The Unwritten vol. 10: War Stories

After that encounter with the “Fables” crew, Tom Taylor takes the long way back to reality at the start of this volume.  It involves him travelling through archetypal stories like “The Ugly Duckling” through “Alice in Wonderland” and even “The Chronicles of Narnia.”  These scenes initially come off as confusing, leaving you to wonder just what writer Mike Carey is up to here.  Stick with them and the answer becomes clear, and it’s also likely that you’ll appreciate his cleverness as well.  The writer has a lot of moving parts to contend with as he gears up for the series finale in the next volume.  He does a good job making sure they’re all given time to be properly developed, yet there’s a lack of urgency heralding the end here.

What I mean by that is even though this is the next-to-last volume, I wasn’t left feeling that things were building to a head with the final reckoning at hand.  Yeah, all of the “War Stories” creating a giant canker sounds bad, Pullman’s scheming is never a good thing, and Tom finds out about the magical McGuffin that he needs to heal Leviathan, but it never really coalesces into real momentum for the final act.  Most successful are the bits involving a now-human Paulie Bruckner and the faustian bargain he strikes in order to become a rabbit again.  Even if he’s just a thug, it’s hard not to feel sympathetic for the man as he realizes that the worst thing that happened to him was also the best.  This volume could’ve used more stories like that, or at least a sharper focus to clarify the personal stakes of the rest of the cast beyond simply averting the end of reality as we know it.  I’m still onboard for the final volume.  Not only is what’s here still good, but you don’t come this far into a series just to give up before the final round.