The first volume of this series was a Hugo finalist in 2020, the second in 2021. This is the fourth and final; I didn't enjoy those previous volumes enough to feel motivated to read the third before this, so I just skipped it. (It's about people trapped in a TTRPG, and each volume focuses on a different writer who influenced RPGs. The first did Tolkien, the second the Brontës, and this one Lovecraft; it turns out the one I skipped did Wells, so maybe I ought to go back.) I found this hard to follow—too many characters, and even though it came out as twenty issues across three years, it's clearly meant to be read in one go. It seems to be trying to say something interesting about queerness and RPGs, but I couldn't follow the story enough to tell you what. The most interesting part was definitely the backmatter, where Kieron Gillen interviews people about the evolution of RPGs.

And the story winds up and many of the characters have to face up to their own fears and what they have done while in the world and how they have betrayed themselves and others in our world. It's complex and messy and looks into the property of stories and how they can sometimes have a life of their own. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is the 4th and final volume in the Die graphic novel series. I bought this book.

Thoughts: This was yet another fairly disappointing ending to a graphic novel series. This had a very cliche' open-ended of ending. This is the third graphic novel series I have finished this month where you have this ambiguous and very unsatisfying type of ending.

The ending here felt really rushed. I also felt like we picked up some time after Vol 3 and that some things that happened in that “in-between” time were missing from the story. As a result, the reader is left to kind of assume what happened between Vol 3 and 4.

This volume has Ash and crew back together as a party and heading into the heart of Die. There we find out what happened to Sol and how Die was created. There are again a lot of gaming references but the world is more Lovecraftian in nature this time around, so there is more discussion of Call of the Cthulhu and those types of RPGs. There are also a lot of rather corny LoTR references.

The whole explanation behind Die felt really forced and contrived to me and I found the whole thing fairly unsatisfying. However, it does tie up some loose ends and I continued to enjoy all the artwork. While I am happy to have finished the series, I think I could have just read the first volume of this series and been happy...it went downhill from there.

My Summary (3/5): Overall I would tentatively recommend this series if you are super into RPGs and want to read a mediocre graphic novel series that deals with that subject matter. This was creative and I liked the concept; however it oscillates between hard to follow and just plain silly and the ending was pretty lame. I liked the artwork though. ( )