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rmgebhardt's review
2.0
This mess of a series finally comes to a close... and I had nearly no investment in what happened to anyone (and half the time I didn't remember exactly what the heck was happening with certain characters). The odd combination of short stories mixed into a somewhat convoluted overarching story didn't ever make for a structure that was very compelling. They should have just made this a fun anthology style series because that seemed to be the most enjoyable parts of each volume.
matt4hire's review
3.0
Y'know, if the writer didn't write so many self-deprecatory/apologetic lines about how his book was "middling" or how sorry he was we hadn't met some characters, and hadn't decided to have his entire ending hinge on a brand-new cast that got almost nil development, it might have been a decent ending. But he did, and it wasn't.
mackle13's review
4.0
3.5
For a lot of the first half of this book I've had the same problem I've had a lot with this series - i.e. not remembering what happened last time and, thus, having a hard time following what the hell was going on.
It didn't help that it was jumping all over the place in time, and things kept changing...
This was doubly irritating because there's actually a summary thing at the start of the book, but it neglected to reference a really fucking important person in this book, so I was like "Huh? WTF?"
About mid-way, though, things started to become more clear, and a lot was explained. Not just explained but, in the end, summed up.
See - what I didn't know going in is that this seems to be the last in the series. And the epilogue - because Fig likes epilogues and, as she says, too bad if you don't - wrapped up all the various lose ends of people who sort of went off and were never heard from again and their ilk.
The bump to 4 stars (instead of down to 3) comes mostly because I liked the ending. I'm glad that we finally got an explanation, of sorts, as to what the hell was going on this whole time, and I did like the epilogue bits - even if I thought it didn't feel more organic and more like "Ok, we're ending this now, so wrap up time".
Also, I liked the bit after the epilogue. (The epi-epilogue? See, the epilogue was the end of Fig's tale, but not the end of the House's tale... )
Three groups of people, in some untold future time, try to figure out the House - where it came from, and what happened to it. Cain and Abel make one last enjoyable appearance, and the ending was totally fitting, considering the name of the game.
This is definitely a series I want to go back and reread straight through at some point, to fill in a lot of those missing gaps in my memory. Until then it's hard to pin down whether the story, itself, was jumpy in places, or whether it truly was just me.
For a lot of the first half of this book I've had the same problem I've had a lot with this series - i.e. not remembering what happened last time and, thus, having a hard time following what the hell was going on.
It didn't help that it was jumping all over the place in time, and things kept changing...
This was doubly irritating because there's actually a summary thing at the start of the book, but it neglected to reference a really fucking important person in this book, so I was like "Huh? WTF?"
About mid-way, though, things started to become more clear, and a lot was explained. Not just explained but, in the end, summed up.
See - what I didn't know going in is that this seems to be the last in the series. And the epilogue - because Fig likes epilogues and, as she says, too bad if you don't - wrapped up all the various lose ends of people who sort of went off and were never heard from again and their ilk.
The bump to 4 stars (instead of down to 3) comes mostly because I liked the ending. I'm glad that we finally got an explanation, of sorts, as to what the hell was going on this whole time, and I did like the epilogue bits - even if I thought it didn't feel more organic and more like "Ok, we're ending this now, so wrap up time".
Also, I liked the bit after the epilogue. (The epi-epilogue? See, the epilogue was the end of Fig's tale, but not the end of the House's tale... )
Three groups of people, in some untold future time, try to figure out the House - where it came from, and what happened to it. Cain and Abel make one last enjoyable appearance, and the ending was totally fitting, considering the name of the game.
This is definitely a series I want to go back and reread straight through at some point, to fill in a lot of those missing gaps in my memory. Until then it's hard to pin down whether the story, itself, was jumpy in places, or whether it truly was just me.
nonesensed's review
3.0
So, uhm, they've switched main characters I assume? Well, not quite, but with the story focusing so little on the "original main cast" that they might as well have. A few side-stories were interesting and the last issue was neat, but the "twist" of the story wasn't anything new and there were several sub-plots that were dropped, went nowhere or was summed up as quickly as they were introduced.
hollowspine's review
3.0
The last of the House of Mystery series, I hope. Although it is true that I read every issue of this comic book, I wouldn't say I enjoyed every page. In the first issues I really enjoyed 'meeting' all the different characters and hearing their stories. The use of characters and locations from other comic worlds added to the appeal for me. As the story grew though, it lost it's former charm. The more the plot focused on Fig the less the stories did for me. She was a terrible cliche and so self-absorbed it was actually painful to read.
In the end she is surprised when she realizes who the Conception is, but I saw it coming all along. A mediocre twist at best. I believe the introduction of the Lotus Blossom character was meant to shake things up a bit, but her and Fig were basically the same person. It was pretty lame.
All the best characters had bit roles and in these latest comics are barely mentioned at all. So, I give three stars because of the potential that the book had in it's first pages, but really these last issues are down to about one star. It didn't live up to it's potential at all.
For readers who want to do the work of creating the story for themselves, this is wallows in it's meta-ness. If one likes being pointed to and spoken to by comic book characters, this might be your story. Or if one enjoys creating timelines and trying to figure out what is actually happening by creating charts and graphs, this book has a lot to work on. People age unexpectedly. They go into the future. Then the past. Then a different past. Then they die. Then they come back, but different. It's ridiculously hard to follow, and sadly, I found by the end I didn't really care enough to try.
Anyone just looking for a good story, look elsewhere.
In the end she is surprised when she realizes who the Conception is, but I saw it coming all along. A mediocre twist at best. I believe the introduction of the Lotus Blossom character was meant to shake things up a bit, but her and Fig were basically the same person. It was pretty lame.
All the best characters had bit roles and in these latest comics are barely mentioned at all. So, I give three stars because of the potential that the book had in it's first pages, but really these last issues are down to about one star. It didn't live up to it's potential at all.
For readers who want to do the work of creating the story for themselves, this is wallows in it's meta-ness. If one likes being pointed to and spoken to by comic book characters, this might be your story. Or if one enjoys creating timelines and trying to figure out what is actually happening by creating charts and graphs, this book has a lot to work on. People age unexpectedly. They go into the future. Then the past. Then a different past. Then they die. Then they come back, but different. It's ridiculously hard to follow, and sadly, I found by the end I didn't really care enough to try.
Anyone just looking for a good story, look elsewhere.
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