Amulet, Book Eight: Supernova by Kazu Kibuishi

There was a big delay in this series, but it was after this book, not before it. If you care about this series, or middle-grade graphic novels in general, you probably already know that. If not: I'm getting to this 2018 book pretty late, but the concluding book in the series is not yet out; it's scheduled for early next year. (And a five-year delay is nearly infinite in a series for young readers; that's an entire elementary-school life.)

Amulet is a very popular series, though, so I expect all of the kids starting school over the past half-decade have seen the earlier books on the shelves, and a lot of those kids have probably read some or all. Fantasy about magical kids is always popular among kids who wish they were magical.

The series started in 2008, so the first kids that read it are now at least in college. The previous books were The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper's Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council, Prince of the Elves, Escape from Lucien, and Firelight. Looking back at what I've written, I've compared it to prose epic fantasy a lot, and it does have that kind of feeling. There's a large cast, which gets separated and reunited, there are Plot Tokens that need to be collected, several characters are Magically Chosen and/or Special, and the plot has ranged over the entire map provided in the first book - and even beyond.

And then, five years ago, came this eighth, penultimate (I don't think we knew that at the time) book: Supernova.

It's still more middle, like the previous six books, but it's middle that seems to be closing out things more than opening them up, which implies that the next book will indeed be last. (And, as I've said at least once before writing about this series: you can always end a series in the next book. Rocks fall; everyone dies.)

I could talk about the characters, I guess: this one is split roughly equally between the siblings Emily and Navin, our two most central characters, who are mostly separated here. And Emily does get a semi-confrontation scene with the Big Bad, who may not be quite as "Bad" as readers think.

But it's full of event and incident and action, including a random bike-race down a mountain chased by shadowy nasties. And we're at the point in a series where there starts to be a vague sense that all that activity is just waffling to fill up pages before the Actual Ending. The end is now in view, though, so we just need to hold on and get there.

This is still fun, and Kibuishi's art is mildly cartoony, easy to follow, and lively on every page, with great support by what seems to be an army of colorists. (The end credits page lists a dozen people under "colors and backgrounds" and another seven for "page flatting.") If anyone is waiting for this to be finished before starting: the wait is almost over. Anyone else contemplating reading the series: do you like the endless complication of epic fantasy? That's the core question to ask yourself here.