In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become all-out war, Mad Science rules the world... with mixed success. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay was a student with trouble concentrating and rotten luck. Dedicated to her studies but unable to build anything that actually worked, she seemed destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But then the University was overthrown, and Agatha was taken aboard the giant airship Castle Wulfenbach - where it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.

"Some of the material in this collection was originally published in the Girl genius comic books issues 4-6"--T.p. verso.