Agatha H and the Airship City: A Girl Genius Novel by Kaja and Phil Foglio [Review]

I’ve had a hard time writing this review because I’m a fan of the Girl Genius webcomic, and it feels like I’m speaking ill of the series to offer up criticism on the novel.  It has taken me a while to decide that not all great comic heroes have made a graceful transition into novelized forms, and this book falls into that category.  Don’t get me wrong:  The book is a fun and entertaining read, but it is so because the original story has these qualities.  This book offers very little that is new to the Girl Genius world, and if you’re looking for a summary of volumes 1-3 of the comic reprints, or you don’t want to read the comic but want to be brought up to speed in a prose form, then this book is for you.  I enjoyed reading it, and wouldn’t have any problems recommending it to others, but this novel is simply a capable retelling of what has already transpired in the weekly strip.  If you really want to read this story, buy the graphic novel.  If you want the CliffsNotes, or absolutely must own everything Girl Genius you can get your hands on, then buy this book. 

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross [Review]

I started reading this book with high hopes: The advance reviews had been positive and I’m always anxious to read new Steampunk young adult fiction.  It helps that this author released a short story prior to this book that established the main character of this novel in an exciting way.  But after reading the whole story I find that there are some world building issues that lend a schizophrenic quality to this book that the narrative never able to rise above.  The novel is just too derivative: even the author describes her book as an attempt to combine League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the X-Men!  This was the flaw I couldn’t get past:  Cross draws on so many existing stories that her unique narrative gets lost and diminished to the point where I wonder where her original story is.  The resulting mixture lacks world building, contains a number of clichéd love triangles, and includes the inexplicable use of hyper-advanced technology for a Victorian world.

The Strange Case of Finley Jayne by Kady Cross [Review]

Note:  At the time of the publication of this blog entry this novella was still available for free from amazon.com as a Kindle download.  I don’t know how much longer this will be the case, but it’s worth checking the website.

This story serves as an introduction to a new young adult series by Kady Cross called The Steampunk Chronicles.  The first of these books, The Girl in the Steel Corset, was released on May 24, 2011, and continues Finley’s adventures as she discovers who her father was, exactly what she is, and if there are others in the world like her.  Personally, I think this short story is an excellent introduction to the series:  The pacing is elegant, the action is well written, and Finley is a gem of a character with enough of a backstory to warrant this kind of supplemental material.  This prequel is a brilliant move because it gives the reader a chance to see some of Finley’s life before she is thrown into the events of the series, and quite frankly, I’m impatient to see where she goes from here!  This is the kind of YA literature I like:  It’s smart, there are a lot of details about Victorian England embedded in the text, and the characters have the kind of ambiguity that promotes ethical development in young adults. This is the kind of book I look forward to recommending to a school librarian or putting in a classroom library.