“Evenson” is “Lucifer”’s version of “The Wake” — a volume for wrapping up loose ends, and making sure that all the major characters get to say farewell. In comparison to “Morningstar”, which concluded the series’ main plot arc with a rather flamboyant crescendo, “Evensong” is more relaxed, less tense, and reminds me a lot of some of the less focused Sandman stories: A nice read when seen by themselves, but not necessarily contributing much to the whole.
Of course, the main story about Elaine’s attempts to cope with her new position both feels and is quite relevant to the main story, but there’s none the less a feeling of redundancy running through the volume — and especially so in the final story, “Nirvana”, which feels so slow, so uninteresting, and so badly placed, I had some trouble getting through it. The opening story, about a storyteller contest among the centaurs of River Holt, felt almost as irrelevant, but seeing as it wasn’t placed right after Lucifer’s departure out into the void and the end credits, and as it contained some characters we’ve seen previosuly, it felt much better.
But hey, still quite worth the read and the money. The story where Gaudium and his sister must once more do the more or less omnipotent beings a favour (a story named “The Gaudium Option”
) was as brilliant as most of the other stories involving these two creatures, and “All We Need of Hell”, the story from issue #75, portrayed a meeting between Lucifer and his Father.
All in all a good read, I guess, although I’d probably gotten more out of it if I’d reread the rest of the series first, as I did last fall when “Morningstar” was released.

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Nirvana was a single-standing story written before the rest of the series, if I remember correctely, and was only placed in “Evensong” to be nice to us, the readers.
Also, I fail to see how the storyteller-plot was irrelevant, as it probably was the most important story for Elaine in the volume. After all, she was a virgin before, wasn’t she?
And “All we need of Hell” is a wonderful story. Made me wonder how many times before Yahweh had done this.
30. April 2007 @ 11:29 ( Permalink )
“Nirvana was a single-standing story written before the rest of the series, if I remember correctely, and was only placed in “Evensong” to be nice to us, the readers.”
I think so too - I seem to remember even having read it, which would surely indicate that, as I’ve not read the later stories/volumes.
30. April 2007 @ 14:06 ( Permalink )
“Also, I fail to see how the storyteller-plot was irrelevant, as it probably was the most important story for Elaine in the volume. After all, she was a virgin before, wasn’t she?”
So her becoming one with Creation is less important for her than losing her virginity?
Anyway, the “irrelevant” bit was mostly me trying to put words to why I didn’t like the story. And as it — aside from that Elaine part — felt like it didn’t quite fit with the flow of the story…. Of course, as a tranquil epilogue to “Morningstar” it was rather nice, but hardly Carey’s best work.
“Nirvana was a single-standing story written before the rest of the series, if I remember correctely, and was only placed in “Evensong” to be nice to us, the readers.”
I see. It doesn’t change my view of it, but it explains why they included it at all.
2. May 2007 @ 13:33 ( Permalink )
“So her becoming one with Creation is less important for her than losing her virginity?”
XD
Well, no. But her learning to cope with being one with Creation might be.
And I quite like Nirvana, it has beautiful art and Michael fails to see Lucifer’s real ruthlessness in surviving, and Lucifer doesn’t enlighten him. Also, sexy villainness! However, I can understand why you might dislike it, for seen in the context of the rest of the volume it is horribly displaced.
2. May 2007 @ 14:36 ( Permalink )
Yeah, it was the positioning I reacted the most to. I felt that “All we need of Hell” concluded the series quite nicely, and so I was negatively disposed towards it even before I started reading.
Might read it again some time later, independently of the rest of the volume. Maybe it’ll be better then…
3. May 2007 @ 21:27 ( Permalink )