The Sandman: Worlds' End

In The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman channels Boccaccio's Decameron with travelers exchanging stories as they wait out a reality storm. The narrative style allows Gaiman and his artists to explore new worlds not tied to the larger Sandman narrative. Even eight volumes in, Gaiman maintains the compelling nature of these stories, raising the bar for the comics medium.

The 8th volume of the Sandman series is once again just a set of disconnected creepy short stories. Think of the Canterbury Tales in a fantastical setting. There's not a lot of Morpheus to be had in here, and even when he does show up, he rarely gets referred to by name. But unlike in the previous volumes, this didn't bother me so much, as I managed to get really invested in the current stories.

While I could easily find something appealing in every account, my favorite was hands down Petrefax's: the life of an undertaker, the types of burials for the dead and of course the creepy anecdote WITHIN the story. I could definitely see myself booking a trip to Litharge and maybe even auditing a lecture or two at the university. Oh, who am I show more kidding: I'd chicken out halfway through. But if it were possible to view the necropolis from inside a safe personal bubble, I'd be there.

Score: 4.7/5 stars

The atmosphere had just the right amount of creepy vibes, the many different worlds made me itch for a new holiday, and I couldn't get enough of the variously shady characters. I wasn't a big fan of the intentionally vague explanations, especially when it came to the funereal procession from the end, though that's probably mainly due to frustration. It felt like I should've understood a lot more of the subtext than I did, but I also didn't really want to lose any of the mystique by having things explained.

I have a weakness for all things mysterious, and coupled with some very pretty art, I can't honestly find a lot of fault in this. So far this feels like the year's top contender.

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Review of volume 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
Review of volume 2: The Doll's House
Review of volume 3: Dream Country
Review of volume 4: Season of Mists
Review of volume 5: A Game of You
Review of volume 6: Fables & Reflections
Review of volume 7: Brief Lives show less

And so we get our first taste of the infamous House of Mystery, the harbor at World's End, where safety and drink in the limbo between dimensions can be bought with the price of a tale.

I'm pretty fond of these short stories, but perhaps not as fond as I was the first time I read them. They're solid and thought-provoking, but not overly so.

I suppose what really got to me was the end of the volume. The wake. *shiver* Okay, that was some seriously deep shit. When death looked at us like that? Oh lordy that was great. Sometimes the art gets it right, and this one? Yeah. It gets it right.

*shiver*

I LOVE great foreshadowing. :)

The story begins with Brant Tucker, and his co-worker Charlene Mooney being involved in a car crash. As he staggers out of the car and helps the injured Charlene, he realizes that he is being directed to a building by a hedgehog! This building, rather than being your regular pub, this is one of four inns that travellers are able to take shelter in when there are reality storms in the fabric between worlds.

They are welcomed into the inn, and their injuries are dealt with. Soon after the other guests who have sought shelter, start to tell each other stories. These tales vary from the historic, set in Europe in the past on a cargo ship. The fantastical, a boy who becomes a man who becomes a president, to the unreal with faeries and the show more macabre with another on a necropolis city that deals with death. Each story is linked by a scene in the inn, before the next character takes up the challenge of a new account.

Brilliantly illustrated as normal, the sandman books are a pleasure to read, whilst being dark and edgy enough to be unsettling too. These collection feel more cohesive too, as it all takes place in the inn, then ranges far and wide with the yarns. What is cleverly done is that each of these separate stories has been illustrated by a different artist, so they feel like they are coming from a different narrator. Quality graphic novel from Gaiman, as ever. show less

A Tavern at the World's End. Travellers from all manner of realities, thrown together. Stories around the fire.



It's certainly not a new plot, but it's near always a fantastic one and this is no exception. We get peeks at all manner of strange corners of the Sandman extended universe, places we've seen before and those we'll likely never see again. And they're all so very fascinating.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to get thrown into something like this myself. How would I cope with centaurs and skeletons and dreaming cities and reality hopping presidents--oh my...

Well worth the read.

Pretty pictures and spoilers:



A certain soul to everything, not just single things, not even just living things. It's one of the ways I wish I show more could believe the real world worked. It's fascinating to me.

I don't think I've ever really considered a city's dreams before though.



And one day... they'll awaken.



Oh the fae folk. We've seen him before, but he's still an interesting enough secondary character.



A truely enchanted apple, given as a gift that no one seems to want. An interesting core of what could be yet another fascinating story. There are a lot of those in here.



This story, away from the rest, was greatly amusing. Hinting at a bigger universe in just a strange enough way. And picking on the presidency, which I always appreciate.



There are a lot of these ways of dividing the world that, while too simple and imperfect, make a lot of sense. I think we all have a bit of teh hedgehog and the fox in us. But me, I'm more of a fox I believe.



It made me at least think differently about politics. Even the worst of them are still politicians, so just go and live your life and that's enough for now.



Death and Prez. :)



Air burials have a certain beauty to them. Nothing lasts forever, so why spend land on something who's time is done. And stories... stories are how we'll be remembered.



I wonder if there are other stories from this universe. Or once again, just these bare hints. Worth looking into.



The structure of this story is just bonkers when you think about it. It's all about this guy telling a story--about a bunch of people who meet in a tavern to tell stories--at least one of which contains stories being told. It's stories all the way down! show less

The Sandman, as written by Neil Gaiman and penciled and inked by a phenomonal cast (Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, and so many more) has a justified place in the list of all-time greatest works in comic book history. We can and should revise our assessment of art when the artist has failed us, but the experience of Sandman is a work of many hearts, all of them carrying their own secret pain, and one of them is me.

In which Morpheus, the Dream King, the Sandman, or rather something that's about to happen to him, causes a reality storm and gathers together creatures of all nations to share themselves with each other. Another collection of stories where the Endless only appear peripherally, and only at highly critical moments. This is a little bit like the first installment in the series, Preludes and Nocturnes in that it deals mainly with stories (and the stories within them) and how they affect those to whom they are told. In the frame story, a storm causes the inn Worlds' End to open up its doors to travelers escaping from a horrendous storm, the reason for which is only revealed at the end, and it turns out to be a great and immensely sad show more precursor to what's to come.

"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. show less