Review by Frank Plowright

The End of Everything wraps up the Amelia Cole series, and shouldn’t disappoint anyone who’s read the previous four books. It seemed the magical strength of Amelia and Hector had been sidelined in the conclusion to The Enemy Unleashed, but The Impossible Fate proved that wasn’t the case. They’re now both back on the Unknown World, along with new recruit Laura, Amelia’s best friend and now Hector’s girlfriend. She’s used well, pulling in the readership via the role of the normal human seeing a world where magic is commonplace, if under possibly fatal circumstances, as the final desperate battle takes place soon after her arrival.

Among an awful lot of admirable aspects to Amelia Cole is Lemmy, technically a golem, but more resembling a concrete robot. Nick Brokenshire’s design has smoothed off some rough edges since being introduced, and the floating head with glowing green eyes looks great. Here he’s able to work with modifications of that design, and they’re equally appealing. Indeed, while Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride’s imagination set the ball rolling, without an artist as talented as Brokenshire the series could fall entirely flat. He’s good with visual characterisation, doesn’t inflate Amelia into something more than an ordinary girl in her mid teens, and really puts the effort into designs and background detail. As has been said in previous Amelia Cole reviews.

The series big bads have been kept deliberately at a distance by Knave and Kirkbride. They’re ethereal and prone to both pompous and portentous dialogue, and not having everything explained about them works well. Their minions have proved threat enough, so there’s been no need to big them up, and it’s a policy that remains viable to the end. This is compact piece of graphic novel writing, delivering the expected spectacle, while also leaving enough time for a final chapter of reflections and commiserations.

Knave and Kirkbride leave the door open for more Amelia Cole adventures at a later date, but for the time being all three creators have moved to other projects. There’s also the option of absorbing the entire Amelia Cole series at a single gorge in The Amelia Cole Omnibus.