2 out of 5

I guess Black Caravan uses the “Non-Stop” logo to indicate that the issue is a standalone, and will be reprinted (with the rest of the series) in a trade paperback? I dunno. The marketing around this imprint is a little uneven, and the Scout website – good luck going to the Black Caravan website, advertised on every one of their books, as it doesn’t seem to exist – is pretty clunky, but all the Nonstops! I’ve seen follow the format mentioned.

Anyhow, I reviewed this issue as part of the trade – and all of that still stands and won’t be repeated here – but you may notice the rating is a little better. That’s by dint of presentation: we don’t have the lengthy text intro and opening text scrawl that precedes each chapter of the trade, which means you can jump right into the book. Don’t get me wrong – that stuff is well-intentioned, but one of the problems with this book is how wordy it is, and so not having those extras saves a little bit of eyeball wear and tear.

Secondly, Path of Souls becomes messier and messier as it goes along, compounding its problems. There are problems right from the start, but you can somewhat coast along on the good art and trying to figure out what, exactly, the focus of the book is going to be… curiosity that, again, gets beaten away the more pages you read.