Looking Glass Wars Books In Order

Publication Order of The Looking Glass Wars Books

The Looking Glass Wars series is a well known fantasy novel series written by one of the noteworthy authors from The United States named Frank Beddor. This series is inspired by the books, Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It is comprised of a total of 4 books, which were released between the years 2004 and 2009. Author Beddor says that the basic premise of this series is that Carroll’s 2 books seem as distortions to the true stories described in them. The books in the series feature a number of twists from the actual story. Author Beddor first wrote the series in the form of a trilogy, the first book of which has the same name as the series. Its tremendous success enabled it to go through a development in various fields. One of those developments is a comical spin off book series titled as Hatter M. The original book was first released in the year 2004 in the UK and then in 2006 in the US. In many of his interviews, author Beddor has claimed that he got the idea to write the book when he saw an incomplete card deck on display in the British Museum, as part of ancient pack of cards. The images that he saw on the cards resembled the characters of Wonderland. Even the cards seemed to glow with an unusual illumination. Later, Beddor met with a collector of playing cards who claimed that the cards missing from the display are in his possession and then he told an exciting story related to the cards. And with the help of the recording of the story, author Beddor wrote down the first book.

The novel begins with the idea that both Alice and Wonderland are real. The novel by Carroll is shown to have received inspiration from the ideas, names, and images related to him by Alice as she had asked Carroll to write a book based on her own historical background. Eventually, Carroll wrote the book based on the theme of ‘loss of innocence’. Alice is shown laying emphasis on spelling her name as Alyss. The prologue of the plot shows Reverend Charles Dodgson showing the manuscript of the book to Alyss, who becomes shocked and decides not to talk to him again. Author Beddor has set the start of the series on the 7th birthday of Alyss in her memory’s Wonderland. This world is shown to be under the rule of imagination. A class system is depicted to exist in Wonderland, which is similar to the one present in 17th century England. There is Queendom government in Wonderland with the Parliamentary advisors dominated by a hierarchy based on playing cards. The family of Hearts is at the top, from which the Queen is selected. From the remaining families of Clubs, Diamonds, and Spades, the parliament is formed. Females are shown to dominate in Wonderland and there is matriarchy in the ruling families. At first, Queen Genevieve Heart is described as the ruler. During her rule, Wonderland is shown trying to recover from a deadly civil war. As the series progresses, Alyss Heart or Alice Liddell goes on to defeat Black Imagination and gets crowned as a true Wonderland Queen. In addition to Alyss Heart, the other important characters introduced in the series include Hatter Madigan, Redd Heart, Dodge Anders, Bibwit Harte, Homburg Molly, Prince Leopold, General Doppleganger, and The Cat. A number of supporting characters have also been described by author Beddor.

One of the books published in the Looking Glass Wars series is entitled ‘Seeing Redd’. It was released by Dial Books in 2007. In the starting sequence, author Beddor has shown that the rule of Alyss has just started in Wonderland. But already, threats are getting hurled at her from the ones who prefer to have chaos instead of peace. The threats seem to destroy all that is worth imagining for. Alyss is trailed by her newly chosen royal bodyguard named Homburg Molly. She tries her best to keep up with the pace of being a queen and fulfill the nonstop demands. In between she tries to evade Homburg Molly to have some private time with Dodge. Since the day she has become queen, Alyss’s life has become a challenging mixture of love, duty, tough decisions, etc. Later, several phantom sightings cause fires to the urban myth of the return of her Imperial Viciousness and everyone begins to see Redd. Alyss begins to wonder whether Redd has freed herself from Heart Crystal’s confines as well as her assassin named The Cat. And if this is not the case then how did the brutal Glass Eyes foot soldiers of Redd got resurrected and set loose to launch an all sided attack on Wonderland. A number of battles continue to rage and explosion of looking glasses takes place as the followers of Alyss Heart go on to unite and defend the White Imagination. Author Beddor has written the plot in a face paced manner, which makes it an even interesting read.

The series next book was published under the title ‘ArchEnemy’. This book was also released by the Dial Books publication in 2009. The plot shows the introduction of artillery in the form of orb cannons, crystal shootes, AD 525s, spikejack tumblers, etc., which get unleashed in a brutal war of brute force and weapons. In the meantime, Alyss is seen trying to search for a solution to the disastrous situation that has surrounded her Queendom. At the same time, Arch announces himself as Wonderland King. The moment seems very desperate for Alyss because of which she sets herself to travel to London. There, the assassins of Arch pose a great threat to Alyss’ family and her. After helping them move to a secure place, she finds that she has got trapped in evaporating puddles’ conundrum. Alyss also finds that the shimmering portals for transporting her home are getting disappeared slowly. Due to the volatile situation, everybody begins to wonder how the future of Wonderland is going to be? As the metamorphosis goes on to unfold in Wonderland, rivals engage in face offs, enemies become friends, and Redd Heart and Alyss go on to confront their past lives so as to bring the ongoing war to an end. This book too became successful and helped the overall series become a New York Times bestseller.