Shelf Indulgence

When I first heard that The Unwritten was coming to an end, I was sad because I've come to enjoy this weird blend of Harry Potter and the Thursday Next series. After that, I started to wonder exactly how Carey was going to wrap up the series, considering that it's a metafictional exercise in storytelling and the power of reading. Plus, one of the subplots of the entire series involved a character who was the archetype of all villains, and that he wanted to die. How do you wrap up that storyline without destroying all of fiction?

The good news is that Carey managed to stick the landing here, without pulling any cheap tricks to make it happen. I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you how he does it, but I will say that he pulls in many of the series' major characters in order to do it. In fact, he pulls in one character you may have forgotten about, and did it in such a way that it worked, and it never felt like cheating. We are talking about story here, and its power, so a lot of what happens makes perfect sense when you think about it in that respect.

I'm still going to be sad to see the series end, because I think it's the best thing that Vertigo has published since Sandman came to an end nearly twenty years ago. (Lordy, that was twenty years ago?) In fact, with Fables ending before the end of the year, I won't be reading any Vertigo titles. That just doesn't seem right. I guess I'll have to rely on The Walking Dead and Usagi Yojimbo to keep me going.