ArchEnemy by Frank Beddor

Plot

The war for Wonderland has become a war for Imagination!
King Arch has declared himself King of Wonderland as Alyss searches wildly for the solution to the metaphysical disaster that has engulfed her Queendom. The power of Imagination has been lost!


Alyss's search for answers takes her to London where Arch's assassins threaten Alice Liddell and her family. But after coming to her adopted family's assistance, Alyss discovers herself trapped in a conundrum of evaporating puddles. The shimmering portals that exist to transport her home through the Pool of Tears are disappearing! What is happening in Wonderland? Deep within the Valley of Mushrooms the Caterpillar Oracles issue this prophecy: "Action shall be taken to ensure the safety of the Heart Crystal. For Everqueen." But who is Everqueen?

---

So...the third and final book in the Looking Glass Wars trilogy.  I'd like to say it was a vast improvement from the previous two installments, but that would be a lie.  It was pretty much another 370 pages of the same.  Mediocre writing, sloppy sentence structures and a shaky plot.

This review's gonna be pretty abbreviated.  I really can't write another blog about how it's not great but it's not horrible.  So I'm just gonna add a couple more comments that came to me, while taking notes on this reading experience.

Beddor has this strange habit of making up a word or device, but failing to adequately define what exactly it means.  The idea of creating your own world of inventions isn't an unheard of practice in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, but the fact that he consistently names off gadgets and fails to even give a basic description was slightly annoying.  I could get an idea in my head that would do for the sake of picturing actions in my head, but the fact that I don't what I should be imagining took away from the ability to know that I was on the same proverbial page as the author.

This strange practice is made further confusing by Beddor's almost anal attention to detail in other aspects of the story.  He went so far as to make the Lewis Carroll in the book have a stutter (something which a quick Google search shows me was factual), but then is completely lax on defining what a "smail-transport" is.  Odd, to say the least.

I also found myself a little put off by Beddor's need to write in sound effects.  I didn't like being taken out of the story, cause I had to spend an unnecessary length of time trying to figure out the pronunciation of "feeeeeeeooooooshhhhkaaaghghgk".  "Bang", "boom" or even "fwoosh" would do the job just as easily and my brain doesn't try to eat itself.

Bottom line, same as the last two, it's a decent read for a boring afternoon with nothing else to do.  I can't say it's a great ending to the trilogy, but it's passable.

~Missy

Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor

Plot

Alyss of Wonderland’s rule has only just begun and already those who prefer chaos to peace are threatening to destroy everything worth imagining. Trailed by newly appointed Royal Bodyguard Homburg Molly, Alyss does her best to keep pace with the spiraling, non-stop demands of being Queen while attempting to evade Molly for a few private moments with Dodge. Alyss’s life is already a challenging mix of duty, love and imagining when a series of phantom sightings set fire to an urban myth of her Imperial Viciousness’s return and have everyone…Seeing Redd.


Has Redd somehow freed herself and her chief assassin, the Cat, from the confines of the Heart Crystal to challenge her niece once again? If not, then who has resurrected Redd’s brutal footsoldiers, the Glass Eyes, and set them loose to attack Wonderland on all sides? Battles rage, looking glasses explode and the Alyssians are once again uniting to defend White Imagination in this fast-paced second book in The Looking Glass Wars trilogy.

---

So...for obvious reasons, I found that the second book in the Looking Glass Wars trilogy suffers from pretty much the same problems as the first book did.

Like with The Looking Glass Wars, the writing and story are by no means horrible, but they're not exactly great either.  Beddor seems to have frequent issues with adequately conveying his ideas.  I found myself having to read and re-read sentences, before I could really figure out what exactly he was trying to say.

Beddor also has a few issues with showing the reader where his characters are at, emotionally.  I found myself spending most of the book thinking that one particular character was a bad guy masquerading as good, only to find out that that was never supposed to be the case.  And, no...that wasn't me misinterpreting what was written.  He honestly presented the character in a way that made it seem 100% that they were completely aware of certain facts, only to claim complete ignorance to the fact later.  It was weird and I can't adequately explain exactly what I'm talking about, without spoiling a few key points.

On a side note, to anyone that does read any of the books, what is up with Hatter's backpack?  No matter how many times I read the description of it, I cannot for the life of me get what it does.  Is it a Swiss Army knife?  Corkscrews?  Really?  I'd be far more accepting of the idea, if it didn't sound completely ludicrous (and that means something, when you're reviewing a book set in Wonderland).

Bottom line, if you read the first book, you'll probably find yourself gravitating toward this one too.  They're both decent enough that you'll probably want to find out how the rest of the story pans out.

~Missy

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Plot

Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, was forced to flee through the Pool of Tears after a bloody palace coup staged by the murderous Redd shattered her world. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the surreal, violent, heartbreaking story of her young life only to see it published as the nonsensical children’s sojourn Alice in Wonderland. Alyss had trusted Lewis Carroll to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere would find her and bring her home.


But Carroll had got it all wrong. He even misspelled her name! If not for the intrepid Hatter Madigan, a member of the Millinery (Wonderland’s security force) who after a 13 year search eventually tracked Alyss to London, she may have become just another society woman sipping tea in a too-tight bodice instead of returning to Wonderland to battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.

---

I went ahead and read the original two Alice stories, before starting on this book.  I figured it might help to have the originals fresh in my mind, before diving into the "true story" version.  It in no way helped.

That's not to say the book was bad.  On the contrary I enjoyed it.  I mean, don't get me wrong.  This was definitely not a book aimed at my age range or reading level.  There's a good reason you'll find it in the teen section of the library.  It's quite simply because it's just not that challenging of a read.  It's a fun read, but not a challenge.

To begin with, the story is a little slow.  Interesting, but not exactly action packed.  The writing's juvenile at times, but I really can't get myself to hold a book based on a children's story aimed at teenagers to a very high standard.  I know some of you may disagree, but that's just my opinion.  I'd say this falls about "middle of the road", as far as writing skills are concerned.  Not great, but by no means horrible.

One interesting thing I noticed was a strong similarity between Redd's queendom (yes...QUEENdom) and the society depicted within one of my previous reads...1984.  This could go either of two ways.  Either Beddor was paying homage to Orwell...or he was ripping him off and counting on his teenage readers to be not well-read enough to realize.  I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here.  What can I say?  I'm in a good mood.

One thing would have made this book substantially better.  If it had no tie Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  Honestly, aside from the tie-in of having Carroll publish Alyss's story, there really wasn't much point to tying one to the other.  The Looking Glass Wars can stand perfectly well on it's own.  References to the original work are barely noticeable and not all that important in the grand scheme.  Having the books connected seems to serve more as free publicity for Beddor's work.  Like Alice in Wonderland  Why not read this book too, then?  Pointless.

Bottom line, it's a decent book.  Like I said, not great but not horrible.  Definitely a book to read if you've got an hour or so to spare and wanna give your brain a little rest.

~Missy

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Plot

A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light.

---

So I liked this book.  I really did.  For anyone that's a fan of the show Castle, it's definitely am emjoyable read.  If you follow the show closely like I do, you'll know that "Richard Castle" drew inspiration for the Nikki Heat books from his own experiences tailing detectives of the NYPD and each of his police characters are inspired by a "real" NYPD detective.  Rook's relationship with Heat almost mirrors Castle's relationship with Beckett.  Almost.  It was well-written, considering it's supposed to come from an author that doesn't technically exist.

That being said, this book was pretty much an episode of Castle in book-form.  That's not exactly a bad thing, but if you're going to essentially turn your show into a book, you might as well just write a Castle tie-in novel and market it as such.  Don't try to sell it as a seperate entity.

Bottom line, if you like Castle, you'll like this book.  If you've never seen Castle, you'll probably still enjoy and, as an added bonus, you might feel compelled to watch the show, which is a must-see.

~Missy

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Plot

Mikael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.


But he has no idea just how explosive the story will be until, on the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander.


As Blomkvist, alone in his belief in Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation of the slayings, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all.

---

A lot of hype comes with this book, as well as with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  With that much expectation, a book is almost certainly doomed to fail.  Fortunately, that didn't happen here.  I completely enjoyed this book (Side note: The first book I got to read on my brand new Kindle).  Even more than I enjoyed reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, something I didn't actually realize until I sat down to the write this review.

While reading, I found myself feeling that the story didn't progress as quickly as it did in the first book (and even in the first book, it took a while to get going).  As I got to the end, I almost felt like it was rushed.  It seemed like everything suddenly got wrapped up within the last few pages (or "pages" as far as the Kindle is concerned).  Now, that I'm typing this review, I can honestly say it had a nice pace.  Sort of an abrupt ending, but that's to be expected with the middle book of a trilogy.

Larsson has (had?) an insane ability to really give his less desirable male characters these disgustingly misogynistic traits.  If I didn't already know his inspiration for writing the Millennium Trilogy, I'd be tempted to think that he honestly harbored that attitude toward women.  His writing is that good, in my opinion.  Another thing I enjoyed about his storytelling was that he would plug in references to actual events in Swedish history, within the story.  I don't know.  Maybe other authors do it too and I just never noticed, cause I subconsciously understood and didn't have to actively look them up, like I did with the references in this book (and also in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

So...bottom line, I would definitely recommend reading this book.  Obviously, you'd need to read The Girl Who Played with Fire first, but it's definitely worth the read.  I look forward to reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  Unfortunately, that will not be next.  These books cover subject matter that just leave me needing a happy little break between stories.

~Missy