Curiouser and Curiouser

[Cheshire]

Frank Beddar has really outdone himself with all of this; this website, the book, everything. And I am not sure that is entirely a good thing.

I love books. And I am always intrigued by an author's site, a small glimpse into the inner workings of curious and very mysterious mind. It's fun, getting to know them and their books while finding a place where people are just as obssessed as I am over a certain character or plot. But this. . . this is something else entirely.

Now perhaps I might have more of an understanding if I had actually read the book before stumbling over here (a very dangerous point to admit) but all of this, this site in particular has made me very hesitant to ever read it at all

Don't get me wrong - the premise was sheer brilliance, for many reasons I have already found in these forums. I loved it. On several occassions I was tempted to buy it, even though I am very strict about reading the book before buying it. I had read the inside cover. I had read the first several pages, I was very intrigued. But then I looked here.

There is nothing personal about this site, and it has nothing to do with the fact that they use Flash player as the main media (that is actually a very professional and stylish route to take). It all looks very nice, but there is no air or reason why I should come back and stay after a single visist. I begin to wonder if the author even visits this site at all (again I hold nothing against him for hiring someone else to do their site. I'm sure most authors would. My point is, his presence feels distincly vacant here).

But what is most concerning are all the "extras" he is offering - everything from an "aural" soundtrack to a card game to prints to "trailers" to an upcoming movie deal to prints available to buy. . . It is absolutely startling. It becomes more and more apparent to me that all this seems less about the work of the story, and well, about everything else.

It seems as though he is trying so hard to reach into every corner of the market. I was faintly surprised by the end of my touring that action figures and lunch boxes were not available as well. When did this become something more than just pure passion for the story?

Instead he seems to be taking the iconic image of the Wonderland tales, and using them to vault himself into extraordinary literary status. Either that or he has taken a personal slight against these books or its original author for some reason and is taking out his personal grudge accordingly. For if he indeed wanted to tell the "true story" as his advertisements so loudly proclaim, why must he add characters where there were none and blatantly disregard many others entirely? Again to use the common comparison of McGee's Alice - they were very faithful to the telling while adding their own unique and sinister twist. The mad hatter for example was quite mad of course, but in their version was a scientist (something that does not conradict the original text) and was obsessed with time. Which in fact makes a lot of sense since in the original book he had gotten in a fight with time, and was forever stuck at six o'clock - hence him always having a party. It is facinating but for all Beddar's claimed research, he seems to have captured anything other than the place and namesake of such things.

It seems he wanted less to do with the true telling so much as he wanted the franchise to play off of. He is even (jokingly even) makes talks about wanting a Looking Glass Wars roller coaster. Everything about this, this place, everything, makes it seems less and less about passion for the story and about. . . everything else.

And no, before you say anything I have not read Alice's Adventures either, so I am not some fanatic in that regard. These thoughts simply would not leave my mind, so don't flame me. I just wanted to discuss these ideas openly.

[aliddellobsessed]

Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with you. Some of the characters I deem important are completely disregarded. On top of that, some crucial themes and ideas discussed in Carroll's work are ignored. Furthermore, for having Carroll as a character in his novel, Beddor seems to ignore many findings on his paedophilia. However, these claims are countered by further research. Yet, most professionals ignore the latest book on how Carroll wasn't a paedophile.

Alice is distant and rather flighty. I found her character unbelievable and nothing like the bumbling but lovable girl in both works by Carroll. While Wonderland holds a sense of discombobulation, it also has fascinating and obscure remarks that make sense and yet don't.

Furthermore, what makes Wonderland so fascinating - a return into the child-like world of nonsensical beauty - is completely rendered pointless in Beddor's work. While there is that air of mysterious, I feel it's pulled fully from what is expected of the book, rather than what it is.

I fully enjoyed Beddor's novel, but feel it has little to do with Wonderland. The sisters play little to no role in Beddor's novel, whereas they are even given anagrams in Carroll's world. Whatever happened to Lacie? Alice's character mentioned in Adventures?

On top of this, Alice's genuine role of a girl escaping the role of adulthood and going to return to true childhood is forgotten, and rather twisted into Alice moving from the 'real' to the 'hyper-real'. The original theories that Carroll was using, even imitating, are shed and a new theory is applied to the character's adventure.

The website, soundtrack, prints, comic book, t-shirts, and other fanatical availablities are obviously author-driven but not author-endorsed. I can log on to Conlan Press, the website for Peter S. Beagle of Last Unicorn fame, and order anything, and it comes signed by the author (So they say). Beddor doesn't leave personal messages on here, have a diary we can follow, sign anything you order, nor even offer thanks for what he's done. He offers us a biography praising himself.

Albeit Beddor is a script-writer and is more immersed into the world of film and industry, he seems to reject the concepts of literature in order to attain status. His rejection of independent beauty and movement into the space of industry poses that The Looking-Glass Wars, while interesting, is not and will never be art. Industry cannot produce art as it's purely for the sake of income, for money. Beddor's website proves to us his intentions of industry rather than art. Art cannot be created for wealth, as it exists for itself and of itself. Beauty exists to be beautiful and nothing more.

So despite my interest in Beddor's novel, and his attempt to enter the space of the author and artist, I find him lacking and self-obsessed as well as living in a world of industry. His attempts to mimic Carroll and add his own spin have left him in the space of thief more than creative genius, and his complete disregard for Carroll's intentions and the own literature itself furthers this image.

[MollyHomburg]

I think that for all the book is trying to be a commercial success with many spinoff attractions and merchandise, it hasn't shown any signs of being the next big fantasy book. Beddor is being imaginative and sharing what he thinks the future of this very creative series can become. I have daydreams about my stories as movies and music videos all the time, does that mean I'm thinking solely about marketing them?

The books were fun and entertaining. They were not in the spirit of Carroll's Alice, because Beddor isn't Carroll. I don't think he should have to be held to the same standards as a math and word genius who lived over a hundred years ago.

That being said, I liked the books very much. I found them easy to visualize and a quick read that I go back to every so often to read a couple of pages. It's not literary greatness or authentic to the Carroll tradition, but I'm from the school that says it doesn't have to be.

Thanks for reading! :)

PS- I'm not sure what to say about the criticism of the absence of Carroll's sexuality in the book. I didn't want to hear about it there and I don't think a fiction author has any business discussing the assumed sexuality of a man who's been dead a very long time.

[aliddellobsessed]

Albeit you may not want to hear about it, I think that if Carroll's suspected, and often believed, orientation towards children would have greatly affected Alice/Alyss as a person and character. Beddor even makes a brief reference to it in the Prologue.

I would believe Beddor was not marketing all of this and was just living a dream, as you say it, if he wasn't already in the movie production world and knew the business. Then I would simply blame his manager. However, the fact stands that it quickly became all of this (website, music, supposed movie) and Beddor himself won't comment on this website.

Furthermore, it is one thing to borrow or continue from the idea of another's writing and build on. It's another to claim a connection and 'debunk' it, while ignoring important factors, as well as large portions of the books and meanings behind the nonsense.

This is also called "riding on someone's coat-tails".

[Cheshire]

Sadly, I think aiddelobsessed couldn't have said it more succinctly. I do think Beddor is riding someone else's coat-tails. So many critical characters are ignored or discarded, important plot points are thrown aside, and if he truly is trying to revision or "tell the true story" as he puts it, there is a serious lack of continuity, or even parallelism that should be there. These stories were apparently told by Alyss herself and then butchered in the telling by Caroll, but the essence of the matter should be the same. You think Caroll would have created some twisted version of her love interest (for I doubt Alyss would have left him out of the telling in her dethronement). (I would also like to argue the point of him putting so much "supposed" research into this, why he managed to mix-up the fact that Tweedledee and Tweedledum do not come in until Through the Looking Glass (but this was amended in the US release, and is a nit-pick besides, but it does point out some very crucial information about Beddor).

And no MollyHomburg, I do not find any crime in making his books all that they can be. I too love to dream of ways of expanding my worlds and characters I create on as many levels as I can - to make them real, to let people see what I see. I taught myself video editing, and took a course on drawing simply so I could better portray what I saw, so other people could see them as well. I dream of music videos, movie shorts, flip books, art, drawings, sketches, scores -anything I can think of of helping me more fully immerse others in my world.

But that is the crucial difference - motivation. I want to do it to share with people what I have created, share my love for the people I have come to know and want others to know equally well. But in every endeavor I have done, I have done it out of passion and done so with no expectation other than the hope that it will kindle a love and that it will be passed onto others so that they might read the stories as well. Here, he has put a price sticker on everything and has called it passion. It's a farce. Every single thing he has done seems. . . too systematic. It's too perfect. It's all been planned out, it is so neat and organized, there is no way someone cannot be manipulating all of this. To me, this does not signify passion, in any form. And that makes me upset. For me, from what I have seen, he has stolen from a one hundred and fifty year-old franchise and run with it. I know what love for a story and passion is, and I have not seen it here. That is what I was trying to say in my previous post. Thank you so much for commenting. I really want to hear the other side of the argument, maybe we can both help each other see more clearly.

[Queen Alyss]

I'm more with Molly. Beddor ISN'T Caroll and he shouldn't try to write like him.

Also, aliddelobsessed, if you have so many complaints towards the book, why are you even on this website?

[Mad Hatter Madigan]

I think Frank Beddor should really really add some more wonderland characters in the next book, he stands to lose the theme altogether.

I am a wonderland fan, dedicated to it.
but I have yet to see 50% of the characters that made wonderland great.

He only wrote in the famous outstanding characters.
I would love to see the Dutchess, Humpty Dumpty, Mockturtle, March Hare, the noble Gryphon, Bill the lizard, Eaglet, and the rest.
Frank if you are reading this... there are dozen of characters to write in and make the story move forward.

I like this series and how it starts, I like to see the next book pull through.

[McGeesJabberwock]

OK, my two cents (or pence since I'm British)...

I confess that I have a STRONG love/hate relationship with this book. It is fun and actiony and all - but it ultimately makes me feel uncomfortable for various reasons.

In its heart of hearts it wants to honour Lewis Carroll's work; Alyss doubting Wonderland's existence seems to mirror the 'Is life a dream' thing, but is never really developed. LGW's characters have little to no resemblance to their Carroll counterparts, which really bugs me. Reimaginings and reworkings, despite what some may say, are tricky to write because it isn't a matter of writing an original story with the names of someone else's characters; you have to expand on the themes of the original and twist the original characters' personalities in a believable way to make your reimagining work. For example, it would make sense for a dark reimagining of the Mad Hatter to be a paranoid schizophrenic who speaks in riddles and fears time, but I don't see how a blade-wielding superhero has any relation to the crazy haberdasher we've come to love for a century. LGW seems too obsessed with making the characters 'extreme' and adding in 'exciting' bits to entertain the kiddies to truly expand on Carroll's world. Thus, ideas with potential, like the card hierachy and the caterpillars, are sorely underdeveloped in favour of 'special effects'.

I do think Beddor does love his world and characters on some level though, and is having fun with his franchise; an account of a public reading of LGW he gave explained him jumping on tables! I do have an issue with the commercialism though: I know he wants to expand on his worl and all, but geez, not everyone likes movies and video games! The real problem with this merchanising is that while LGW offers entertainment, it doesn't truly accomplish anything, and doesn't really add anything to the genre other than 'some good ideas'. I've been reading Tom Becker's 'Darkside' and found it interesting and imaginative, even more so than LGW, but does that get millions of hype? Well, it got Waterstone's book of the year award, but that's it.

Another issue I have with LGW is that some people who like it are recommending it because its 'grown up' while the original was 'childish nonsense'. People condemning light-hearted and humourous fare for being 'kiddy' while singing praises for how 'adult' serious and dark things are come off as a bit pretentious. And Alice in Wonderland had very dark elements to it, with subtle jokes about death, mean and arrogant characters and satire on political and social Victorian values. LGW comes off almost as a Disney film in contrast; if it's so dark, why all the sentimental mush, like Alyss consoling Hatter and Dodge weeping at the Pool of Tears?

I'm done. Sorry if this sounded incoherent.

[Mad Hatter Madigan]

You have several awesome points there Jabberwock...

I too Love/Hate this book, if Frank B. wants me to love it he gotta stay true and add more wonderland and less of his own personal invention. Less of the sugar sweets, and more meat. Less hype, more story is something I want to see.

If he chooses otherwise, he stands to lose the Alice fans... and they are his most dedicated fanbase.

[kairi_irl]

Wow, all of you have really good points. I barely found this site after becoming curious of when the 2nd book would be out. The book is amazing as far as I can tell. Although I have not read the original I enjoyed the book very much. I almost agree with all of you on the "price tag for everything" but I still see it entirely different.

When I first came to this site I was amazed. Though there is no personal feel of the Author's presence there was a different way of seeing books to make up for that.

Instead of "Author Notes" or "Journal Entries" that most likely are written by managers of Author's sites instead of the Author's themselves there are "trailers."

When I saw the word "Trailers" I thought I was imagining it. Trailers??? for a book? I never heard of that before, but here it was. My curiousity getting the better of me I clicked the link to the first trailer. I was speechless, here was an image a commericial...for a book. I wanted to jump for joy (not literally I was just really happy). As if entranced I continued to watch the different trailers that were available, my favorite being "Who is Alyss" for content and "A Pack of Lies" for enjoyment.

The first thing I thought after that was, finally!

The commericials were interesting and if they were aired on t.v (I don't know if they have been and this is all my opinion so please don't take any of this the wrong way) maybe people would actually try to read a book. I don't know if many of you have noticed but not many people want to read anything more than a newspaper or a magazine now in days. It feels to me that people are starting to fall away from any form of writing & reading that involves more than 10 pages double spaced and even that may be too much.

People assoicate better with images and videos more than words and their descriptions, that's why we have more people going to movies then people entering a bookstore of some sorts. I thought that Beddor (I don't know his motives for all the money related items but again my opinion) had unlocked a new way a new age for books.

With just the commercials I was amazed but with the soundtrack I was stunned. A soundtrack...for a book? Again I questioned my eyes and again I let curiousity take me. I don't know any of your opinions of the songs but I thought some of them were actually good. Now, I felt this Author was something else. Never before (at least from what I've seen and heard of) has there been a soundtrack for a book. A way to open the readers mind to visualize a setting even more so with the words and a melody. It was, to me a movie on the go.

I'm very happy with the book and although I don't know Beddor's actual motives for this book or why he felt to simply delete many characters and change the personalities of the original characters (Alyss for example: in Lewis Carroll's version she's bubbly and happy whereas Alyss heart is practically the opposite) I do believe that it makes his version, his version of the story and not so much Lewis Caroll's and that makes his version unique and special in its own way.

Regardless if he knows it but his way of publicizing his book has taken (to me was once again this is my opinion) one of the first steps to getting books known again. For that I am happy.

[frankie]

the whole point of the looking glass wars is that its the complete opposite of alice in wonderland. if the only characters in it were replicas of carrol's then it would get boring. especially for the people who have read both. its nice that beddor bases his characters on carroll's but he gives them something extra. rock on book two!

[Cheshire]

Wow. I am so happy to see such an involved discussion! And actually, now that it has been pointed out to me, I do see a lot of valid points you have made. And there were even some I had never thought of before. I was especially encouraged by the description of his book reading, and he recounting jumping on the tables and so on. That would have been most entertaining to hear. I never knew anything about him, except that he is a movie producer, and I've already had enough of these "celebrity" books - famous people, or people with moeny who suddenly decide they want to become a prolific writer among their other talents (the Madonna picture books stand out in mind, but there is also Billy Crystal, and even Jay Lenno) It is good to hear of his passion for his own work.

The Biggest complaint (and rightly so) is the argument about the authenticity (and appearance) the original characters. Most who argue for his book are saying, if I am getting this correct is that Beddor is not Carrol and therefore should not be held to any standard that Carroll built. Or that he intentionally did the opposite, so how the characters are now is irrelevant. But he IS responsible for the treatment and molding of these new characters, because the fact is, they are not new. They are over a century old, and there must be at least some level of consistency, if not parallelism between them. (I particuarlly liked the point that Hatter Maddigan makes little sense. As cool as he is now, there was nothing to hint of his angry personality in his origins. Now, he could have become angry because of what happened to Alyss, etc. but there MUST at least be some recognizable character traits that tie him to his original counterpart. Otherwise, Beddor really has only stolen the name, and is not trying to do a retelling, or reinterpreation at all). And I completely agree on the missing characters. I thought he would have eaten up all over with the gryphon, who was cool in Carroll's version as he was. I was surprised he was not in the book.

But what impressed me the most were your comments Kairi_irl. I am glad you put up your opionion, and just said your impressions. You came here a lot like me - I just sort of stumbled on this site, after hearing a lot about the book, and seeing it displayed in every Barnes and Noble I went into. As far as the commercials go, no, they are not the first commercial for a book that I have ever seen. The first I ever saw was actually on a dvd for a movie, and it was for Artemis Fowl (though to be honest, Beddors were more interesting. That one only had a picture of the cover, while someone talked over it). And as for the soundtrack - again no. I know for a fact, at least four other books have accompanying soundtracks, one of the more notable ones being The Series of Unfortunate Events. A very strange soundtrack, but highly entertaining. There is also one for a Star Wars book and the Dragon Riders of Pern Series. No, but what most impressed me about your comments was the effect that these "media venues" might have. This is an ever-increasingly "microwave" society - we need everything right now. So books are being neglected more and more in lieu of video games and movies, and anything that doesn't make you actually use your brain. So I suppose, no matter how materialized and over marketing this all may be, if it gets people to actually pick up the book, and read it, and then go on into something more, that is all that matters. And if Beddor can accomplish that, then I will applaude him (despite my ongoing quibbles with him).

And now, I am really interested in picking up the Darkside book(s?) Are there more than one?

But I do wish more of the original character traits would be more prevelant. Since I have not yet read the books (don't worry, it's next on my list - once I can get out of my tiny hamlet of a town and get to a reall bookstore) which of the characters have the least similarities? And does anyone know - how did you come to read this book? I am now very interested to see if these "marketing" tactics are indeed having an effect like I hope they would.

[kairi_irl]

Cheshire,
first I'm honored that you felt i had some good comments, second thank you for enlightening me on some of the other books that have soundtracks (like I said before I had no idea if there were any other soundtracks for books) Although, I recall the same Artemis Fowl commercial you saw, but I was much younger then and did not really consider it as anything but another 3 minutes until I got to the DVD menu.
As for the marketing tactics, I myself found the book at Barnes, it was the cover that caught my eye. However I did not purchase the book until later at Target (for a much cheaper price I might add)
Although because of the soundtrack I've told some of my friends about some of them actually bought the book, and some even plan to buy the soundtrack too just to see what it's like.
I would write more, but today I'm limited on time, I would just like to thank you for listening to my thoughts and responding