[amazon_link id=”1597802123″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]I’d never read Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius comic, despite being drawn in by the attractively rounded girl on the cover, mostly because I don’t read a lot of comics. They just don’t last long enough for me. But i have always wanted to find out what the Girl Genius storyline was.

This novelization of the first issue, let me accomplish that though words rather than pictures, and I had a lot of fun reading it.

Agatha is a university student in the mechanno-fantasy world loosely based on Victorian Europe but peopled by a combination of ordinary folk, royalty, and “madboy” geniuses, known as “Sparks,” who have the ability to add a magical element to their mechanical creations. When we meet Agatha, her spark powers haven’t materialized, or rather, they’re not apparent, having been damped by a locket her Uncle Barry gave her. Since she’s actually bound to be a very powerful Spark, and he can’t be around to keep her out of the danger attracting attention to herself will cause, he’s created a damping device for her to wear until the time is right.

Hopefully for her that time would be at the beginning of the story when the locket is stolen by a down on his luck soldier. It takes a little while for Agatha to come to grips with the reality that she’s got the spark, and she comes to the attention of Baron Klaus whatshisname all too quickly, winding up aboard the massive dirigible that is the capital city of his Europa devouring empire.

Along the way I toyed with the idea that this isn’t set in an alternate/fantasy Earth…but actually a far future Europa (you know, the Jovian moon)…but I don’t expect the author is willing to go there. Still, I like the notion and it allows me to think of this as sf masquerading as fantasy.

Agatha goes through a lot of harrowing adventures aboard the airship, and though the characters are all a bit comical, they’re actually quite engaging. The evil Baron is hardly one dimensional, his son Gil (Gilgamesh) is poised on the edge of choosing good/evil for a lifestyle, and the side characters, many with names cheerfully lifted from other works (Gil’s manservent is named Wooster) have their own have pretty good backstories themselves.

I’m fond of Karl Schroeder’s Virga stories, which are about a zero g gas cloud with a no electronics field throughout it…a setting for a hard sf steampunk world. Girl Genius is like a more lighthearted version of that, replete with classic SF and Horror B movie tropes, but underneath the farce lies a perfectly good story.

This is an adaptation of the comic, which is available online, but which I hadn’t read…at least until after I’d read the book. Checking out the comic I was intrigued by how much of the book it manages to convey with a few frames of action and dialog. I suppose if you followed the 1 picture = 1 kiloword you’d find it was about right. Since the same team did both, I suppose it’s not surprising that they got it right.

Interestingly, I’m not inclined to read the comics to find out what happens next. I like their look, and Agatha’s certainly, um, cheerfully proportioned…in a somewhat rounded way that suggests the fannish reality…but I like the immersion that books allow.

Hopefully the authors won’t be long in bringing out the next installment, which I’ll be happy to kick back and devour.