Katrine Jo Madsen Jo Madsen من عند Dzwonowo, بولندا من عند Dzwonowo, بولندا

I'm always cautious when it comes to AIW pastiches, parodies, sequels, etc... largely because the original works were so adept at presenting things, and your imagination did the rest. Meaning, people rarely see the Wonderland you do. But this one was (happily) an exception to the rule. The basic premise is that Alice Liddel (the real-life inspiration for Dodgson) was really Alyss Hart, princess to Wonderland. Political intrigue, darkness and power struggles abound. It's a darker wonderland to be sure, but well crafted so you believe the resulting books were bastardizations of the true story. There has been some backlash by those who compare American McGee's Alice with TLGW, but to me the only correlations are the work that they're both based upon, and the fact that they are both dark visions as opposed to sun-dappled hills and charming, if somewhat off-kilter tea parties. The other point of interest to me in the book, was the use of points in both Alice and Dodgson's real lives being used as elements in the story, successfully grounding it in "reality". Looking forward to the next in the series, "Seeing Redd".

I wish this book had had the benefit of better editing. This is an important subject--the plight of minority and/or economically disadvantaged people living beside huge polluting factories. As in, how do you convince the outside world that you are really being hurt by this junk you are breathing, and you didn't choose to live this way? This is an inspiring story of the persistence of the human spirit against great odds, marred by repetitive and pedestrian reporting.

I love this woman. She belted out songs like "Steve (Go All the Way With Me)" and "Junkman (I'll be Your Twilight Lover") in the 60's and 70's and I think she's still going.