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! ( )

Alweer het twaalfde deel van Girl Genius. En zoals de titel al zegt gaat dit deel om de bezetting van Mechanicsburg. Nu speelt het verhaal al een behoorlijk lange tijd af in en om het kasteel en ik kreeg bij dit deel wel een beetje een vermoeidheid wat betreft de strijd van alle partijen en begon ik me af te vragen hoe lang dit nog door zal gaan. Met wat speuren ontdekte ik dat de eerste dertien delen vallen onder het originele avontuur en dat er vervolgens verder gegaan wordt met The Second Journey of Agatha Heterodyne. Dat stemt mij optimistisch. Er gaat een afronding komen en vervolgens een nieuw begin. Wat mij betreft precies op tijd.

In dit deel wordt Agatha eindelijk als de lady Heterodyne erkent en Gil als de Baron Wulfenbach, nou ja, als zijn vader dood was gebleven. Ha!
Verder hebben de makers zich weer heerlijk uitgeleefd in beeld en taal. Zo worden we getrakteerd op kannonnenpakjes, dropwalls (muren die letterlijk uit de lucht komen vallen), de grote held Tryggvassen met zijn spraak in geheel eigen lettertype, subterranean mechanerwhals die uit de grond komen zetten, een stormram die letterlijk uit een reuzenram bestaat, vechtende draken die niet op hun mondje gevallen zijn, verschillende soorten ridders van Jove en nog veel meer.

Op de laatste pagina van dit deel doet Agatha de allerlaatste poging om Mechanicsburg te redden en dit eindigt met een enorme BOEM.
Dat belooft wat voor het volgende deel. ( )

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 is the 12th book in the Girl Genius series and I think it 's one of the best yet. The artwork continues to get better and better and the storyline is great. There is plenty of humor and it is just all around awesome.

Agatha and company are spending their time trying to get the castle repaired for it to help in the defense of the town. Many parts seem to get broken almost as soon as they are fixed from the continuous oncoming attacks. Many are caught, then escape, caught and escape again, disappear and then reappear. It also has a great cliffhanger ending. The worst part is always waiting for the next book. ( )