The Sandman: A Game of You

A lot of negative reviews here keep taking the transphobic villain at his word when the narrative clearly (to me, a basic cishet boyo) has Wanda's back.

Along with "people contain multitudes," the other big message here is to cherish little victories, like helping someone find shelter in a storm or feeling able to say goodbye to a friend.

SPOILERS

In Volume 5 of the Sandman series, we are taken in a different direction as it steps away from mythology and offers only one story for the whole book. We rendezvous with some characters that have showed up previously and follow a confused Barbie into her dream world. We are also introduced to some new, and fabulous characters, a drag queen, a lesbian couple, and a pair of seriously strange neighbours.

I loved the story of Barbie’s dreamland, how she came there as a child and now has to return to try and set things right. This seems to be recurring theme in the Sandman, real life characters coming to their inner dream world to wage battle. In A Game of You, “The Cuckoo” is Barbie’s nemesis and is a clever invention and show more one that we can all identify with (don‘t we all feel as if somewhere in our dreams the child we used to be dwells?). This book with it’s female leads and princess dream concept felt very feminine and fresh, yet this is a dark and at times violent tale.

Gaiman often gives the reader a nod and a wink with a reference to a past event or character. He keeps his readers on their toes and I love the feeling of satisfaction when you do recognize something from a previous book. I hesitate to say this issue is my favorite, but for me, this one stands beside The Doll House as two of the best (so far). show less

Barbie is back for this plot arch. She's divorced Ken and moved into a six flat in New York. She hasn't dreamed in two years. Unbeknownst to her, the dream world she inhabited for most of her life is dying. She was the princess of this land and when she left, something dreadful moved in. Something bent of destroying the whole dream island so it can escape. It will be up to Barbie and her friends to save the Land and get out alive.

This is a cool and self-contained story that really captivated me. I loved the characters and the villain of the piece who was uniquely scary.

Most people have nightmares. They are horrible experiences, but the most frightening aspect is that they are our own creation. We may dream our greatest fears, of fanged and clawed beasts, public speaking, or something dreadful happening to our loved ones. Maybe we awaken in a fright, repulsed by what we saw or what we did, but it was our own minds that spawned the images. No matter how horrifying the images we might be presented with, they ultimately came from somewhere within us. In some ways it's like a betrayal, of a sort.

In typical creepy Sandman fashion, A Game of You explores the idea that this perhaps shouldn't be there after all but instead is an orphan entity that has latched onto our dream worlds and is possibly plotting show more against us. Gaiman draws comparison to the Cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in the nest of other birds, where their offspring will hatch and destroy the other eggs to ensure its own survival. Just don't think about that before you nod off to sleep.

This series continues to improve, with every completed book I think it is my favorite so far and this one is no different. It probably helped that the characters are a cast of complete oddballs, many of which I utterly adored. I also appreciated that Barbie, who was previously depicted as hopelessly normal, is given a bit of depth and fits in so well with the crazy (wonderful) people populating her apartment building.

The art in this edition is pretty typical comic book fair. One book in particular does look quite horrendous, but beyond that it's good. The story is what you are reading this one for, and it offers all the depth you would expect from the series. It most certainly gets a thumbs up and a nod of approval from me, plus 4 stars to boot. show less

This one didn't grab me as much as the last volume, Season of Mists. It was okay, but I found it didn't pick up steam until the second-last chapter, which I enjoyed immensely. And the epilogue, though subdued, was fitting.

My biggest issue is with the constantly rotating stable of artists. I find the stories become much more nuanced when a single, dedicated artist has time to become emotionally invested in the stories and characters as they evolve. That's not the case here. Instead, one artist starts the story, then others are chained to those likenesses and settings. Not as much fun, and it was a particular annoyance in this volume.

Still, Gaiman always has some good stuff to say, and he did so here as well.

Hmm. I am divided on this one. I didn't like it as much as I did Season of Mists, for all that this is in many ways a more intelligent and incisive book. It's dark and it's often gruesome (Hazel's dream about her baby attacking Foxglove's was possibly one of the more disturbing things I've ever seen), and the dual storyline meant that the reader is often left questioning which one is reality and which fantasy, if such a concept can ever be attached to a work by Gaiman at all. Wanda was fabulous, though, and I loved the way Gaiman dealt with ideas of gender and sexuality and so on.

However, I was a little confused by the idea of the Cuckoo - was she a part of Barbie who had been repressed, and who was trying to come back to the surface? show more Was she a completely different entity? A part of Barbie who had been sent into the Dreaming and then changed? - and I really, really didn't believe Hazel's 'don't you have to kill a rabbit when you're performing a pregnancy test?' statement. Let alone the 'but you can't get pregnant if you have sex standing up!' *rolls eyes*

A recommendation, then, but a somewhat confused one. ('Which is unusual how?', she says...) show less