How do you know when someone is a Spark?
The answer is when they create something too mad to ignore.
The adventures of Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius, continues! In this installment, Agatha finds herself on the run from the diabolical Baron Wulfenbach, and his lovelorn son, Prince Gilgamesh. Needing to travel unnoticed through the Wastelands, Agatha and her companion Krosp (The Emperor Of All Cats) join a traveling circus that specializes in Heterodyne shows – dramatizations of the exploits of Bill and Barry Heterodyne. Ironic, considering that Agatha is secretly the long-lost heir to the Heterodyne Family.
And if you think all of that sounds a little crazy, just wait until you get to the scientist who’s scientific breakthrough involves pies.
This is the second novelization of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s award-winning Girl Genius series. The first book was a pure madcap adventure, and the format gave the Foglio’s the opportunity to add tons of extra details and backstories, as well as plenty of clever comments, random trivia, and snarky asides. All in all it was a hell of a lot of fun to read.
The second book is, and I know this is a bold statement here, even better than the first.
You’d think that, as with many series, the first book would do all the heavy lifting of setting the scene, and then the next books would focus more on the story. Not so with Girl Genius; we’ve only scratched the surface of the world that the Foglio’s have created. Now that Agatha has escaped Castle Wulfenbach (a dirigible as big as a good-sized city) we get to follow along as she travels across Europa and meets all sorts of characters: clanks (automatons), monsters, actors, and people who seem to be a mixture of all three. Circus life is also a chance to show the steps that the more socially, well, odd people have to take to cover exactly how odd they really are. (Plus, the circus’s Heterodyne plays bring in a wealth of new story concepts and amusingly Victorian-sounding character names.)
Pix demonstrated that she was actually a very versatile actress indeed. In addition to the enigmatic High Priestess, she impressed everyone by breathing new life into hoary old characters such as The Clever Construct, The Oafish Minion, The Wise Witch of the Wood, The Saucy Courtesan, The First Victim, The Clueless Public Official, The Lost American, and The Tragic Abomination of Science.
The plot itself becomes even more complex as we learn more about the politics and history of a world where the famous Heterodyne Boys Bill and Barry were just the more recent (and heroic, and let’s not forget sane) members of a lunatic family that’s been running wild over the course of several centuries. Then you have to consider the families who have tried to take control away from the Heterodynes (and later, from Baron Wulfenbach). And you’ve also got the Jagerkin and their motivations for serving the Wulfenbachs when their loyalty has always been to the Heterodynes, and a whole secret religion built up around The Other, the mysterious figure who wrecked havoc with Slaver Wasps and other diabolical inventions.
Running through all of that are the Sparks, those people with the ability to invent impossible machines; usually ones that have no obvious purpose other than to cause damage to life and limb. And property. And maybe even the planet’s orbit. Agatha discovered midway through the first book that she herself is a Spark, something she has to keep hidden since the average person tends to respond to Sparks by organizing a torch-and-pitchfork mob.
With so much going on it means the reader needs a lot of explanations and backstory, but the writing does this cleverly without resulting in a wall of text (or by making the wall of text hilariously entertaining). Characters run through internal monologues, villains have scenery-chewing external monologues, and each chapter ends with a series of footnotes that cover relevant information. In one scene information is delivered by a malfunctioning servant-clank that insists on spewing exposition until its mortified inventor shoots it.
(I have to make a side comment about the footnotes. In a lot of books these are a sign that the story wasn’t written well, so the author had to throw in extra comments to make sure the reader understands something that should have been explained within the story itself. The Foglios, however, are right up there with Terry Pratchet for writing the best footnotes in the industry. Each one is filled with the most hilariously random information, the tone is always snarky, and the writers make good use of their talent for never ending a sentence the way you expect them to.)
“He was killed three years ago by some bad clams.”
Krosp looked surprised. “Bad clams?”
Abner nodded. “Yes, they had axes.”
I still love the graphic novel format best, but if there’s one word to describe what the novelizations provide it’s “More”. More details about circus life (like how loading and unloading the circus wagons is choreographed by their dance master), more lovingly detailed descriptions of exotic Steampunk surroundings, more outlandish inventions, more fascinating explanations about the characters and their motivations, more feats of strength and dexterity by dangerous people, more snippets of folktales and poetry and even recipes in all of the chapter headers. Agatha’s relationships with Zeetha and Lars have some depth added here, so we learn a little more about the barbarian woman who’s training her to be a warrior, and the handsome circus promoter who’s starting to see Agatha as much more than a possible roll in the hay.
All of the extra information you get makes it that much more fun to re-read the graphic novels themselves. And I already know the political maneuvering gets even more complicated in the next issue, so it’ll be worth everyone’s time to read the third novelization which comes out in (checks Amazon) good grief, two months ago! Guess I know what I’ll be reviewing later this year.