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NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Neil Gaiman's transcendent series SANDMAN is often hailed as the definitive Vertigo title and one of the finest achievements in graphic storytelling. Gaiman created an unforgettable tale of the forces that exist beyond life and death by weaving ancient mythology, folklore and fairy tales with his own distinct narrative vision. Reminiscent of the legendary Canterbury Tales, THE SANDMAN: WORLDS' END is a wonderful potpourri of engrossing tales and masterly storytelling. Improbably caught in a June blizzard, two wayward compatriots stumble upon a mysterious inn and learn that they are in the middle of a 'reality storm. ' Now surrounded by a menagerie of people and creatures from different times and realities, the two stranded travelers are entertained by mesmerizing myths of infamous sea creatures, dreaming cities, ancient kings, astonishing funeral rituals and moralistic hangmen. Collects issues #51-56.… (more)
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In this book a guy and girl get into a car accident and find themselves taking shelter from a June snowstorm at a strange inn. In the inn a number of fantastical people from various times and realities are waiting out the reality storm. While they wait they tell a number of interesting stories.
This story is a bit of a break from the stories about the mythological gods. The gods are still in some of the stories and, in the end, it ends up that even this whole novel is really about them in a very direct way.
I enjoyed every bit of this book. It was fun to read about all these different stories. The idea of an Inn at the end of reality is fun and interesting. The artwork throughout the book went through a number of different styles but all of them were fantastic.
A wonderful addition to the Sandman series. I can't wait to read the next one!
A large collection of characters from different worlds are drawn
I remember this as one of the weaker volumes – I think I’ve only read it once before, even. Rereading it now I can’t quite understand why. Possible because the book is a pause in the big story arc of Sandman (even though there are, as usual, important pieces to the big story here too), or because I read it out of order. Or perhaps, and this is more important, for being a book about storytelling, it has a rather irreverend way of looking at them. Most of these tales don’t end with bangs or final twists, but kind of halt at a point where they point forward. Their stories aren’t ended, merely halted, like their lives, and like the role of the inn itself this stormy night. And indeed, like the role of this book, an intermission in the big arc of Morpheus. I think I felt, the first time around, that many of these stories could’ve been better. Now I kind of enjoy how they fizzle out.
This is still not one of my absolute favorites of the series, but it’s pretty damn impressive as a structure, with it’s Russian doll theme of stories within stories, and it’s playing on it’s theme of the halt, the wait, the pause for thought. It’s also the best looking Sandman book yet!
Gaiman's lost pilgrims pass the time by exchanging tales. A visitor catalogs them: "a swashbuckling adventure, a sea story, a gangster story, a grisly boys' funeral story, and even a little ghost story" as well as "a Horatio Alger story of some poor boy becoming President." (142)
The stories in this book are far more connected than those in either of the two previous Sandman short story collections. Diverse as these yarns are, they are all, at heart, stories
It's good stuff... though not, perhaps, one of the stronger Sandman volumes. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it the first time through, but six readings on it's lost a little of its sparkle. It's still damned good, but it pales in comparison to the rest of the series. Still, it makes its contribution, and helps highlight many of the themes that run through Sandman as a whole. If you've enjoyed the rest of the books, you won't want to miss this.
So much for quitting Sandman for a while. I was in a weird mood last night, so I picked up World's End, and I finished it today after I exported my grades. I have a bad feeling about this one, and I want to remind myself to talk about the artwork again. But, quite
Oh the perils of blogging out of order once the plot thickens! My first thought about this book is that it is out of order! Haha, what I mean to say is that the events in this book take place after the events in the next book. One of the introductions mentions that Gaiman is meticulous about time, but I really beg to differ. Perhaps he knows when all the events take place, but it would take a thesis to figure out the timeline for The Sandman.
Worlds' End is another collection of stories. I guess it's a function of the medium. They were produced monthly, and every once in a while, it must be nice to buy your comic once a month and have the story actually be self-contained. Dream is in most of the stories, but not all. Still the book is about him, and that becomes clear at the end of The Kindly Ones. No matter. The basic plotline is that a large group of travelers are stuck in an inn at the Worlds' End (a place where all the worlds end) because there is a reality storm. We don't know why there is a reality storm, but if we read Brief Lives (and we did), we can surmise that the reality storm might have something to do with Dream having killed Orpheus. The main characters are: Charlene Mooney, Brant Tucker, Klaproth, Cluracain, Jim (only he's really a girl named Peggy), and Petrefax. I say these are the main characters because we learn their names, but really they are only fleeting characters in the greater drama. In any case, much like The Canterbury Tales, each traveler must tell a tale to pass the time at the inn. Actually I think this makes it more like The Decameron.
Mister Gaheris tells a tale of a dreaming city and the man who roamed its streets. Cluracain tells a story of envoy to Aurelian, a city where the position of Lord Carnal and Psychopomp have been usurped by one individual. Cluracain's story is interesting because the climactic moment occurs when he decides to tell the truth about something. He says of his species, "Sometimes we will say true things. And these things we say are neither glamour nor magic, neither prediction nor curse: But sometimes what we say is true." Again, we come back to that recurring theme in Sandman about truth being something other than what has really happened. It's different from reality. Anyway, Jim tells a story titled "Hob's Leviathan," which features our friend Hob Gadling. This story was kind of interesting because of the possibilities for gender analysis. Hob tells Peggy that he is "Old enough to hae learned to keep my mouth shut about seeing a bloody great snake in the middle of the ocean," and somehow this is evidence that Peggy can trust him with her secret as well. The idea of the great submerged snake and the great submerged secret have some possibilities. The next story is told by an unknown slightly Asian looking man, and it is about Prez Rickard, the boy President. There was something very cool about the folding of mythologies, but other than that the story was a little weird. I might have to give it some more thought. The final story was told by Petrefax, and it was about Litharge, the Necropolis. There were a few tales imbedded within this one, and I enjoyed it. There is an interesting foreshadowing/warning about having the tale about the Necropolis in this book. The citizens of the Necropolis are supposed to respect the dead, respect the passing of life, and it is certainly placed so that we heed their beliefs.
The ending of the book is the part most worth writing home about, however, at least in terms of the larger Sandman plot. At the end of the book you see a funeral procession where the Endless are pallbearers. I admit to having read the wikipedia page on The Sandman early in the series, so I had a pretty good guess who was in the casket. I won't say more about it now, but it will come up again in The Kindly Ones.
A "reality storm" strands travelers from across the cosmos at the "Worlds' End Inn". To pass the time, they exchange stories.
The six stories are of very different nature: fairy tales, legends, science fiction, adventure, intrigue - and one amazing than the other. Unlike the previous books of and with Sandman, this time he and his siblings only appear marginally - what the quality of the stories, however, not detract. Nevertheless, I have been missing him (so I award an asterisk less )
The drawings are congenial as before and their style perfectly match to the particular story.
I’m already looking forward for the next part.
"A Tale of Two Cities" - A Lovecraft/Twilight Zone type story where the main character finds out that even cities dream and, when, after being stuck in that dream from a long time, he finds his way out, he is forever haunted by the possibility of all cities waking up and attacking reality.
"Cluracan's Tale" - A fairy/political tale about how a government or ruler can be brought down by words - a very nice illustration of the adage "the pen is mightier than the sword." It's also a pleasant reminder of how Dream has changed along the course of the series when he shows willingness to break a rule to do a favor for someone he likes.
"Hob's Leviathan" - A sea story, featuring Hob Gadling in which we also meet the other character who Death doesn't take, an Indian king who has eaten fruit from the Tree of Life, the very same tree which is the cause of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden - God sends them away so that they won't eat of it and become immortal.
"The Golden Boy" - A Messianic story about the American dream with quite a few nods to Alan Moore's Watchmen. This is my least favorite story in the collection, mainly because it's such a directly religious story - the parallels between Prez and Jesus are not exactly subtle.
"Cerements" - A story about various burial-rites (all of which are, or have been, used somewhere in the world) and the people who has as their calling to perform them. Since this whole installment is very much story-within-a-story territory, it is notable that this story contains a point where not two stories are inside each other, but as many as five stories exist within one another at the same time: Mistress Veltis tells her story to Hermas who tells the story to Petrefax who tells the story at the inn and, at the end, the whole story of the stories is told by Brant to a barmaid (who looks very much like Thessaly, right?). Talk about pushing story-telling to its limits.
As usual, various little jokes are scattered throughout the narrative, like having a Buddy Holly song playing on the radio when the characters are almost killed in a snowstorm in Iowa, or Scutt's family hanging him about the chest to save him from being hung from the neck, or when an unseen creature (who sounds like Master Redlaw from Books of Magic) tells Brant that "That red stuff, that's BLOOD that is. BAD sign if it's not on the inside, that's what I says." There is also some fantastic art in this installment and especially the funeral procession at the end stands out as particularly magnificent.
Somewhere where reality meets the imagination lies an inn called Worlds’ End. This inn is the meeting place for creatures from many different worlds that have been caught up in a storm and while they take shelter they pass the time by telling stories. At the climax of the reality storm, the travellers see a change in the sky and then a funeral procession, obviously led by Morpheus goes by. A closed coffin is carried by and many familiar and strange mourners are part of the procession. But who has died?
Perhaps it is the knowledge that this the series is turning toward the end, but I felt this volume very much was a harbinger of what is to come in the final volumes. I am very sad that this well crafted series is ending but how Neil Gaiman goes about finishing it has my anticipation level rising.