Фил Фоглио - Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg

Phil & Kaja met thanks to a diligent comics shop owner. They have been working on the Girl Genius series since 1993, which puts it in the running for “Worst Get Rich Quick Scheme Ever.” They were the first ever creators to take an established comics property and begin putting it up for free online, which to everyone’s surprise (including their own) immediately tripled their sales. As a webcomic ( http://www.girlgeniusonline.com), Girl Genius won the first three Hugo Awards for Best Graphic Story. They enjoy traveling, the opera, gardening, and various video games.

MORE GIRL GENIUS NOVELS

AGATHA H AND THE AIRSHIP CITY: GIRL GENIUS, BOOK ONE

Hardcover / $24.99 (available now)

978-1-59780-211-6

Trade paperback / $14.99 (available now)

978-1-59780-212-3

The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. It has been eighteen years since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over — and terrorizing — the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Hetrodynes’ return.

At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck. Incapable of building anything that actually works, but dedicated to her studies, Agatha seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown by the ruthless tyrant Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha finds herself a prisoner aboard his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach — and it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.

AGATHA H AND THE CLOCKWORK PRINCESS: GIRL GENIUS, BOOK TWO

Hardcover / $24.99 (available now)

978-1-59780-222-2

Trade paperback / $15.99 (available now)

978-1-59780-223-9

In a time when the Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare, mad science rules the world . . . with mixed success.

With the help of Krosp, Emperor of All Cats, Agatha has escaped from the massive airship known as Castle Wulfenbach. After crashing their escape dirigible, Agatha and Krosp fall in with Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure, a traveling troupe of performers dedicated to staging Heterodyne shows—dramatizations of the exploits of Bill and Barry Heterodyne and their allies—who are unaware of Agatha’s connection to the Heterodyne line.

Pursued by the ruthless Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, his handsome son Gil, and their minions (not to mention Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer), Agatha hides in plain sight among the circus folk, servicing their clanks and proving herself adept in performing the role of Lucrezia Mongfish, nemesis to—and later wife of—Barry Heterodyne. She also begins training under Zeetha, swordmistress and princess of the lost city of Skifander. Together, Agatha, Krosp, and the performers travel across the treacherous wasteland of war-torn Europa, towards Mechanicsburg, and the ancestral home of the Heterodynes—Castle Heterodyne.

But with many perils standing in her way—including Wulfenbach’s crack troops, mysterious Geisterdamen, savage Jдgermonsters, and the fabled Storm King—it’s going to take more than a spark of Mad Science for Agatha to get through . . .

AGATHA H AND THE VOICE OF THE CASTLE: GIRL GENIUS, BOOK THREE

Hardcover / $24.99 (available now)

978-1-59780-295-6

Trade paperback / $15.99 (available now)

978-1-59780-833-0

In the third installment of the Girl Genius novels, Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle begins as Agatha Heterodyne returns to her ancestral home, the warped little town of Mechanicsburg. There she must claim her inheritance by convincing the artificial intelligence that animates her family’s castle that she is, in fact, the new Heterodyne. But this apparently simple task is made complicated in several ways: An imposter claiming to be the legitimate heir appears. The Empire is convinced that Agatha is the person responsible for the Long War (and to be fair, they are not entirely incorrect). And, worst of all, the Castle itself is insane.

From the Hugo Award–winning Girl Genius online comics comes this third book in the Agatha H. trilogy; and just like the first two, Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle will grab you from the first page and not let go!

NOTES

1 A scene detailed at the end of one of our previous textbooks: Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess. This was the first time the Lady Lucrezia had possessed the Lady Heterodyne.

2 Lucifer Mongfish, the reluctant bкte noir of the Heterodyne Boys, had not one beautiful daughter, but three. The most famous of these was, of course, Lucrezia, who eventually wed Bill Heterodyne. Serpentina Mongfish eschewed the family business and ran off with the science-adventurer Prince DuMedd, while the third, Demonica, remained in the family lair, which occupied an extinct volcano somewhere to the west of Minsk. There she continued her father’s work. You don’t hear much about Demonica Mongfish, which is just the way she wanted it.

3 Airships—at least in the lurid pages of the pfennig dreadfuls—are expected to, on a regular basis, burst into flames, be attacked by sky-pirates, struck by lightning, grapple with air kraken, and be caught up in freakish air currents that swiftly and unerringly transport them thousands of kilometers to hidden civilizations and lost continents. Surprisingly, according to the empire’s records and statistics, this is in fact the case, but it is still the safest form of travel.

4 The locket under discussion was given to Agatha by her uncle, Barry Heterodyne, when she began to display signs she was about to “break through,” i.e. transition into a full-blown spark. Whereas this was something to be expected, considering her lineage, Agatha began to do this at the unprecedented age of five. The locket, in brief, acted as a governor on young Agatha’s brain, effectively retarding its development. Every indication we have was that this was supposed to be a short-term fix. Unfortunately, Barry disappeared and Agatha wore the locket nonstop until it was removed when she was eighteen years old. At that point, a lot of the preliminary neurological processes of a spark’s breakthrough had already begun, but had been allowed to develop incredibly slowly. As a result, Agatha did not so much break through, as ease through. This goes a long way towards explaining her relative sanity, despite her otherwise worrying pedigree.

5 Statements like this have helped convince behavioral psychologists that, wherever the original Lucrezia was, she was either incredibly mad or no longer human. A large majority of those questioned opined for “both.”

6 Many minions have developed the knack of imitating various sparks. It only becomes a problem when somebody gets interested in the whole mind-swapping thing. It’s one of the reasons why, by common consent, this is a field of science that is never pursued, or if it is, it stays between consenting adults.

7 The diminutive clanks, now colloquially known as dingbots, were constructed by the Lady Heterodyne as lab assistants and were fascinating entities. The ones the Lady constructed herself served as primaries. Once activated, they operated independently, scavenging parts and constructing additional, secondary dingbots. These would then go forth to construct tertiaries. Persons of a nervous disposition have allowed themselves to become overly concerned about a future where all of Europa is buried hip deep in duodenary dingbots busy disassembling the Earth itself for parts. Fortunately, secondaries were not as good at building dingbots as the primaries are, and the tertiaries were barely capable of performing simple tasks, let alone constructing more dingbots.