Review of The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country

As I snail crawl through this series, we reach this kind of in between volume, which is really just a series of unrelated stories that mostly include Morpheus as a minor character instead of the focus. I found this refreshing, although the stories are not evenly enjoyable. I'm just going to give a quick opinion on each.

"Calliope" is the first, and also my favorite of the set. It tells the tale of an author, who makes a trade with another author for an entrapped muse named Calliope. The author, Richard Madoc, is experiencing extreme writers block after writing one successful novel, and he hopes the muse will pull him out of it. Calliope's misery is extreme, and I really felt for her. She's also interesting as a concept in general, and I'd love to learn more about muse's in the Sandman universe.

"A Dream of a Thousand Cats" is a bizarre and deeply uncomfortable tale about cats, who want to take back the power they supposedly once had and become the dominant species of the world. It's both amusing and unsettling to see humans from an outside perspective, the arrogant and callous beings that we are. I also really liked how it implied that dreams have world altering powers.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" has Shakespeare's acting troupe performing the title play to an audience of fae. This is such a clever idea, that I almost wish an entire story arch had been built around it. I want to know more about these characters and how they might fit into the universe and what their relationship with Morpheus might be. As it stands, though, it's a bit too vague to get really excited about.

"Façade" is easily the weakest of the stories. It's about Elemental Girl, who was transformed by an Egyptian curse, and can now turn her body into various materials. She basically looks like a huge mess, can't go out in public, and has completely lost her will to live. She's visited by Death, who tells her that all things will end in time. While I find Death really interesting as a character, this story was disinteresting overall. It was depressing and hard to get into.

When I sum up the parts, it was an enjoyable book. It's hard to grade, but I'm going to go with an even 4 stars.

On The Vortex: A Review of Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman

One of the things that I knew I wanted to accomplish in 2013 is to read more graphic novels. This is not only because there are so many good series out there in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but also because it's a sometimes underrated story-telling medium. Like romance novels, people seem to have a fixed stereotypical understanding of the type of person who enjoys reading graphic novels, and (like the stereotypical image of the romance reader), it's not very flattering. Consequently, I think a lot of readers tell themselves that they can't or won't like a graphic novel series, and so they never give any a try. It seems like a good year to try new things, though, doesn't it?

Sandman is a good series to kick the year off with, because I find that the story and characters are very accessible to the fantasy reader. Sandman is a dark urban fantasy-ish tale where dreams are real and nightmares have substance.

The Doll's House centers largely around Rose, who turns out to be a rare being called a Vortex--a potentially world ending destructive force in the dream world. Rose is unaware of her connection to the dream world, and instead is focused on  the turmoil of her waking life--she's just met her maternal grandmother for the first time, and now she's on a quest to find her long lost little brother. She moves into a house full of unusual residents while she conducts her search, unaware of the escaped nightmares that stalk her.

Neil Gaiman's writing is very clever in a lot of tiny ways. Never laugh-out-load funny, but worthy of a smile. The details are there to reward those who pay attention, while the larger story expands the world building. I find myself very intrigued by the endless, and what they are and who they are.

Where the book fell short for me was in terms of the explanation and logic of the central conflict...That is, what the heck is a vortex and why do I care? The reveal comes late in the story and the explanation is ill placed at the climax. I felt that I would have been more invested in what was going on with Rose in the dreaming world if I understood her significance, sometime before the resolution came about. But perhaps the novel reader in me just really likes exposition that pays off later.

Anyway, if you're a fantasy fan, you should read this series. It's very spooky, very cool, very well written. 4 stars.

Review of The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

The Sandman series is probably Neil Gaiman's most talked about work, with it's dark fantasy and horror themes.

Volume One tells the tale of how Dream was captured by a mysterious cult, who meant to capture Death and gain immortality. When at last he breaks free, years after the fact, it is to discover that the tools of his trade--a helmet, an amulet, and a bag of sand, have gone missing. Weakened and vulnerable, he must get them back as soon as possible.

 The Dream/Morpheus character is only just being established in this volume, and it's quite obvious that there is more to him than this book let's you see. Equally obvious is the fact that the author had not quite settled on what tone he wanted to go for, and each chapter of the book has a very different feel to it--so it feels a bit disconnected.

Most of the book is a McGuffin Get sort of story, where Morpheus goes to various places and talks to various people in order to get his tools back. For me, the best sequence was when he traveled to hell, and we see demons of all shapes and sizes. Morpheus engages in a kind of duel of imagination with the demon who possesses his helmet, and it is as creative as it is unexpected. The weaker part of the story, for me, came in the sudden appearance of the Justice League characters. As a non-DC reader, they really don't mean much to me, and they're just kind of there. Who are they? I haven't the foggiest...

Overall, while not the strongest of stories by any means, it still stands apart from the usual comic book fair, and it's undeniably entertaining. I highly recommend it. 4 stars.