The Sandman: The Doll's House

I really liked The Doll's House. It doesn't really seem that much more cohesive than the first story, in one sense -- there are digressions, like the story of Dream and Nada, and then later the man who can't die, but I'm sort of used to that now and I'm into the swing of it. In general it's easy to follow, although the pages where I had to turn the book to read the speech were a little irritating. The art is good, now that I'm used to it.

I like the fact that a seemingly incidental character from the first volume turned out to be important -- Unity Kincaid. Of course Gaiman doesn't do anything without reason... Rose was okay to follow, as a character; a nice character design and nothing too fantastical about her as a person, even if she turns out to be really important.

I'm really enjoying this series, I'm glad I own all the way up to The Wake so I can just keep on reading... ( )

This one had remarkable storytelling. Intrigue for future volumes has been very well built into. Artwork is lovely too. I specially loved that introduction by an tribal elder to their young in the desert. ( )

Groundbreaking. Nice job making it work on Kindle Fire. ( )

Second installment of the Sandman collection. This volume is more of a connected story than the first volume, with characters we really get to know and follow for some time.
I personally found this volume somewhat less enticing; it has a somewhat different atmosphere and seems a bit lighter than the first volume. I was also somewhat disappointed by how the story gets wrapped up. ( )

Dream's kingdom is being threatened by a vortex, an entity that can rip apart the Dreaming. He also finds out that a few of his major, and monstrous, subjects, have escaped his kingdom. He must look for them all and save the day before it's too late.

Darn it, GoodReads, I need half stars! This was better than [b:Preludes and Nocturnes|23754|Preludes and Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1)|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1201718740s/23754.jpg|1228437], but still not quite a four.

The arc of the story flowed much more smoothly. This volume really encompasses one big storyline rather than the three or four rather disjointed ones found in the first volume. This one was definitely creepy--I'm desperately hoping that the Corinthian stays out of my nightmares!--but it wasn't as over-the-top horrifying as Preludes. All pluses in my book. I also liked the way Gaiman took a storyline from the first collection that I had completely forgotten about and expanded it into something unexpected but fitting.

I liked that we got to see a little more of the family dynamics among Dream's family, the Endless Ones. They aren't really gods because gods die; these beings don't. They have always been around and they always will be. Some of Dream's past is told, and we're left with the feeling that his younger siblings aren't through messing with him and the other two Eldest.

I'm not a big fan of the art of the actual story. The colors are a little too garish. Sandman is still very cool, but the other characters, (well, except for the Corinthian) were just too much. This was written and illustrated in the late '80's, early '90's though, so that probably has something to do with it. I did, again, find myself poring over Dave McKean's gorgeous cover illustrations. I really, really like the mixed-media work he did for these.

I'll try one more. ( )