The Sandman: Dream Country (1991)

I still really enjoy this series. My least favorite of the bunch was the Midsummer's Nights Dream. I am not that fond of Shakespeare, so I think that prejudiced me. The cat episode was cute, and thought provoking for me. I plan on continuing with this series and am excited to move on to book 4. ( )

Despite being just four issues, there's a ton packed into this volume. From cats to Shakespeare to a take on Metamorpho, these stories are fun and diverse, and help build the Sandman world. ( )

While the multi-part story arcs are fantastic, sometimes you just want to read something short and sweet. Or bittersweet. Dream Country contains four self-contained, single-issue stories.

"Calliope": A desperate writer holds the Greek muse Calliope prisoner for her story ideas.

"A Dream of a Thousand Cats": An assembly of felines hears the truth about how the world once was, and how it may be so again.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream": William Shakespeare and his company perform his play for the first time, to a very special audience.

"Façade": Urania Blackwell, a former super-heroine who can become anything but human, longs for a release from her lonely existence.

My edition also includes the script for "Calliope," though I believe earlier editions contained "A Midsummer Night's Dream." ( )

Unlike the previous books of Sandman, this one doesn't follow the same plot-line in all of its issues, but rather each issue has its own story. And the dream lord wasn't exactly a main character in them, but he did make an appearance here and there.

1- Calliope:
Rating: 5 Golden Stars

This story is probably my favorite of all four stand-alones. Calliope follows the story of a writer who, after writing an incredibly successful first novel, couldn't come up with anything else to match it, and his publishers were at his throat. So he seeks another author's help and guess what? His secret is that he has freaking CALLIOPE in his basement!!!
So basically all he had to do to get inspiration was to RAPE poor Calliope.
I found that detail gruesome, I HATED that author but at the same time I loved his story and how he progressed.
And then Calliope was like ya know what? Let me call the three-faced goddess real quick. And they get word to Morpheus who is by the way Calliope's old husband.
And THEN the horrible author gets the horrible fate he deserves.
It was so fun to go through this, I felt for poor Calliope, I wanted to shoot the author, I was so happy when Morpheus showed up, it was just glorious.

2-A Dream of a Thousand Cats:
Rating: 5 Stars

Cats are everywhere around us, we either have them in our homes our in our neighborhood or in out schools or where we work. And honestly, I have wondered many times as I watched my cats sleep, what were they dreaming?
A Dream of a Thousand Cats tells us exactly that. The dreams of cats.
And it is exactly what one may think cats would dream of; World domination !
I really loved going through this one, especially because it was told exclusively from cats' points of view.

3-A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
Rating: 4 Stars

In this issue, we are reunited with a character that has made an appearance earlier in the series, who is William Shakespeare, who was asked by the Dream lord to write two plays for him.
He follows up on his promise and writes him the first play, while the Dream Lord brings him an audience to perform in front.
Said audience was a thing of dreams and nightmares tangled up together, and I really liked that.
Though it was quite confusing at some parts, it was fun to go through.

4-Façade:
Rating: 5 Stars

In this story Gaiman featured one of my absolute favorite Egyptian gods which is Raa!
I honestly didn't expect that he would make such an appearance, but it was such a delightful surprise!
The main character in this story was transformed into a meta-human by Raa himself but she wasn't exactly pleased by it so she only wished for one thing but she couldn't deliver it; death.
Though Morpheus doesn't make an appearance in this book, his sister Death does, and I really liked her appearance.


In general this was such an interesting set of stories, and I really enjoyed going through it! ( )

Thus far, this one has my favorite issue - "Facade". Death gets her own story for the first time here, and she is by far my favorite character in The Sandman universe. ( )