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Welcome to Hollow Fields![]

Hollow fields welcome by clockwork7 — Hollow Fields cover for *Volume 1* and the *Omnibus*

Hollow Fields is an all-ages steampunk action/adventure original English-language manga series written and illustrated by the Australian artist Madeleine Rosca and published by Seven Seas Entertainment. The original series consists of Hollow Fields Volume 1 (published June 2007), Volume 2 (May 2008), and Volume 3 (January 2009) which were later compiled in a complete collection titled Hollow Fields Omnibus in September 2009. A fourth book was released in March 2016 titled Hollow Fields and the Perfect Cog and is a continuation after the events of the first three volumes. Color versions of Volume 1 (2017), Volume 2 (2018), and Volume 3 (2019) have been published with the help of colorist Honoel Ibardolaza, and a color version of Hollow Fields and the Perfect Cog is in the works as of 2020. The original versions read right to left like a manga, while the color versions right left to right like a western comic.

At the time of creating Volume 1, Rosca was working as a public librarian and a lot of her inspiration at the time came from books that were intended for all-ages and could be enjoyed by both children and adults. Books like Artemis Fowl and A Series of Unfortunate Events are a couple examples she names, saying they "sort of mixed some fantasy/horror themes with comedy and had a broad appeal."^[1] It was also inspired by wanting to write for a female protagonist, something with a setting that was steampunk-influenced, as well as about children who were in their "middle childhood/pre-teen stage" because that was a time that was difficult for her as a child.^[2] In 2007, Madeleine Rosca was one of the four, and the only Westerner of the four, selected to receive the first ever International Manga Award from Japan for her work on Hollow Fields.^[3]

Rosca has another steampunk series titled The Clockwork Sky (Volumes 1 and 2) that follow Erasmus Croach's niece, Sally Peppers, and one of Erasmus Croach's creations, a robotic police boy named Sky. This story may exist in the same universe as Erasmus Croach may be of relation to Mr. Croach in Hollow Fields.

Plot[]

Rainy Day — The original proposed cover for *Hollow Fields Vol. 1*

From the description of the omnibus:

Little Lucy Snow was supposed to attend a prestigious boarding school; however, a macabre twist of fate finds her enrolled instead at Miss Weaver’s Academy for the Scien

tifically Gifted and Ethically Unfettered, also known as Hollow Fields. Located on the outskirts of Nullsville and run by the insidious Engineers, the grim boarding school dedicates itself to raising the next generation of mad scientists and evil geniuses!

Classes include Live Taxidermy, Cross-Species Body Part Transplantation, and Killer Robot Construction. For her own survival, Lucy must master her lessons quickly. At the end of each week, the student with the lowest grades is sent to the old windmill for detention... and so far, no child has ever returned.

As the TV Tropes page puts it:

It follows the adventures of a girl named Lucy Snow as she attends Miss Eleanor Weaver's Academy for the Scientifically Gifted and Ethically Unfettered (also known as Hollow Fields); where steam-powered teachers, called Engineers, teach students various aspects of mad science. Each week, the student with the lowest grades gets sent to the windmill, whence no one has ever returned. She barely manages to avoid detention with the tutelage of the mechanical box Dr. Bleak and soon decides to investigate the mysteries of the windmill with her new friend, Claude McGinty. All the while, Lucy must try to make nice with the other students, some of whom are out for blood.