The Unwritten: Inside Man (Volume Two)

Mike Carey

This volume picks up immediately after the last one, but not with the same speed that pushed me to finish volume one.  The beginning dragged a bit as it introduced a new setting with new characters.  Once the mysterious events from the previous volume begin to be explained, everything started to get really good.

I think the strength of this series is the knowledge Carey has of literature, authors and the historical significance of the times when they were written.  Reading this series is literally like talking to someone who has studied literature with a passion and is now telling you only the most interesting parts.  I really enjoy it.  It makes you think about literature in a new way, as well as bringing into question what humans do to works of fiction when they use it for good or evil.  The words are physical manifestations of the author’s ideas and because our attention brings it to life, we are responsible for not distorting the image into something mangled and horrid.

By looks of the map Tom(my) Taylor is carrying around with him, it seems Carey plans for this series to go on for a while.  I can’t wait to see where it goes next and what works of literature we’ll visit.  If you love literature trivia and fantasy stories (and history) then I would recommend you scramble to your local library and pick this series up.