2008-10-05 I see little of merit here

I thought Beddor's first book was written rather immaturely; the guy seized upon an interesting concept that was just waiting to be explored, but he imbued it with, hesitant writing, poorly constructed characters and a stuttering plot. But most importantly I found a lack of sincerity to his writing; the prose was filled with gimmicks, silly names and one dimensional characters. I say all this because I had hoped that Beddor would improve upon his writing with this second book and understand the importance of making a trilogy tightly developed but reading this my issues with the first book appear to be inherent flaws not issues that were ironed out with the second book.

Alyss and her followers have almost put to right all the damage inflicted upon Wonderland by Redd in The Looking Glass Wars. They've rebuilt the palace and restored order and peace but Alyss still doesn't feel comfortable with her role as queen, she's weary with the ceaseless demands put upon her but her every growing identity crisis has to be put on hold because violence and unrest has come back into the Queendom, could it have anything to do with Redd's mysterious disappearance or with the scheming untrustworthy king Arch.

Yes as the title suggests Redd is back and in a mind to get her throne back and to do so she plans to recruit an army from the evilest misfits from...Earth, including ex-wonderlands with some very unsavoury talents in black imagination.

In as much as Alyss has an identity crisis so does the entire book; there's so much that conflicts and confounds me, for example quite rich character motivations like Dodge trying to balance his feelings for Alyss with his need for revenge against the Cat or Hatters dedication to rescuing his daughter to that of protecting his queen whist grieving for an old love are good but are mixed with such naivety and stupidity. These things are mostly in the very construct of the world Beddor has created, with things such as Tarty Tarts or Homburg Molly having a Homburg, it's all very childish but mixed with this are scenes of quite disturbing gore and long action sequences. My point is that nothing is clearly defined. I can apply this to much of the book, for example we're never given a description of the Chessmen, is that simply their title and do they look like men? Are they a different species? What I can't apply this too is Red, and her and Alyss's pure good against pure evil battle of white against black imagination. There is no depth here Redd is still infuriately underwritten, one of my favourite of her bad lines was "because I would sooner kill you!"

Arch is a marginally better foe, but he too is stereotyped and gimmicky, a misogynistic tyrant scheming and underhand he didn't come to life for me. And his ridiculously named bodyguards, Blister and Ripkins illustrate once again Beddor's trouble with coming up with decent names, Yes Blister does create blisters when he touches you.

As with the first I don't dislike everything about the book and this is no worst but also no better, the stupidity simply stagnates. No there are good elements; Beddor has a talent for writing great action sequences and there is an air of tongue and cheek that I appreciated but the book as a whole didn't work for me because the different elements just don't fit, I found it infuriating and annoying and I can't see the last book getting any better not with me being irritated at such integral things. If you enjoy young adult big action fantasy epics then I would suggest Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series, which is far better.