Alice in Sunderland
This is one of the best Alice-related things I've read. It's essentially a history of England, focussing in particular Talbot's home town of Sunderland, in graphic novel form, and every event and factoid mentioned is somehow linked back to Alice. Mixing many different art styles, each page is a multimedia collage of words and images, making it a very unusual book, but nonetheless fascinating.
A non-fiction graphic novel may seem like an odd thing, but the plethora of images, the narrative holding everything together, and the occasional interruption by something completely different make it far more engaging than a history book, even if at times the density of the writing means it's a little hard-going.
Overall, this is one of my top recommendations if you're interested in history of the Alice books, and want to learn more about the man who wrote them and the circumstances around their publication. Alice in Sunderland gives you that, plus a lot more.
Rating: 8/10
Princess Alyss of Wonderland
I happened to see this one in one of those cheap bargain book shops, and I was immediately attracted to the beautiful cover artwork. The art is just as great inside, too, and it's full of letters you can open and read and maps that fold out, and it even comes with a set of cards and instructions for a "Top Trumps" style game.
After looking up the writer, Frank Beddor, I found that he has also written a series of novels called The Looking Glass Wars, based around the same character, and unless I'm mistaken this book recounts events that take place before the events in the first novel.
The story is based around the idea that Lewis Carroll fabricated Alyss' story in his books, and that, in reality, Alice Liddell is Alyss, is a princess of Wonderland who ended up trapped in Victorian England. The book tells the story of her attempt to return to Wonderland, and it does so through various media in the form of a sort of scrapbook.
I found the writing itself to be a little weak, and I didn't particularly like the characterisation of Alyss. The book is aimed at children, though, and it's hard for me to say whether or not a child would enjoy reading it. One thing's certain, though: as a kid I went crazy for books like this that had letters and fold-out maps - hell, I still think they're pretty cool. So the writing may not be great, but it's still a pretty book, and worth picking up if you like that sort of thing.
Rating: 5/10
Heart no Kuni no Alice (Manga)
I must admit, if it wasn't for the fact that I buy most things with the name 'Alice' on them, I probably wouldn't have picked this up. However, I got the first volume the other day and I was pleasantly surprised to find I quite liked it.
In English, its title is Alice in the Country of Hearts, and it's based on a video game. Sadly, the game isn't available outside of Japan, but realistically I think the manga will appeal to western readers more than the game would. The game is a visual novel romance game - a text-and-image-based game where the player makes decisions for the lead character and can choose any of several possible partners for her, depending on the choices made. Most of these games are aimed at male players, and have a male lead, but Heart no Kuni no Alice falls under the category of 'Otome' games, which target female players.
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| (Screenshots of the game) |
The story is a retelling of the classic books. In this version of the story, three groups within Wonderland are at war, and Alice gets caught in the middle of it. Meanwhile, although Alice, when in the real world, thinks she is unattractive, everyone in Wonderland falls in love with her. Presumably this is because Wonderland, as anyone who has read the original knows, is Alice's dream, a product of her subconscious and so her subconscious desires manifest themselves there.
It's quite an interesting idea, and though I've only read the first volume I will certainly be reading more of it (and if the game ever gets an English translation, I'm sure I'd play that too).
Rating: 6/10
Well, that's all for now, but I'll be writing part 2 at some point in the future, and I have a lot more things left to talk about. I'll leave you with this music video by Pogo, made entirely of sound effects and vocal samples from the Disney Alice in Wonderland film.
