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The Unwritten: Compendium One: TR - Trade Paperback
Tom Taylor's life was screwed from the word go. His father created the mega-popular Tommy Taylor boy-wizard fantasy novels.
But dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom that fans constantly compare him to his counterpart, turning him into a lame, Z-level celebrity. When a scandal hints that Tom might really be the boy-wizard made flesh, Tom comes into contact with a mysterious, deadly group that's secretly kept tabs on him all his life. Now, to protect his life and discover the truth behind his origins, Tom will travel the world, to all the places in world history where fictions have shaped reality.
The Unwritten Compendium One collects The Unwritten #1-30 and The Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice #1!
But dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom that fans constantly compare him to his counterpart, turning him into a lame, Z-level celebrity. When a scandal hints that Tom might really be the boy-wizard made flesh, Tom comes into contact with a mysterious, deadly group that's secretly kept tabs on him all his life. Now, to protect his life and discover the truth behind his origins, Tom will travel the world, to all the places in world history where fictions have shaped reality.
The Unwritten Compendium One collects The Unwritten #1-30 and The Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice #1!
896 pages, Paperback
Published June 20, 2023
About the author
Mike Carey
1,288 books2,987 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.
Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storylines for some of the world's most iconic characters, including X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR, LUCIFER and HELLBLAZER. His original screenplay FROST FLOWERS is currently being filmed. Mike has also adapted Neil Gaiman's acclaimed NEVERWHERE into comics.
Somehow, Mike finds time amongst all of this to live with his wife and children in North London. You can read his blog at www.mikecarey.net.
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.
Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storylines for some of the world's most iconic characters, including X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR, LUCIFER and HELLBLAZER. His original screenplay FROST FLOWERS is currently being filmed. Mike has also adapted Neil Gaiman's acclaimed NEVERWHERE into comics.
Somehow, Mike finds time amongst all of this to live with his wife and children in North London. You can read his blog at www.mikecarey.net.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 4, 2023
Compendium Vol 2 please come out soon!!! What a fun ride, love this book.
December 21, 2025
The Unwriten by Mike Carrey & Peter Gross Compendium vol 1
This was a big love letter to literature and reading, and the power of stories. It was also a great bang for your buck, as it got lots of text, and its a pretty big compendium. I love Carey's writing and Peter Gross is really fantastic aswell, this was a book that took me while, but i cant wait for volume 2. It felt a little like Harry Potter and The Books of Magic, and that is high praise as i loved both.
To understand stories is to understand the world.
This was a big love letter to literature and reading, and the power of stories. It was also a great bang for your buck, as it got lots of text, and its a pretty big compendium. I love Carey's writing and Peter Gross is really fantastic aswell, this was a book that took me while, but i cant wait for volume 2. It felt a little like Harry Potter and The Books of Magic, and that is high praise as i loved both.
To understand stories is to understand the world.
November 29, 2025
This year was quite a Mike Carey bender for me. I finally finished *Lucifer* and then burnt through Felix Castor novels, finishing it up with *The Unwritten*.
At first I was a bit unsure of wether the premise could carry the book, but fortunately the stakes and scope of the story grow ever greater and the horizons expand. In the hands of a lesser writer the concept of real-life model for a "boy wizard" finding out magic was real all along would he ran to the ground shortly. Carey's book is not about that at all and it's apparent that *The Unwritten* is much more than simply a story - it's Carey's commentary on storytelling itself, much like *the Sandman* is. Contrary to *Sandman*, however, Carey engages with much more current terms and matters and does it way more directly, if not at times in a heavy-handed manner. Nevertheless, this meta element is really stimulating.
It could not however work so effectively on its own. The meta-story can only be as engaging as the narrative its wrapped around. And the story of Tom Taylor and his friends is a very good one, even if it starts a bit uneven. By the midway point of this compendium book I was sold completely.
There's so much to love here but special shout out goes to the choose-your-own-adventure issue and the cussing rabbit storyline.
Can't wait for book 2. If DC does not release I'm going to become an influencer that directs the will of the mass consciousness into cursing Geoff Johns.
At first I was a bit unsure of wether the premise could carry the book, but fortunately the stakes and scope of the story grow ever greater and the horizons expand. In the hands of a lesser writer the concept of real-life model for a "boy wizard" finding out magic was real all along would he ran to the ground shortly. Carey's book is not about that at all and it's apparent that *The Unwritten* is much more than simply a story - it's Carey's commentary on storytelling itself, much like *the Sandman* is. Contrary to *Sandman*, however, Carey engages with much more current terms and matters and does it way more directly, if not at times in a heavy-handed manner. Nevertheless, this meta element is really stimulating.
It could not however work so effectively on its own. The meta-story can only be as engaging as the narrative its wrapped around. And the story of Tom Taylor and his friends is a very good one, even if it starts a bit uneven. By the midway point of this compendium book I was sold completely.
There's so much to love here but special shout out goes to the choose-your-own-adventure issue and the cussing rabbit storyline.
Can't wait for book 2. If DC does not release I'm going to become an influencer that directs the will of the mass consciousness into cursing Geoff Johns.
February 27, 2026
Fought my way through this, may be to some people's taste, but for me it was a slogg with no end insight.
Satarted great but just kept jumping in style and direction and I lost the thread
Not going to try more of this, leaving Tommy on that dark street, where he can vanish into another book.
Satarted great but just kept jumping in style and direction and I lost the thread
Not going to try more of this, leaving Tommy on that dark street, where he can vanish into another book.
September 27, 2025
How was this only the first (and shorter half) of the series?!?
Read
August 4, 2024The nice thing about moving is gaining access to a new library system that has Hoopla and thus I can catch up on all the comic series that I started back in high school and never had the materials to finish. The sad thing about that is realizing that a lot of them were far more uneven than I got the chance to see - The Unwritten really is a “Big Ideas” comic to the detriment of its characters: sure the Tommy trio gets some development, but at their core it’s just the Potter trio with a few notable changes. The backstory is alternately interesting and too heavy on the “stories are our lives” marketing speak that went triple platinum in the twenty-teens; the art is mostly just passable. Still, I’ll read it to the end. Also funny to realize that I ripped off a number of things in the first volumes for pieces that I wrote back in high school creative writing, perhaps I’m just a plagiarist at my core.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews