An excellent follow-up to an earlier book. It continues the series flawlessly and I'm eager to see more from this author in the future. The artwork is fantastical and enjoyable to look at.

For those who loved the first graphic novel in this series, "Castle in the Stars: The Space Race of 1869," this second volume more than rises to the same bar of excellence; the art is gorgeous, composed primarily of watercolors and laid out on the page in grand and sweeping panel arrangements that do as much to convey the scope and ambition of the story as the plot itself. I am reminded of Hergé's "Tintin" in that this is an illustrated series for junior readers that brings a Eurocentric rather than an American flavor to the genre. (The dimensions are also similar.) I am also reminded of Pearson's "Hilda" in that Alice has managed to bring a new aesthetic into mainstream awareness. Watercolor may have been around for millennia, but it's still not all that common in graphic novels and sequential art. For look and feel, Alice's "Castle in the Stars" series can't be beat, and its plot and characterizations are also rich and nuanced. This is a series that truly does benefit from being held in the hand and admired in physical format.

At the last moment, the King of Bavaria joined the trial of the aethership to escape the betrayal by his chamberlin to the Prussians. The engine regulator disappeared so the ship was launched into space and managed to crash land on the moon. The King went hunting for the castle of his dreams while the rest of the crew worked on repairing the ship. The King found his dream and set off on a journey farther out while the aethership returned to Earth. Once again, the artwork helps set the mood of the tale and returns the reader to the fantastic journeys reported by Jules Verne and his compatriots. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series.

I love this story. The mix of steampunk and space gets me every time. It is helpful if you have read book number one, but it’s not required. An airship is trying to escape to the top of the aether, and then once there, discover the craziness of space. I love this series.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

Continues the story of Seraphin and his father as they journey into outer space and through the aether barrier, along them come Sophie and brother Hans, and King Ludwig. On their way to cross the Aether barrier (atmosphere) they learn that they are missing a crucial piece of device and end up flowing in space.

As they try to find a way back home to Earth they come across a shiny light from the moon that damages them even more. They now have a small window of time to make the necessary repairs and get back home.

The Castle in the Stars: The Moon-King has very beautiful artwork with a compelling story that captives the reader. The story is interesting and catches the reader’s attention with its mystery and fantasy tale of space travel different to what we have learned in our world. At the same time, the characters are easy to like, their innocence and bravery make them the best candidates for this travel into the stars.

This book has stunning artwork that brings to life the story that is being narrated. Its watercolor technique suits the time setting in which the story takes places and was a great choice to interpret the landscapes of outer space and the moon.

Most of the characters in this expedition have their own agenda and while trying to accomplish their goals they endanger the rest of the crew members and seem to believe they are correct. In my opinion, both the king Ludwig and Seraphin father will do anything to prove they are correct.

While It’s easy to follow along with the story, I do recommend you read the first book in the series to understand better the characters. I’m also interested to see where the author will take the characters after how things ended in this book.

If you are a fan of Alex Alice and his work, then I recommend you Castle in the Stars: The Moon-King. In this book, a family and a king follow a logbook into the stars and end up stranded on the moon.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

Absolutely beautifully illustrated and with a fantastical story, Castle in the Stars is quite a wild ride. I quite enjoyed my time with it, however I did find that the reader is thrown in kind of randomly and you have to really be paying attention to know who is who, and what exactly is happening. I loved the whole idea, and some of the characters proved themselves to be quite interesting, but I also felt really adrift fro pretty much the whole story - I didn't always understand what was happening, and the characters felt a little one-dimensional.
I will definitely keep an eye out for the sequel, and I cannot praise the artwork enough, but not my favourite graphic novel.

I didn’t realize this was the second book in a series, so I was curious to see if I could drop right in and be fine, or feel completely left out.

We start our story in the late 1800’s in Bavaria in a story of spacecraft. A couple suppose their children boarded the King’s Aethership, but it has been thirty-six hours since telescopes have lost sight of the craft.

The Aethership is the only hope of the King keeping his throne. Seraphin is convinced that his mother is still alive. But someone has stolen the regulator and the whole crew is at risk! Will they make it back to Earth or will casualties lie ahead? Or will something else entirely be discovered?

I absolutely adore the artwork! It is realistic and so descriptive. Also, I love the tidbits of science and fact the reader receives, which adds to the realism and makes you feel like you are learning something without even trying! I like how it started out with the current, went back in time, and the reader ended up after the beginning by the time the comic was over.

Castle in the Stars: The Moon King is the second installment of Alex Alice’s graphic story involving a 19th Century space race between the two hostile nations of Prussia (led by Bismarck) and Bavaria (ruled by “Mad” King Ludwig. Book one tells of the attempt to prove the existence of “aether,” a substance that along with flight would potentially be a nearly limitless source of energy. The first book ended on a cliffhanger, with the prototype space vehicle unexpectedly taking off with more on board than expected. The Moon King picks up right afterward, with the vehicle entering space and then, thanks to sabotage, landing on the moon rather than returning to Earth. This version of our moon luckily has a thin seasonal atmosphere, so the crew can survive, but only during the “day” (354 hour). When “night” falls, the cold will set in, the atmosphere will fall back to the ground as snow, and our characters will die.

So while book one dealt with a race between people, The Moon King is a race against time as the characters try to repair their ship before the atmosphere disappears. The ticking clock adds a nice sense of urgency and tension to the storyline. There’s also a bit of mystery added as some unexpected discoveries are made below the moon’s surface. As in the first book, plotting is somewhat unbalanced thanks to a sense of rushing in places as well as some clunky exposition that gets tossed out more than a few times. And there are a few hand-waving moments of resolution. On a more positive note, the plot does take some nice turns in the latter third, which also offer up the story’s best moments of conflict and the most affecting emotionality. Characterization meanwhile is thin or non-existent, save for some of those moments at the end; slowing things down to let us know these characters a bit more fully would have helped.

The artwork is not quite as stunning as the first book’s, which was truly gorgeous. The color palette here is much more restrained thanks to the setting, with the moon mostly a pale bluish-white and so the visuals can feel a bit monotone/repetitive. And I’m repeating my same complaint from Castle in the Stars that there are too many panels per page, which not only squeezes the action (and the text) into too-small boxes at times, but worse, doesn’t allow Alice the fullness of space that the artwork deserves. A full-page spread (save for a small inset panel) of an orrery is a beautiful piece of work, and one wishes there had been a few more such pages, or half-pages.

While their adventure on the moon is resolved, the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger and sets us on the path for book three’s quest. The Moon King is a weaker work than Castle in the Stars, mostly due to the reduced impact of the artwork. Because the text, as with its predecessor, is clunky at worst and adequate at best, the art really needed to shine. It does on occasion, but not quite as much as one would hope for. I’m hoping there’s a return to form in book three. One last note — there is a single scene of violence where a father disciplines his son by backhanding him, hard, across the face. It was a shocking moment for me, and I admit I couldn’t quite get past it with regard to the father’s character. Any parent reading this aloud to their child should be prepared to deal with that scene somehow.

First of all, I just want to say that the illustrations in this book are some of the most gorgeous I've seen. Add to the incredible concept and you have one awesome book.

I'm not even sure what to call this aetherpunk? Spacepunk? Whatever it is, I cannot wait for the next installment and what's next for Seraphin, Sophie, Hans and the rest of the crew!

Let me start with this, this graphic novel has beautiful art.

It wasn’t until I started to read that I realized this is second in a series, which might explain why the beginning left me feeling like I was missing something. There is a very steampunk feel and look to the story that I quite enjoyed, again the art is beautiful, and while I enjoyed the characters I don’t feel like I got much out of them. The motives weren’t quite clicking with me and I was confused by the kings decisions.

Overall I do think the story was fun and interesting and off the top of my head I can think of several people I know who would enjoy this. I look forward to where the next book takes things, it’s sure to be quite an adventure.

The artwork for this book was very lovely, but the story just did not match. The characters were not very well developed and most of the science was hard to follow. The story was just to wild and heavy for me to want to finish the book.

Gorgeous artwork is the only thing I enjoyed in this story. I really thought I would like it more since the premise seemed so promising: what if humans had landed on the moon in the 1800's?
The problem is, even if you buy into the steampunk premise that we were able to get airborne, the story chooses to throw ALL the science out the window immediately with bizarre plot devices like the moon has an atmosphere... and ice... but only on the dark side? What in the actual hell? Why????????
Also, the characters are never fleshed out, and we never get a satisfying explanation as to who these people even are! Ok, you have a scientist, and you have the King who of course has to be on the mission, but why did they bring the housekeeper? And a kid with a dog? And a leprechaun-like guy who just sits around smoking (in outer space) and complaining????
Hard pass.

Interesting story with beautiful pictures. Loved the science squeezed into the plot

I had one of my students take a look at this one, because he is very into graphic novels of all kinds, but he was not a fan. We went through it together, and the biggest issue was that the story seemed confusing and very difficult to follow. Upon further inspection, it would appear that this book is the fourth in a series, so perhaps it is not meant as a stand=alone (meaning that they NEED to read the earlier books in order to be able to follow subsequent ones). I will look into the first one and see whether that is the case, or if this just isn't a series for the class.

I absolutely love this series! It's like a Studio Ghibli film in graphic novel form. It's got everything I love: German history, Victorian Space Travel, Steampunk tech, adventure, all presented with gorgeous watercolor illustrations. I love it I love it and I need more, damn it! It's almost enough to make me learn French so I can read the originals.

Almost.

Beautiful and unparalleled artwork. Heavy story and lots to read, but worth it.