Graphic Novel Review – Agatha Heterodyne and the Siege of Mechanicsburg (Girl Genius, Book 12) by Phil and Kaja Foglio (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Teen+
Genre: Graphic Novel/Steampunk
Length: 192 pages
Publisher: Studio Foglio
Release Date: December 3, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-1890856571
Stand Alone or Series: 12th book in the Girl Genius series
Source: Gift
Rating: 4/5 stars
This is the 12th book in the Girl Genius series. These books are getting harder and harder to review because they are getting pretty complicated and cut between a lot of different characters.
Agatha has left Castle Heterodyne and is trying to help defend the city of Mechanicsburg. Meanwhile Gil and Tarvek are in Castle Wulfenbach trying to get things sorted. The Jagers are out in force helping to defend the city and the other monsters of Mechanicsburg have been released to help in the defense as well. The other sparks are still trying to repair Castle Heterodyne and give it more power so that it can enable even more defenses in Mechanicsburg.
The first part of this book had much of the humor that earlier books in the series have had and I found myself laughing out loud quite a bit. The rest of the book was a bit more tense and serious.
The story is all over the place and Agatha isn’t in it for vast portions of the story. There are many different groups of characters that we follow and at points it gets a bit confusing as to exactly how much time has gone by between different parts or if they are happening simultaneously. There is a “The Story Thus Far” part at the beginning of the book which is helpful. I wish there was a quick guide to what the characters look like and their names as well. There are so many characters involved now that sometimes I have trouble remembering who came from where and what their names are.
Castle Heterodyne wasn’t in the story as much and I missed that. There is a ton about the Jagers in here (I like the Jagers but reading through the accent they talk with can be a struggle).
I continue to enjoy all the crazy inventions and steampunk elements to the story. I also enjoy the characters and the wonderfully bright illustration throughout.
Overall this was a solid installment in this series. I still enjoy the characters, the steampunk elements, and the illustration. I hope future books are a bit less scattered and instead of jumping between a million different groups of characters that they focus more on progressing the story. I would recommend this whole graphic novel series to fans of fantasy graphic novels who like humor and some steampunk in their stories.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
