Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess
Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess by Kaja and Phil Foglio is a novel based on the Girl Genius online comic.
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 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!
<3 The Book Worm
