The Nice House on the Lake: the Deluxe Edition

Product Information

Reality Warper: The interface that Walter uses to control the house and everything in it seems to be capable of this, able to conjure practically anything the housemates want, construct entire buildings, and bestow a Healing Factor upon them as well as selectively remove or restore memories. It's limitations haven't yet been shown, but it's undeniably a powerful piece of tech. This is, admittedly, a fun story that has a lot of heart to it. Walter is an interesting character and we really feel his struggle, though still empathize more with the others who we unfortunately only really know in their context to Walter and never quite get to know as themselves much. I do enjoy how much this series is sort of a critique on millennial friend groups and culture, with some wry and subtle digs that amuse me, and the group dynamic really works though sometimes it’s tough to know who is who. Overall I wanted to like this more than I did and despite some pretty mind blowing ideas and explanations, I think this is where I’ll drop out of the series while still very eager to read his other works, particularly continuing Something is Killing the Children. Not a bad series, but the cumbersome and clunky aspects can drag the otherwise imaginative and creepy fun. So you DO find out what's going on in a small way. NOT what is happening in the outside world as far as the alien invasion thing, but what might be happening and definitely what some of the other inmates of the house were aware of (unaware of?). The explanation for what is happening is.. unexciting..? I believe the ending of this volume is supposed to be a kind of twist, and it's more of a sigh, really.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Walter can simply make people forget things. He's mindwiped his friends before when he accidentally said too much to them, and he mindwipes them again after they find Reg and Reg tries to convince them they can break out of the House and save the world. Spontaneous Human Combustion: How the end of the world happens, apparently. Ryan sees through social media that people are just going up in flames. There are bigger firestorms, too, but they are probably caused by people on fire. The reason for this is Walter's "people" — one social media post even says "THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE SKY BEHIND THE FIRE. LOOK BEHIND THE FIRE, AT THE COLOR THAT HURTS YOUR EYES." All of the characters are a little hard to keep apart from one another, which is the main reason I'm only giving this 4 stars: I think a cast of characters this large doesn't work well in a graphic novel unless the art style lends well to telling everyone apart, and that isn't the case here. (They're also mostly obnoxious and fairly unlikable people, which is something I weirdly enjoy in stories, but if you don't, YMMV on the overall storytelling.) Bait-and-Switch: The Ryan from the present day is wearing bandages on her face and holding a spear, indicating something bad has happened. She also puts on a N95 respirator, indicating that perhaps there is something toxic in the air...until we get to the beginning of the story and see that she already had the respirator due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.Stars Volume 2 collects issues #7-12 of the comic. This was supposed to be a limited 12 issue series but the ending of this leaves so many questions unresolved that I have to assume there will be more issues. Will I read them though? Probably not. Shout-Out: In Issue 4, David is wearing Ferris Bueller's Iconic Outfit, having apparently requested it from Walter via the notepad. As everyone prepares to leave the house, however, Ryan realizes this is why Walter brought them there. Walter tells them they can't leave — he loves them, so he has made sure to spare them from the genocide his people are doing. They will survive the apocalypse...but they can't leave the house on the lake. Ever.

the camera movements of the mind take it in but not all at once, a shot here, a shot there, swing left swing right, zoom in zoom out, cut. edit. try to put it all together as a narrative, as something that makes sense, some kind of sense, any kind of sense but nonsense; but there is no sense, all of the senses may be working overtime, one two three four five, but nothing is making sense, sense has stopped making sense. in this nice house on the lake. This reads like it's supposed to be a character piece, but we only get to see the characters in reference to Walter. I know almost nothing about the characters. I was so excited that the second volume was available because the opening volume was spectacular. It took a few seconds to realize that Walter had played with everyone’s memories again, which is when I settled in and followed along. This time around, we watch as Walter tries to manipulate everyone into settling down in their new reality now that they think they’re just trapped at the lake house. The only problem is that no one wants to settle in long-term because they think there’s a world that still exists outside of the lake house. However, it is going much smoother since they’re no longer angry and upset knowing what happened to everyone they’ve ever known.Everyone who was invited to the house knows Walter—well, they know him a little, anyway. Some met him in childhood; some met him months ago. And Walter’s always been a little…off. Coming out in 2021, it was interesting to see the pandemic briefly alluded to, though reading it in 2023 it was difficult to not compare the opening of the book to the film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery as both have an extremely similar, mysterious set-up (and oddly both have someone working on a Democratic Party campaign). There are A LOT of characters, but this guide came in handy: I appreciated the diverse representation amongst the characters. That said, for being a diverse group they were all pretty similar. With the exception of Ryan, everyone in this group is in their 30s, educated, and established in their careers. Yet not one of these people have any children? That's pretty convenient. It's also feels like a missed opportunity. Separating a character from their child would have added another level of horror to the story and helped with the moral and ethical debate the story seems to want readers to be pondering. The closest we ever got to that was Molly mourning her husband Cam.

A mutual friend, Walter, invites ten people to stay in a fancy lakeside house in the country for a weekend getaway. A nice house, far enough away from the hectic pace of modern life to make you think you were the last people on Earth - and then it turns out that you are! Because “Walter” is an alien who has saved his nearest and dearest from the end of the world. What next - imprisonment in some hellish mystery box? Oh…Hidden Depths: As Walter points out, David can be "pretty stupid" a lot of the time, but he is a remarkably perceptive individual who understands people. David is the first to realise that the guests can't remember how they arrived at the Nice House, and that they can't die. He also gives Molly an empathic speech about her suicidal tendencies. Too many characters. I kept confusing them til the very end. Oh no, something happened to one of the characters, which one was that again, etc. Worst thing is probably that it doesn't matter that much which character is which. The Nice House on the Lake is a short horror graphic novel series about this group of "friends" who are brought together to live in this nice house on a lake by a mutual friend they all share. After getting there he tells them the rest of the world is gone and some weird things start happening . Another parallel: Tynion's own The Woods series, which now feels like a dry run for whatever is going on in The Nice House on the Lake. I can't believe the same guy who wrote the "ambitious but only pretty good" The Woods series wrote this. Such an upgrade. I liked this more than the first volume actually. It seems to have landed with a thud for most others, but after adjusting to breadcrumb storytelling of long arc comics, it didn’t come as a surprise to me, especially after the first volume, that there would be a twist but not a resolution. I’m still interested in what comes after this major part and think it resolved some things that made it even more incredulous than things asserted beforehand. I’m not entirely sure it can navigate to the future where they’re clearly in a further future, and it’s basically some kind of dystopia hunger games thing, but the journey there, so far, is enticing enough.