Kaja FoglioReseñas

Another fun romp in the steampunk universe of Agatha Heterodyne. Not to disparage Phil Foglio's artwork, but I'm just not a visually oriented person and don't find graphically presented stories as satisfying as text or audio. But it would be a shame to have missed these characters and tales. So I am deeply grateful to the Foglios for text-novelizing their web comic/graphic novels. And the audiobook is a wonderfully enjoyable job by reader Angela Dawe.

I've been reading Girl Genius for about ten years and, I have to say, it only gets better. Not only is the gaslamp fantasy world consistently engaging and surprising, but the story as it stands in November 2020 is expansively empathetic. It interrogates the intersection between being in a powerful ingroup (here represented as humans) and being worthy of empathy by refusing to explicitly classify clanks, constructs, and other spark-created beings’ level of earned empathy except for through Agatha’s deconstruction of other sparks’ anti-construct prejudices. It's hilarious and the art is beautiful and Zeetha and Krosp always leave me smiling.

Another great addition to the the Girl Genius saga. Some interesting things were revealed and a longstanding problem was finally solved. Now on to more hijinks.½

I have been reading this web comic for over a decade. I would own every hard cover version if postage was not prohibitive. It has plenty to recommend it; Genius girls, Machiavellian baddies, voluptuous goddesses, beautiful art work, steam punk, cities with personalities, sea monsters, dragons, trains, libraries, robots, parasites, deadly challenges, and Jaegers.
I cannot get enough of the crazy, loyal, Jaeger's.
When I want to spend some pure 'me time' indulgence, this is my choice.

A faithful adaption of the story told in their first two three graphic novels. Wonderful oversized characters in a fascinating world...but the novel was perhaps a bit too hampered by how it had been told before.

Funny and charming, but I was a bit confused. I'll have to go read the comic now so I can understand what the hell is going on. Not that I mind. Reading comics is not exactly a hardship for me.

Loved the artwork and sense of humor in this one-I'll be reading more!

This is a novelization of the first story arc of the Girl Genius comic. The novelization captures the charm of the original and gives interesting new insights into some of the characters and their background. Although I must agree with a reviewer who said that this was not as good as a novel as the comic is for a web comic, that is only because this is a good novelization of a superb comic.

If you're a Girl Genius fan, you should definitely give it a read.

This third volume of the novelization of the Girl Genius comic continues to be an entertaining addition to the canon. That said, like the comic its self, this third novel started to slow down. The full thing covered a period of less than 24 hours.

While I do enjoy the additional insights into the characters thoughts that the novelization provides, I do sometimes wish that the authors strayed slightly more from the comic itself. In particular, the comic makes great use of visual cues to convey information and mood. Instead of using methods more appropriate to a novel to achieve that, many scenes throughout this book just transcribe the visual cues used in the comic. It's not bad, but it certainly weakens the narrative.

Adventure! Romance! Giant holograms in revealing dresses!

Like the first Girl Genius novelization, [b:Agatha H and the Airship City|9874196|Agatha H and the Airship City (Girl Genius)|Phil Foglio|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1291998058s/9874196.jpg|14765901], this book is a page for page novelization of the graphic novel. Like it's predecessor, it's not as good for a novel as the comic is for a web comic, but that's a incredibly high bar. The novelization gives insight into the characters and plot that just don't work as well in a graphic novel. For fans of Girl Genius, this novel is a must-read supplement.

I've read this before, of course, online. But it's always worth reading the books. Though it both started and ended with cliffhangers, a little annoying. Agatha in the underwater dome lab.½

Intro to a steampunk adventure, Agatha Clay is having a bad day, robbed then her favorite professor at Transylvania Polygnostic University is killed. Her Aunt and Uncle want her to pack up and flee the invading army. But something else happens instead.

A little short but it's an interesting story and I'll be on the lookout for more volumes in the series

Agatha is in and out of trouble again and again. Some times she's causing it, sometimes she's stopping it. Sometimes both. Another great story, but where this books ends is terrible. Can't they ever just get 1 thing done? Ever? Anyway I do enjoy the Girl Genius story line and am eagerly waiting the next book, since I find it more enjoyable to binge read the whole book at once that get dribbles day by day on the web comic. (personal preference!)

Inmiddels is dit alweer het 19de album van de webstrip Girl Genius en gek genoeg heeft het me nog nooit verveeld. Telkens weer vraag ik me af hoe Agatha Heterodyne zich uit de benarde situatie waar ze nu weer in verzeild is geraakt, weet te ontkomen en met wat voor geniale oplossingen zij komt. Het blijft elke keer opnieuw een verrassing.

Zo ook de personages die opgevoerd worden. In elk album is er wel weer een nieuw soort wezen wat zich aandient, is het niet uit haar eigen universum dan wel uit een andere dimensie, net zo makkelijk. En daarmee word ik als lezer maar vooral ook als kijker, enorm verwend. De tekeningen blijven mijn eigen fantasie prikkelen en mijn brein verrassen.

Dat er wel erg veel personages zijn die een terugkerende rol hebben, is voor mij soms wel lastig om te volgen. Het kan nog wel eens wat langer geleden zijn dat ik het vorige deel heb gelezen en dan zijn mij de wat minder prominente figuren wel eens ontschoten. Gelukkig biedt dit album in de eerste bladzijden een heel goed geheugensteuntje waarbij aardig wat personages nog eens worden voorgesteld.

De titel Sparks en Monsters zegt precies waar dit deel over gaat (maar gaat niet elk deel hier eigenlijk over? ;-)). Ik keek dan ook uit naar welke Sparks zich dit keer gingen aandienen en welke monsters ik kennis mee ging maken. Ik ben absoluut weer niet teleurgesteld. Hoe doen ze het toch die Kaja en Phil Foglio?½

A graphic steampunk novel sounded great, but it wasn't. The story was confusing and puerile. The main character Agatha was inconsistent, sometimes pathetic, but sometimes brash and outspoken. Baron Wolfenbach was heartless, but his son, Gilgamesh, has some promise to become more than his father. Not sure if I will continue the series or not.

The webcomic in book form. Fun reading.

GIRL GENIUS: ADVENTURE! ROMANCE! MAD SCIENCE!

I've been reading GG since I ran across the first published volume about fifteen years ago and, with some breaks, I'm still reading updates as the decades-long mad science steampunk drama is published online three times a week. It feels weird to rate something so formative and so personal so low, but the truth is that it is so long, it isn't finished yet, and it would be frustrating to start reading now that it's about 20 volumes, coming out page by page. GG has a fantastically intricate plotline that doesn't really lend itself to the casual reading of something that has to come out slowly, piece by piece, over the course of years.

I won't bother getting into personal nitpicks, as almost all of them are just matters of personal taste. I will say this: I have been on tetherhooks about various romantic entanglements in GG for over a decade and I am on those same tetherhooks today, as I write this in 2021, wondering what it means that Agatha will be sailing with Martellus while both of her prospective suitors are sent to war far away in Europa.

Het 18de deel van deze hele serie en het 5de deel wat deze tweede reis van Agatha Heterodyne betreft. Dit maal heb ik het niet via de website van Girl Genius (https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/) gelezen zoals ik alle delen hiervoor heb verorberd. Nee, dit maal heb ik via een digitaal exemplaar van het boek het avontuur tot mij genomen. Ooit aangeschaft via een kickstarter om de strip ook in boekvorm te kunnen laten uitgeven.

Het grote voordeel van deze digitale versie is dat er voorin uitgebreid een voorstelrondje wordt gehouden met het inmiddels talrijke gezelschap dat Agatha omringt. Hiermee wordt ook gelijk een korte achtergrond van het lopende verhaal weergegeven. Zeer aangenaam voor mensen met een wat minder geheugen zoals ik. Alleen vraag ik me wel af of het voldoende is voor lezers die nu pas bij dit avontuur instappen.

In dit deel brengt Agatha een bezoek aan Engeland, een eiland dat zich onder de waterspiegel bevindt wat gelijk schitterende beelden oplevert van doorzichtige stulpen die op het land staan om de wezens in lucht en niet in water te kunnen laten ademhalen.
De Engelse koningin is een goddelijk wezen met een oneindig lang bestaan en er haar zo eigenzinnige ideeën en motieven op nahoudt. Door haar goddelijkheid kan ze elke moment van gedaante en grootte veranderen waardoor elk volgend plaatje met haar weer een verrassing is.

Door al deze fantasievolle elementen is het tekenwerk weer een feest voor het oog. Het enige minpuntje aan het hele album vind ik dat soms er wat slordig getekend is waardoor het net lijkt alsof de tekeningen niet helemaal af zijn. Misschien dat het komt door tijdgebrek, ze publiceren al vele jaren lang elke week drie bladzijden, en dat er niet meer naar omgekeken is bij het verhaal daadwerkelijk in albumvorm gieten. Als dat het is dan kan ik het ze makkelijk vergeven. Want voor de rest blijft het even briljant als het al die jaren al is.

Liked it, but didn't love it. I may try a few others in the series though!

Now, I managed to get my hands on an advanced uncorrected copy of this (I love my job!) and jump right into it with out even realizing that there was already a history and story line and all that jazz. And to be honest I’m pretty happy about that. But more on that later.

Basic Plot: This is the story of Agatha Clay, who is actually Agatha Heterodryne, the lost daughter of Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish. When the Baron realizes this Agatha and Krosp, her faithful talking cat, escape for their lives and hide in plain sight in a traveling circus.

What I liked:

I really liked Agatha, she was smart, spunky, loyal and wasn’t afraid to work. There were times were she was a little too naive but other than that it did keep the story flowing.
The footnotes were great! Normally footnotes drive me insane but these were well done and there weren’t so many of them that it got distracting.
Krosp-I have a thing for heroines with talking cats, or maybe it’s just a talking cat thing, either way I always love a talking cat.
The Circus was full of diverse if somewhat under developed characters
I loved how there was still a pretty dark undertone to the book-it was funny throughout but there was still that darkness to it to keep it well rounded
What I didn’t like:

Having never read the comic before reading the book I did have some issues with Krosp and his movements-was he a real cat? or was he a flexible, human-esque cat with opposable thumbs? In the end i went with real cat.
The Jagers- they were great characters but having such a heavy accent written for them got old fast
The ending-while i know the story goes on in the comic I wish the ending didn’t have so many loss ends.
While I really enjoyed the book I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with the comic, I’m just way too far behind and I honestly don’t like reading comics any way- I either focus too much on the words and forget to look at the pictures or the other way around. Also I now have set images for what I think all the characters look like and I’m not overly fond of how they look in the comic.

Happy Readings!

This is an excellent book, and the reader is fantastic. However, the audiobook omits the "To be Continued in Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg" chunk that comes after the cliffhanger, which is rather frustrating.

Also, this book ends on a cliffhanger, and Agatha H and the Siege of Mechanicsburg isn't out yet, so keep that under consideration - though considering that arc of the comics also ends on a cliffhanger, you may even want to wait until the 5th novel, and then binge on the three of them. That way you're on a good stopping place while you wait for "Agatha H. and the Master of Paris." or whatever book 6 will be titled.

I still really enjoy the art and the characters in this series. However, the plot is a bit more out of control than it used to be. The early books seemed to tie the plot up nicely enough at the end of the individual books, even though there was still the main series plot left unresolved. In the case of the later books, however (including this one) I haven't really noticed any book-resolution to the plot. It's more of a pause between books instead of a conclusion. YMMV on if this annoys you, or how much. Personally, I find it a bit exhausting.

I have enjoyed Foglio's work since the days of "Phil & Dixie" in Dragon magazine, and this web series is no exception. It's a fun steampunk / gaslamp romp, and I've taken to buying the books instead of reading the web comics in order to financially support authors & artists whose work I enjoy.

I love this series, but the current arc is getting more confusing again. Lots of players mean lots of subplots, and I sometimes have trouble tracking the subplots. Still... mad science! Yay!

I really enjoy the way this book gives the start of an explanation for why Book 1 is in sepia-tone and the rest of the series is in full color. (As I recall, there's more explanation later, but it's been a while since I've read these.) This is still a great series, one of my favorites in its genre.