Book Two (The Looking Glass Wars) ReviewThis second volume in Beddor's "The Looking Glass Wars" series decides to pick up the story where the earlier volume left off. With a war-weary Alyss trying to consolidate and rebuild her kingdom and become accustomed to the responsibilities of rule while dealing with all the loss and pain of the past. Trouble is looming, all too clearly in the future and Alyss has many enemies and plotters to face that seek to dethrone her and claim Wonderland for their own. For those who haven't read The Looking Glass Wars, this book won't be easy to read without having the back story from the original.Of course, there's no doubt with the title that the main villain of the first book will be back. Redd is now loose on Earth, gathering together a dark force of exiled Wonderlanders and villains who flock to her side. Like the first volume in the series, this one relies on some references to the classic work of Alice in Wonderland as well as other literature and mythology--but from there it departs into its own territory. Redd is out to retake her place as reining sovereign of Wonderland and to crush all resistance and goodness that might oppose her. King Arch of Boarderland is a scheming, chauvinistic tyrant who wants to undermine Alyss and Wonderland for his own ends--and has a weapon that threatens the destruction of both countries if used. Against them is Alyss, and her band of faithful Wonderlanders who seek to restore peace and white imagination to the land. In its way it is an interesting plot and characters, but it just doesn't completely work.
To be honest, this series has an identity crisis. The idea of basing a story on the original writings of Lewis Carroll but changing the original perception is intriguing and not without some merit. But Beddor takes only the surface images and suggestions--ignoring Carroll's deeper satire and symbolism and suggesting that, in fact, Carroll is a foolish man who keeps getting the story wrong. Granted, this is the author's prerogative to do--but it may put off admirers of Lewis Carroll who find the depiction unpalatable. Likewise, the original Alice stories tend to work without a sense of good vs. evil--everything is kept much more ambiguous. Beddor's work follows a much more strict aligning of good and evil and places the players in their assigned roles without much wiggle room. A bigger problem is the tone and setting: the prospect of Alyss being a princess, then Queen of Wonderland and the champion of White Imagination in a place where talking caterpillars live and tarty tarts are served sounds like something out of a kiddie story. There's a strange sense of naiveté about the fantasy background that is a bit like someone setting up a Disney animated movie--and then throwing live action battle scenes into it. The violence is overkill--quite literally. Beddor's story keeps trying to play two contrary tunes that don't mesh well and made reading it an uneasy experience.
There are deadly characters who sound more at home in an X-men movie. There are weapons of massive violence and death, pain, betrayal. There are dark plots that would be more at home in an epic fantasy for adults. Redd kills her own parents when they deny her the throne. Dodge Anders is trying to deal with his desire for revenge and love for Alyss. Hatter grieves for his lost love. Some of the depictions of these characters are quite good: the Jack of Diamonds being one of the more surprising, and Hatter coming into his own. But these are overshadowed by the two-dimensional depictions of the main villains and Alyss herself. Alyss is all good, white imagination. Redd is all bad, black imagination. The extremes of Redd and her band are caricatures--when so many of the other characters are trying to achieve a more rounded appearance. And then from the dark and violent--there are scenes like the one where Redd treats the caterpillars to Tarty Tarts for information and the whole tribe of them act like a group of lost boys from Peter Pan. It's too silly and trivial in a story that has become so dark. Likewise the constant presence of "cute" Wonderland references--dormouse snouts, chessmen, card soldiers, etc. -keep pulling the reader out of the story and disrupting the tension. Beddor's writing feels like it wants to leap out of the strict black/white, good/bad mentality, but doesn't quite know how to break down the child-like pardigm and put something more complex in its place.
The first book in this series was a bit on the questionable side for younger readers because of the violence inherent--this book really doesn't merit being termed a children's book at all. It is an adult fantasy novel that has some interesting ideas and plotting, but ultimately fails to be written to an identifiable audience or have a consistent tone. Unlike the previous story, that has a positive and defined conclusion, Seeing Redd doesn't wrap up all the outstanding storylines and readers will have to wait for the third book at least to see what happens between Redd and Alyss. Older readers of fantasy who have some knowledge of Lewis Carroll's work may find some enjoyment in these books, but they are not for readers who are uncomfortable with excessive violence. Those who like these books may want to look into Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series and Shannon Hale's Goose Girl and Enna Burning.
Happy Reading! Shanshad ^_^
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