Frank Beddor Books In Order

Publication Order of The Looking Glass Wars Books

Publication Order of Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Frank Beddor is an American author best known for The Looking Glass Wars, a series of books that expand on the Alice in Wonderland Mythos.

+Biography

Beddor was born in 1958. Growing up in Excelsior, Minnesota, Beddor’s parents were always traveling. It didn’t surprise anyone when Beddor learned to barefoot ski at the age of 12, seeing as his father that set a World record for skiing the length of the Mississippi river.

Beddor soon proved that skiing was more than just a passing interest when he joined the Olympic Ski team and toured Europe as a competitive Skier. The author’s hard work paid off when he was crowned World Champion freestyler skier in 1981 and 1982.

Rather than building upon his success, though, Beddor chose to put skiing behind him at the age of 23, instead turning his attention towards the entertainment arena. Beddor didn’t completely put his abilities on the snow and ice to rest, with opportunities like Better off Dead, a movie where he played John Cusack’s skiing stunt double, allowing Beddor to put everything he had learned to better use.

In order to expand his prospects, Frank Beddor eventually moved to Los Angeles. He began to study under acting coach Stella Adler. At one point, Frank Beddor grew frustrated with the poor quality scripts that kept coming his way.

So he took to script writing, eventually partaking in the production of movies like There’s Something About Mary’ in 1998. However, it didn’t take long for Beddor to grow frustrated with the insignificant role he was playing in the making of movies in Hollywood.

+Literary Career

Frank Beddor’s foray into writing emanated from the fact that he was tired of having so little creative control over most of the film projects in whose making he participated. It was at this point that he began developing the idea for the Looking Glass Wars’ stories.

Beddor came across some playing cards in the Museum of London that inspired him to take a classic story and add some layers to it. It took Frank Beddor five years to write The Looking Glass Wars’.

However, his efforts didn’t show immediate results, with his book being rejected by every major publisher in the United States. Frank Beddor finally went to the UK where Egmont Books decided to give him a chance.

It didn’t take long for The Looking Glass Wars’ to catch fire, becoming a New York Times Bestseller. Frank Beddor took an interesting approach to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland story.

In Beddor’s story, Wonderland was a real place, and Alice a real person; and Carroll had merely taken these real-world elements and painted them in a childlike façade that didn’t reflect the true nature of Wonderland.

Frank Beddor’s Looking Glass Wars inspired a comic called Hatter Madigan’ which Beddor wrote alongside Liz Cavalier; Ben Templesmith drew the comic. There was talk of a movie based on The Looking Glass Wars’.

However, the release of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland Movies put most of those conversations on ice.

+The Looking Glass Wars

Alyss Heart is the newly orphaned heir to the Wonderland throne. However, things are anything but wonderful. In the wake of her Aunt Redd’s murderous intentions, Alyss ran away, looking to the Pool of Tears for escape.

She ended up stranded alone in Victorian London. There she befriended Lewis Carroll and told him the violent, heartbreaking story of her life. Alyss’ hope was that Carroll would get the truth out somehow, and maybe someone somewhere would come find her and take her back to her home.

But Alyss trusted the wrong person; Carroll got the whole story wrong, and couldn’t even be bothered to get her name right.

However, Alyss still has Hatter Madigan to look to; the Royal Bodyguard knows Alyss’ story all too well and has begun searching the world in the hopes of finding the lost princesses.

She must be returned to Wonderland where she can do battle against Redd and take her place as the true Queen of Hearts.

The first book in the Looking Glass Wars is basically a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. However, Frank Beddor takes a darker and more violent approach than most. The book has a very rapid pace which tends to keep readers engaged for much longer than one might expect.

Readers who hated this book, of which there were quite a lot, will tell you that the Looking Glass Wars has a great concept; however, it is poorly executed and filled with cliché characters.

Readers who loved this book appreciated the concept and the rather wild manner in which it was executed. Frank Beddor bring a lot of ridiculously fantastical settings and situations to life in an adventure novel that is probably targeting kids and teens instead of adults.

+Seeing Redd

Alyss of Wonderland is back on the throne. Even as her rule finally begins, certain parties with an affinity for chaos emerge and start to threaten the kingdom. With newly appointed Royal bodyguard Homburg Molly watching her every move, Alyss finds it all but impossible to manage her duties as a queen even while finding moments of peace to enjoy the company of Dodge.

Things are exacerbated when a series of phantom sightings raise worries that Redd and her chief assassin might have escaped the confines of the Heart Crystal. The Glass Eyes, Redd’s Brutal Foot soldiers have been loosed on the capital, forcing the Alyssians to unite once more to defend their land.

In the second book of The Looking Glass Wars series, Redd has been banished from Wonderland and Alyss is struggling to come to terms with the demands of being queen. Frank Beddor quickly raises hell by unleashing Redd’s forces on the kingdom.

Redd is darker than ever, much nastier and smarter. There are elements of politics at play, though the fantastical battles and epic settings prove to be more enticing. This book basically builds upon the foundations of the first book, taking the concepts of its predecessor to a new level.

As such, people who loved the first book will love the second one. Those who hated it will dislike its sequel. The author’s writing style tends to get a lot of hate, and things do not seem to improve that drastically with this book, though most fans of ‘Seeing Redd’ will defend it because it manages to entertain despite Beddor’s issues as a writer.