SPOILER:
The end is a little bit of a stretch as is the almost sudden reversal in fortunes for our Grimm exiles.

Still the story moved along and did come to a nice conclusion. It will be interesting to see what story arcs occur now. ( )

Fabletown has grown tired of waiting; they've decided to take the war straight to the Adversary. WAR AND PIECES shows us their preparation, their strategy and the battle itself. It is, in many ways, an ending. It wraps up the main storyline begun in LEGENDS IN EXILE, and it's the final hurrah for a couple of our favourite characters. There's still room for the story to grow, but there's also enough closure to satisfy anyone.

And I've gotta be honest with you: I haven't much to say about it. It was decent. The art remains top-notch, and the writing is great. I particularly liked the two-issue story about Cinderella. (Seriously, how much ass does she kick?) I loved the airship. I thought Willingham did a decent job of wrapping everything up. It's a little anticlimactic, maybe, but it is all tied up. I do think he might've done a bit more with one of Boy Blue's subplots, though. I mean, that baby didn't even whomp. It just kind of

You get what I mean?

So it was good. I enjoyed it. If you've enjoyed the series so far, you definitely want to get your hands on this. And I have absolutely nothing else to say about it.

(This review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). ( )

Satisfying in that the long war comes to a logical and creative end. Willingham does a wonderful job in plotting the Fables' attack on the Adversary. Cinderella's mission near the beginning of the volume is exciting as well.

But as well-plotted as the war itself is, it makes for somewhat dull reading. It's not until the end, when everything starts to go wrong, that the story picks up a little, but for most of the war, we are left watching the Fables go through victory after victory without even losing a single soldier.

Though I still recommend all Fables books to comic book fans, this volume left me disappointed. ( )

This 11th collection brings to a close the primary story arc of the Fables series (i.e., the refugee Fables' war with the Homeland), but not the series itself. After 10 collections, it was a bit...not anticlimactic or disappointing, really, but a bit surprising to have the war suddenly end. Of course, previous books (Vol. 4: March of the Wooden Soldiers; Vol. 8: Wolves) detailed heavy, pivotal battles, so this was just the final wave, I guess. I enjoyed the story and the art, as always. Being invested in the characters and concept, I'm sure I'll continue with the series. (Volume 12: The Dark Ages becomes available in August '09.) ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1242119...

It is rather fun: starts with a vignette of the relationship between Little Boy Blue and Rose Red, then Cinderella's daring rescue of Pinocchio, then most of it is the war between the good guys led by Prince Charming (using machine guns and bombs) and the bad guys led by their mastermind Geppetto (who restrict themselves to magic, and therefore lose). I did feel a lack of moral ambiguity on either side - the good guys are all good, the bad guys all committed to their cause; I suppose it is a fairy tale, but Willingham's interpretation of the characters is so sophisticated in other ways that I was disappointed in this respect. (I know that Rose Red at least has a more ambiguous past, in one of the previous volumes, but there's no mention of that here.) ( )