Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Portland, Or. : London : Night Shade ; Diamond [distributor], 2012.
Description
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare, Mad Science rules the world... with mixed success. With the help of Krosp, Emperor of All Cats, Agatha has escaped from the massive airship known as Castle Wulfenbach. After crashing their escape dirigible, Agatha and Krosp fall in with Master Payne's Circus of Adventure, a traveling troupe of performers dedicated to staging Heterodyne shows -- dramatizations of the exploits of Bill and Barry Heterodyne and their allies -- who are unaware of Agatha's connection to the Heterodyne line. Pursued by the ruthless Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, his handsome son Gil, and their minions (not to mention Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer), Agatha hides in plain sight among the circus folk, servicing their clanks and proving herself adept in performing the role of Lucrezia Mongfish, nemesis to -- and later wife of -- Barry Heterodyne. She also begins training under Zeetha, swordmistress and princess of the lost city of Skifander . Together, Agatha, Krosp, and the performers travel across the treacherous Wasteland of war-torn Europa, towards Mechanicsburg, and the ancestral home of the Heterodynes -- Castle Heterodyne. But with many perils standing in her way -- including Wulfenbach's crack troops, mysterious Geisterdamen, savage Jagermonsters, and the fabled Storm King -- it's going to take more than a spark of Mad Science for Agatha to get through... From Phil and Kaja Foglio, creators of the multiple WCCA and Hugo Award-winning webcomic Girl Genius, comes Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess, a gaslamp fantasy filled to bursting with Adventure Romance And Mad Science… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member salimbol
The novelisation of volumes 4-6 in the Girl Genius webcomic series, in which Agatha, having been revealed as the long-lost heir to the (in)famous Heterodyne family, is on the run from Baron Wulfenbach and takes refuge with a travelling circus. Slower-moving than the first novel, Agatha H and the
It's not perfect, of course - at times it's probably too leisurely, and I'd say that too much time is spent on the travelling with the Circus crew portions of the story (much as I enjoy them) somewhat to the detriment of the more crucial Sturmhalten parts of the narrative - indeed, I'd go so far to say that they probably should have picked "Circus of Dreams" for the title rather than "Clockwork Princess", as there's a lot more Circus than there is Anevka! There are also far too many repetitive instances of characters rolling their eyes which should have edited down, and while you expect a few little typos in any first edition, there are some really noticeable misspellings of character names (General Khirzan? Sturmvarous?!) that leap out. But these are minor faults, when all is said and done. I really do love how woman-centric this series is - unlike almost every other SFF story out there, its default setting for characters is much more likely to be female than male, and thus we're treated to women who are mad scientists, pirate-queens-cum-airship-captains/homicidal-maniacs (Bangladesh Dupree truly threatens to steal the show at times), mechanics, warriors, animal trainers, vampyre hunters, androids and villains. I want more stories like this! (And now I'm dying to read the next book in the series - the Mechanicsburg section is my favourite part of Girl Genius so far…)
Finally, if you get a chance to listen to the audiobook version, by all means do so - narrator Angela Dawe does an amazing job with all the different voices.
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Airship City, and without quite the same tight focus, this is nevertheless a very enjoyable book, with all the delightful wit and magic you expect from the Foglios. The authors use the much greater length of this book to further expand their steampunky universe (as a Pratchett fan, I thoroughly approve of the use of footnotes here! They're sometimes wry, sometimes genuinely informative, and always interesting), giving us tantalising snippets of backstory, introducing a heap of new characters and taking the extra time to provide some new depths to them not possible in the webcomic (e.g. the exploration of Zeetha's state of mind at the beginning of the story, and how having independent confirmation of her origins gives her a renewed sense of purpose). Dramatic revelations abound, and the climax of the story is a real humdinger. Most importantly, this is a crucial transitional stage for Agatha, who gets breathing room to experience new things (such as a burgeoning friendship with Zeetha and a blossoming romance with hunky circus performer Lars). Indeed, a much larger portion of the story is devoted to the latter than in the webcomic (initially somewhat to my surprise, as I wouldn't have called it more than a crush there), but I think it's part of the overarching theme of letting her experience as much "normality" as possible (as normal as one can get in a universe ruled by Mad Science) and allowing her to consider new possibilities, while at the same time firming up her sense of self and preparing her for her destiny as a Heterodyne.It's not perfect, of course - at times it's probably too leisurely, and I'd say that too much time is spent on the travelling with the Circus crew portions of the story (much as I enjoy them) somewhat to the detriment of the more crucial Sturmhalten parts of the narrative - indeed, I'd go so far to say that they probably should have picked "Circus of Dreams" for the title rather than "Clockwork Princess", as there's a lot more Circus than there is Anevka! There are also far too many repetitive instances of characters rolling their eyes which should have edited down, and while you expect a few little typos in any first edition, there are some really noticeable misspellings of character names (General Khirzan? Sturmvarous?!) that leap out. But these are minor faults, when all is said and done. I really do love how woman-centric this series is - unlike almost every other SFF story out there, its default setting for characters is much more likely to be female than male, and thus we're treated to women who are mad scientists, pirate-queens-cum-airship-captains/homicidal-maniacs (Bangladesh Dupree truly threatens to steal the show at times), mechanics, warriors, animal trainers, vampyre hunters, androids and villains. I want more stories like this! (And now I'm dying to read the next book in the series - the Mechanicsburg section is my favourite part of Girl Genius so far…)
Finally, if you get a chance to listen to the audiobook version, by all means do so - narrator Angela Dawe does an amazing job with all the different voices.
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LibraryThing member Jammies
Aaaargh! If you're going to have the stones to describe yourself on the cover as "Hugo-award-winning authors" then at least ONE of you ought to know the difference between discreet and discrete and roll and role!
LibraryThing member BraveNewBks
I'm continually torn between the novels and the graphic novels. I can't decide which I like better!
LibraryThing member Violetthedwarf
More reviews avalable on my blog.
I’m a big fan of the Girl Genius comic, so when I saw this in my local Oxfam, I had to pick it up.Novelisations are weird beasts. Because they add more internal thoughts and more background action to a work, they can change it in subtle ways. This is certainly the
Girl Genius is a lot creepier and darker in novel form. The monsters are more frightening, the situations more deadly. When we know peoples internal thoughsts and desires, you become more sympathetic to some characters and less sympathetic to others.
Its… I almost prefer it to the comic, to be honest.
The writing is generally OK – the Foglio’s take the chance to fill in some detail, background and description that they don’t have the chance to in the comic – but it suffers from far too many cliched descriptions and expressions. Sometimes it can be clunky, or generally conjour up weird images. It’s perfectly good most of the time, though.
Because I already knew the plot of this from the comic there were no surprises, though I have to say (love it as I do) that a novelisation reveals plot-holes that were easily covered up by the webcomic. More detail is good, but often it can do this – point out places where coincidence and deus ex machina have been used to get the writer out of a tight spot. Interestingly, it can also make the emotional impact of certain things deeper and more lasting.
It’s a damn good adventure tale. One of my lasting regrets is that the straight-forward, swashbuckling adventure story is not as popular as it used to be, having been swallowed up by novels that are just grim and ultra grim piled on top of some rape and murder. Sometimes it’s nice to read something where people just have an adventure, and while there is darkness and horror, it’s mostly just fun.
And that’s what this is. It’s not great literature, but it’s fun and decently-written and you can read it over and over again. But does it have appeal to people who don’t know about the Webcomic? I think so. It doesn;t rely on you knowing the webcomic at all, and I think readers of adventure fantasy and steampunk would easily enjoy it without even knowing about Girl Genius.
You should give it a shot. At the very least, it’ll make travelling go faster.
I’m a big fan of the Girl Genius comic, so when I saw this in my local Oxfam, I had to pick it up.Novelisations are weird beasts. Because they add more internal thoughts and more background action to a work, they can change it in subtle ways. This is certainly the
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truth with Agatha H. The comic is a riotous fun thing with a great deal of colour and life. It has dark moments, but they are always lightened by the art.Girl Genius is a lot creepier and darker in novel form. The monsters are more frightening, the situations more deadly. When we know peoples internal thoughsts and desires, you become more sympathetic to some characters and less sympathetic to others.
Its… I almost prefer it to the comic, to be honest.
The writing is generally OK – the Foglio’s take the chance to fill in some detail, background and description that they don’t have the chance to in the comic – but it suffers from far too many cliched descriptions and expressions. Sometimes it can be clunky, or generally conjour up weird images. It’s perfectly good most of the time, though.
Because I already knew the plot of this from the comic there were no surprises, though I have to say (love it as I do) that a novelisation reveals plot-holes that were easily covered up by the webcomic. More detail is good, but often it can do this – point out places where coincidence and deus ex machina have been used to get the writer out of a tight spot. Interestingly, it can also make the emotional impact of certain things deeper and more lasting.
It’s a damn good adventure tale. One of my lasting regrets is that the straight-forward, swashbuckling adventure story is not as popular as it used to be, having been swallowed up by novels that are just grim and ultra grim piled on top of some rape and murder. Sometimes it’s nice to read something where people just have an adventure, and while there is darkness and horror, it’s mostly just fun.
And that’s what this is. It’s not great literature, but it’s fun and decently-written and you can read it over and over again. But does it have appeal to people who don’t know about the Webcomic? I think so. It doesn;t rely on you knowing the webcomic at all, and I think readers of adventure fantasy and steampunk would easily enjoy it without even knowing about Girl Genius.
You should give it a shot. At the very least, it’ll make travelling go faster.
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LibraryThing member artdamnit_reads
Now, I managed to get my hands on an advanced uncorrected copy of this (I love my job!) and jump right into it with out even realizing that there was already a history and story line and all that jazz. And to be honest I’m pretty happy about that. But more on that later.
Basic Plot: This is the
What I liked:
I really liked Agatha, she was smart, spunky, loyal and wasn’t afraid to work. There were times were she was a little too naive but other than that it did keep the story flowing.
The footnotes were great! Normally footnotes drive me insane but these were well done and there weren’t so many of them that it got distracting.
Krosp-I have a thing for heroines with talking cats, or maybe it’s just a talking cat thing, either way I always love a talking cat.
The Circus was full of diverse if somewhat under developed characters
I loved how there was still a pretty dark undertone to the book-it was funny throughout but there was still that darkness to it to keep it well rounded
What I didn’t like:
Having never read the comic before reading the book I did have some issues with Krosp and his movements-was he a real cat? or was he a flexible, human-esque cat with opposable thumbs? In the end i went with real cat.
The Jagers- they were great characters but having such a heavy accent written for them got old fast
The ending-while i know the story goes on in the comic I wish the ending didn’t have so many loss ends.
While I really enjoyed the book I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with the comic, I’m just way too far behind and I honestly don’t like reading comics any way- I either focus too much on the words and forget to look at the pictures or the other way around. Also I now have set images for what I think all the characters look like and I’m not overly fond of how they look in the comic.
Happy Readings!
Basic Plot: This is the
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story of Agatha Clay, who is actually Agatha Heterodryne, the lost daughter of Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish. When the Baron realizes this Agatha and Krosp, her faithful talking cat, escape for their lives and hide in plain sight in a traveling circus. What I liked:
I really liked Agatha, she was smart, spunky, loyal and wasn’t afraid to work. There were times were she was a little too naive but other than that it did keep the story flowing.
The footnotes were great! Normally footnotes drive me insane but these were well done and there weren’t so many of them that it got distracting.
Krosp-I have a thing for heroines with talking cats, or maybe it’s just a talking cat thing, either way I always love a talking cat.
The Circus was full of diverse if somewhat under developed characters
I loved how there was still a pretty dark undertone to the book-it was funny throughout but there was still that darkness to it to keep it well rounded
What I didn’t like:
Having never read the comic before reading the book I did have some issues with Krosp and his movements-was he a real cat? or was he a flexible, human-esque cat with opposable thumbs? In the end i went with real cat.
The Jagers- they were great characters but having such a heavy accent written for them got old fast
The ending-while i know the story goes on in the comic I wish the ending didn’t have so many loss ends.
While I really enjoyed the book I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with the comic, I’m just way too far behind and I honestly don’t like reading comics any way- I either focus too much on the words and forget to look at the pictures or the other way around. Also I now have set images for what I think all the characters look like and I’m not overly fond of how they look in the comic.
Happy Readings!
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LibraryThing member Treebeard_404
Another fun romp in the steampunk universe of Agatha Heterodyne. Not to disparage Phil Foglio's artwork, but I'm just not a visually oriented person and don't find graphically presented stories as satisfying as text or audio. But it would be a shame to have missed these characters and tales. So I
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am deeply grateful to the Foglios for text-novelizing their web comic/graphic novels. And the audiobook is a wonderfully enjoyable job by reader Angela Dawe. Show Less
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — Science Fiction — 2013)
Language
Original publication date
2012-04-03
Physical description
x, 461 p.; 22 cm
ISBN
9781597802222
Local notes
Girl Genius Novel, 2
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Foglio |