Seeing Redd

The second installment of The Looking Glass Wars, Seeing Redd opens a mear three months after Alyss Heart reclaimed her throne from her mad Aunt Redd, who along with The Cat flung themselves into the Heart Crystal instead of suffering the humiliation of loosing to her neice. But since the Heart Crystal is the spark of Imagination of the universe, Redd and The Cat find their way back to Earth through rather different means than the usual manner for Wonderlanders, the Pool of Tears.

Finding herself on Earth, Redd discovers a number of Wonderlanders who have taken refuge there, and decides to build her army on Earth, hidden from Alyss, and plans her revenge. Meanwhile back in Wonderland, King Arch, the monarch of Boarderland, is planning show more his own assault on Wondertropolis, using any means of subterfuge that he finds useful at the moment. Eventually, Redd makes her way back to Wonderland, and finding that she and Arch have similar goals, strike up a precarious alliance. However, Arch has plans of his own that even Redd doesn't know of, in the form of his new weapon WILMA.

Beddor continues to keep the pace fast and exciting in Seeing Redd, just like he did in The Looking Glass Wars. While we've left the similarities of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass behind in the last book, he continues to grow his cast of characters carefully, and each new character is just as imaginative as the last. I continue to be thrilled with this series. It's a fresh take on the Alice mythos and I'll be sad to see the series come to a close with the final volume, ArchEnemy. show less

The second book in Beddor's Looking Glass Wars trilogy picks up fairly closely to the end of the first book. 3 lunar cycles (I'm guessing this means months) later and Queen Alyss is doing her best to reassure the people that White Imagination is once again dominate.

There is a little bit of a mislead throughout the book as well, in who's actually the source of evil and motives. King Arch, briefly mentioned and shown in the first book, is a central character this time around (with all his sexist views) and Jack of Diamonds, unfortunately, makes a return appearance. His parents aren't the brightest ever. Redd is more cunning then in the first book, using subterfuge as a way to win out. I admired her, despite her evilness, because she show more didn't just whine about what she lost (like Jack) or spout impossible ideas (like Arch), but had a solid plan which would have worked.

Hatter Madigan, this poor guy, is put through the ringer. He did take his leave, as he said he would at the end of Book 1, and didn't plan on coming back. We learn more about the civilian he loved, Weaver and what secrets she carried. Which all relates back to Molly (I'm sure you can guess how) and has a surprising turn of events. Doesn't last long however. Molly is also put through the ringer--unsure of herself, prideful of her abilities but shamed by her birth, young and basically self-trained, Arch takes advantage of that weakness.

In the end I enjoyed this book moreso then the first. I enjoyed learning more about the other lands surrounding Wonderland (even if Borderland is...what it is) and despite the ending leaving itself very open to a sequel, I can't be too upset over that. The conflicts of THIS book were resolved and the ending opened the door to a new conflict. show less

This is the second book (out of three) in the Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor. I really wanted to love this series. Somehow I found this book even more boring than the first one. These books just focus too much on strategic war than on what makes Wonderland awesome; imagination.

In this book King Arch is plotting to overthrow Wonderland but his plans are interrupted when Redd returns and, once again, causes issues for new Queen of Wonderland, Alyss Heart.

This story was okay. I am a little irked that Alyss only seems to use her Imagination as a weapon, and that she uses it in such limited way. Redd actually seems quite a bit more creative with her Black Imagination. I loved that Beddor tried to expand and give more dimension to the show more character of the Hatter. Unfortunately it fell short for me; I thought the Hatter's character was actually weakened by the fact that he wandered somewhat aimlessly through his own personal issues.

I guess, just like the first book, the characters seemed more like outlines than actual characters to me. I had trouble reading this book. At points I found it outright boring and skimmed through sections. When the goal of reading a book becomes solely to finish it; I start to say that the book wasn't all that great.

The story was okay, the characters have potential, but the book didn't excite me and I only marginally enjoyed reading it. I am beginning to think that me and Beddor's writing style just don't get along.

This book is not as contained as the first one...it kind of stops in the middle of things. So, I will most likely read the third and final installment, Everqueen, but after that no more Beddor for me. show less

The second book in the Looking Glass Wars Trilogy was as wonderful as the first. Again, Hatter Madigan was my favorite character, and this story gave him a bit of depth to go along with his awesome fighting abilities. Queen Alyss also was given more of a chance to evolve in her role as, not only Queen, but a young woman trying to figure out who she is as a person. King Arch and Redd were great as competing foes. Cannot wait to see how it ends!

Seeing Redd is the second installment in Frank Beddor’s retelling of the Alice in Wonderland story. The main problem is the story suffers from what may be termed the “On Ramp Effect”: the story's twists are no longer as original as the first time you encountered them, so the story seems a little lackluster by comparison. The style and execution is still quite good, so Seeing Redd does not suffer too much.

In this installment, the storyline takes some decidedly dark turns as Redd becomes the truly evil red queen. Redd openly aligns herself with a necromancer in an effort to raise her army to defeat Alyss (Alice for the uninitiated) and dethrone her as Queen. The story also includes some description of a character being tortured and show more killed, but it is not overly graphic and is much milder than the last Christopher Paolini offering I read.

Yes, I am an adult, but I am enjoying the story enough to really want to see this one through to the end. Despite my opening comment, I will still rate this with four stars for enjoyment. If you think classic fantasy stories should not be changed, avoid this series. If you enjoyed the first installment, keep reading as it holds up quite well. show less

This wasn't as good as the first one (which, honestly, wasn't all that good either). There were times I found it engrossing and enjoyable, but mostly it was dull, substandard, and frustratingly unrealistic. Everything that bothered me about the first book is still here: the so-so writing, shoddy character development, corny dialogue, and, for all of its mention throughout the book, utter lack of imagination.

Redd is back, as petulant as ever. Her one-dimensional, single-minded villainy is old and tired now. The author's development of this character is one of the things I find most unbelievable about the story. She's a one-trick pony, doing bad things because that's what bad guys do, being evil for the sake of being evil. There is very show more little to her beyond "I'll get you, Alyss, if it's the last thing I do! I'll take Wondertropolis back and then no one will ever wrench it from me again! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
She isn't interesting.

Seeing Redd suffers from a severe case of Middle Book Syndrome - it's not as good as the first book and is more a placeholder than anything else. Although I enjoyed reading it, for the most part, I was still disappointed at the overall lack of quality. Frank Beddor is not a novelist and unfortunately, it shows. If you liked the first book, you will enjoy this one as well. Conversely, if you didn't like the first book, you might want to skip this one.
Personally, I'm not sure if I would re-read this. I did not enjoy it enough to spend a great deal of money to own it.

Recommended for fans of the first book and young adults. I would not recommend this book for children under the age of 9 or 10 - there is a lot of descriptive violence so parents might want to exercise some caution before allowing their young children to pick this up. show less

Ah, Alyss and Wonderland. I first jumped down Beddor's rabbit hole with the Hatter M comics and shortly after that with The Looking Glass Wars. I had just finished reading the 'original' Alice stories by Carroll and had that imagery fresh in my head. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book and had a lot of fun with the new and very creative interpretation of the Wonderland world and the characters and interactions found there. Snippets of Beddor's writing style bugged me a little bit, but I got used to them.

In Seeing Redd, the second book in the Looking Glass saga, I wasn't quite as happily fulfilled. The first book, while it had a handful of issues like most books do, was a tightly woven story with compelling characters and a great story show more arc. While it obviously left itself open for the potential of a continuing saga, it also tied up most loose ends and left us with a very fulfilling and happy place to leave Alyss and her friends. The second book did not tie things up neatly. Normally that wouldn't be a problem for me. Some of my favorite books have been members of a series and often ended with wildly dramatic cliffhangers.

So what is different about Seeing Redd that leaves me unhappily unsettled? The problem, as I see it, is that the tone and styling of the novel seemed almost ignorant to the fact that it was leaving so much in the air by its end. The writing seemed to believe that everything was going to tie itself off nicely by the end of the final page. Rather than identifying and exposing the suspense of the loose threads, the novel practically disavowed their existence.

In the first book, I found myself turning pages faster and faster as I neared the end and as I did so, I was growing more and more nervous that the author wasn't going to have time to wrap things up. In the first book, the action took on a rip-roaring pace to finish things up neatly in a short amount of time. It moved quickly but didn't become disorienting.

As I neared the end of book two, I was again nervous that things weren't going to wrap up, but I recalled my previous experience and trusted the author to leave me with a satisfactory ending because I had no suggestions from the text that there would be any sort of suspenseful interlude between book 2 and book 3.

As the climax of the final battle wound down, I realized that I was in fact going to have to wait until book 3 for any additional conclusion. I wasn't left with a cliffhanger or any sort of major suspense. Rather, the resulting finish left me in a state of confusion. Most of the major action of book 2 had been nullified completely. There were a few alliances made which could be utilized in future stories. There were some intriguing actions that needed to be re-explored (like the kidnapping of a certain author), but for the most part, I feel like I could probably jump right into book 3 without ever reading book 2 and it's not likely that I would miss anything that a single chapter couldn't recap ("Character X aligns with Character Y. Characters A and B are betrayed and killed by Character X.", etc.).

Still, I am absolutely enjoying this world and the stories and imagination in this new Wonderland. I look forward to the new adventures. Despite my complaints above, I truly did enjoy this book and had a lot of fun with the characters and their struggles and triumphs. I just would have preferred the book to either be more adept in 'wrapping things up' or in adequately portraying a sense of suspense and anticipation for things to come. The current ending left me in a bit of a stupor.

***
2 1/2 stars show less