A common thread among the past several volumes of The Unwritten that I’ve read is this: I start off wondering if I’ve ever actually read the series before[1], and then over the course of the book things seem more familiar, and by the time I finish the book and look over my recent previous reviews, everything is more or less back in focus.

You would think, therefore, that I could learn a damn lesson and get myself caught up, so as to no longer have this problem. (Or, for all I know, it has wrapped up by now?) But you would be wrong, for a reason that is actually not my fault. It turns out, here at the end of Orpheus in the Underworlds, that they have 100% unexpectedly set up a crossover with Fables. And the last Fables I read was published about two years earlier than the next Unwritten. So, um. Oops.

Who knew?

Aside from that little problem, this was a perfectly cromulent book. The fallout of events from a couple of books ago continues to be explored, from settings as diverse as the underworld[2] and a pre-teen’s badly spelled zombie fiction written on lined notebook paper. Multiple characters I did not expect to see again have reared their heads, but I think my favorite is the page or three of Eliza Bennet, lately fallen on rather hard times and willing to do most anything to survive.

It’s a pity nobody else has read these. Mike Carey is pretty great!

[1] Obviously I know I have, which helps me proceed to the subsequent steps, but it’s very disorienting, the dichotomy between what I know and what appears to be in front of me.
[2] I bet you didn’t see that coming!