The Sandman: Vol III: Dream Country (1991)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Kelley Jones / Charles Vess / Colleen Doran |
Page Count: 152

"Things need not have happened to be true.  Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes…” 

Book 3 of 10 in the Sandman saga sets aside the multipart work and gives us some standalones.  There are still references to things outside of each individual story so they’re still a part of the series story arc but can be removed from it and enjoyed separately.  The publisher claims that each collection “can be read in order or as individual volumes” but that’s just publisher bullshit to sell more copies.  Read them in order, always, even the standalones.

-The first story will appeal to anyone who’s ever tried to write a story (or review) and found they're still staring in despair at a blank page after half an hour of toil.
-The second will appeal to cat lovers, and is perhaps Gaiman’s most emotionally touching standalone; at least it is for me.  It’s brought to life by the pencils of Kelley Jones who either owns a cat himself or studied them at length.
-The third is the highlight of the book and won Gaiman a World Fantasy Award, the only comic to ever do so.  It requires you to have read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to get the most enjoyment from it.  It marks the first time artist Charles Vess worked on the series.
-The last story is the wildcard.  It features a long forgotten superheroine; it examines what life is like when the world no longer needs you and you don’t have a normal life to fall back on.  What do you do when you can’t do anything?

Because book 3 collects just 4 issues, the short length is padded out with a 39 page script for the first story.  It’ll either fascinate or bore; think of it like a dvd extra, do you watch them or not?  If not, you’re paying the same price for 4 issues as you’ve paid for 7 previously.  It’s a diverse mix but luckily for me I'm a fan of all of those things so I enjoyed every squiggly word of it.

The book collects together Sandman issues 17 - 20

5 faeries and masks that won’t stick out of 5

The Sandman: Vol II: The Doll's House (1990)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Mike Dringenberg / Chris Bachalo / Michael Zulli | Page Count: 228

“…if it touched you, you could wash and wash until your skin was tattered and bloodied, but you’d never be clean again.”

Book 2 of 10 in the Sandman saga is where the series really begins to separate itself from the larger DC Universe; it feels like a self-contained world populated by a collection of believable people not dependent on past histories.  Morpheus becomes a more three dimensional character, not the insubstantial entity he was at the beginning.  Everything is more focussed and immediate.  The stories also undergo a drastic change.  They are much better developed this time in terms of interconnectivity; some of the subject matter is a lot darker and more adult.  One part of the story I found very uncomfortable reading but at the same time the very idea that it could ever happen was intriguing.

Dream orders a census of the Realm and discovers some of the inhabitants are missing.  He deems it his responsibility to find them and bring them back before they can do damage in the waking world.  Gaiman lets his imagination run free with those.  We meet some more of the Endless family and begin to notice something unusual about all of them.  Some of those bit players I mentioned from book one return and upset the apple cart.  Gaiman gets the opportunity to create a house full of weirdos and studies them like a sociological experiment.
I could go on and on about the ripples this book creates but it’s best if you discover for yourself.  If you didn't give up at the beginning of book one your patience is well rewarded in book two.

The book collects together Sandman issues 9 - 16

4½ we don’t shit where we eat out of 5

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Author: Philip K. Dick | Page Count: 210

"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity."

I like Dick. I can go to the library and ask the woman at the counter if she likes Dick, and if she'd like to come home with me and see my big Dick collection. Being a Dick-Head is a source of endless in-jokes with other Dick-Heads.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set on Earth, an Earth that is mostly abandoned and almost totally poisoned. The hardy stragglers that haven't left the planet are in danger of being unable to leave the planet. Rick Deckard is one such person. He's a bounty hunter, policing Androids (aka Andys) that have gone rogue. A group of Nexus 6 Andys have come to Earth and it's Rick's job to take them out, which means a nice big fat paycheque for his wallet. Along the way he's forced to make some tough decisions while dealing with his own neuroses.

As with most of Dick's books, there's a fundamental duality ticking away like clockwork under the surface. Even the title of the book has a double meaning; I won't say what it is, because it's up to the reader to discover it. His prose style can be off-putting to people not already familiar with the conventions of the genre; and it's certainly not something that I think a casual reader will be able to easily engage with. At times it's cold and sterile, but it's also thought-provoking, full of deep introspection and emotional reasoning, particularity in the latter half.

4 Dick-Heads aren't chickenheads out of 5

The Sandman: Vol I: Preludes & Nocturnes (1991)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Sam Kieth / Mike Dringenberg |
Page Count:  235

"I'd just had this nightmare.  These things with faces like appendectomy scars were crocheting my intestines into body bags for the blind and dead."

Book 1 of 10 in Gaiman’s Sandman saga brings together the More Than Rubies storyline.  The Lord of all Dreaming, Morpheus, gets into a spot of trouble with an enthusiastic occultist who steals his possessions, magical things that weren't ever meant for the human world.  Morpheus spends most of the remainder of the book trying to get them back.  His journey takes him to places he'd rather not set foot.

It had been years since I last read this and I’d forgotten how closely tied it was to the DC universe at the beginning.  It’s not until the epilogue that the first phase of where Gaiman would eventually take the character begins to surface.  Until then it exists in a number of already established genres, from the traditional English fireside horror tale, through generic dark fantasy territory and even the merging of horror with the superhero genre.  It didn’t fit with that genre at all so it’s good that it was just an experiment.  There is one person from the DC Vertigo pantheon that did fit right into the Sandman world but I won’t spoil it by saying who.

Some of the dialogue is embarrassingly bad in the first few chapters but don’t be put off by that, it really does get better, much better.  Despite the dodgy wording there are some very interesting ideas under the surface, ideas that have deeper connotations than may be initially apparent.  We are also introduced to a number of bit players that will return later and play bigger roles, but of course we didn't know that at the start, so it rewards repeated readings later down the line.

The book collects together Sandman issues 1 - 8.

3½ all night parties at the 24 hour diner out of 5

Note: At time of writing, the official DC site is offering the first Sandman issue FREE as a PDF.

Death: The Time of Your Life (1996)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Chris Bachalo / Mark Buckingham |

Page Count: 95

"My face feels prickly and pale and chill, and my hands are cold, and my heart is beating oddly in my chest—banging against my ribcage, unpleasantly hard, as if it needs to be free."

The second miniseries for Death of the Endless is a full colour exploration of life, love, identity and loss.  Unlike the previous collection, The High Cost of Living (1993), it more closely mirrors the Sandman style of storytelling.  Death exists in the background until the story is ready for her to enter; when she appears it’s as a catalyst for change (like her Tarot attribution) and not as a principal player.  Quite often those kinds of stories are what Gaiman does best.

The main characters are Donna “Foxglove” Cavanagh and Hazel McNamara, first seen in Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House (1990).  Foxglove is dealing with life as a pop star, and Hazel is dealing with life as a mother.  Both are struggling with not seeing the other for extended periods of time.  The two women were once close but due to work pressures are now walking different paths.  Foxglove is slowly rolling toward a precipice and her life is teetering on the edge of indecision; she's unsure if she should pull it back or let it fall.  Hazel is at home with her thoughts and her failings.  They're both drifting.

Death has her usual sentimental but focussed on duty attitude.  Gaiman has lived with her in his head for years so he knows how to write for the character.  The story is less adventurous than The High Cost of Living but is more sympathetic and emotional, and certainly more rewarding for the reader.  It’s initially slow to unravel but by the end has blossomed into a celebration of life and love, and the beauty and tragedy that can arise from both.

The book collects together Death: The Time of Your Life issues 1 – 3

4 butterflies and bowls of blood out of 5

Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters and Military Commanders to Ever Live (2009)

Author: Ben Thompson | Page Count: 337

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.

Badass is a book written by Ben Thompson as an extension of his website chronicling historical figures who excelled at what they do whether it be combat, science, espionage or just generally being awesome. The book contains 40 chapters each telling the story of one historical figure with articles arranged by time period from antiquity to the modern age.

Rather than a boring history lesson though, Thompson gives these awesome stories the interesting enthusiasm they deserve by punching up the stories with his laid-back writing style filled with hyperbolic analogies and profanity-laced pop culture similes making history somewhat less stodgy. The text is never boring or overwhelming like staring into a textbook in class and is easily digestible with short, to-the-point chapters (unlike the mouthful of a title) and various extras like fun facts, various illustrations and some personal commentary. If history is your thing, then you'll probably enjoy this and if it's not your thing then you still might appreciate the stories in this much more entertaining format.

3½ Spinal cords ripped out through the urethra out of 5

The Last Temptation (1994)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrator:  Michael Zulli | Page Count: 102

“I'll take away the uncertainty, Steven.  I'll take away the fear.  I'll take away the boredom and the pain.  You want more than that?”

This is a strange fish.  It’s the product of a partnership between writer Neil Gaiman and rock musician Alice Cooper.  It’s not Alice’s first foray into the world of comics.  He’s been here before but never with such notable talent.  I'm a fan of both Alice and Gaiman so it should've been manna from heaven to me.  It’s a coming of age story, much like Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This way Comes (1962) which it reminded me of more than once; if the Showman of TLT isn't based on Bradbury’s carnival leader Mr Dark then I’ll eat Impudent Urinal’s hat.

The story illustrates the pitfalls that lie ahead when a frightened kid, Steven, is forced to take control of his own destiny for the first time in his life.  He meets a host of freaks that tempt him with promises of new experiences.  The Showman reveals his Theatre of the Real, the Grandest Guignol, and offers Steven something that I'm sure many of us have wished in our lives.

It’s a morality tale with theatrical trappings, telling the same story as Alice's concept album of the same name, but where Alice had music, Gaiman has artist Mike Zulli who does a wonderful job with the sinister themes.  There are times when the frame is much too busy but most of the time Zulli gets it right.
It’s all done in the blackest of ink with no colour, which sadly can be said for the story too.  Everything is black and white: good and bad is clearly defined.  There's little room for the emotional ambiguity that Gaiman is good at.  While the narrative is restricted by the source material, he still manages to play around a little (one of the kids is dressed like Morpheus from Sandman for Hallowe’en).

If you know the album you’ll know how it all ends.  If you’re reading it as a Gaiman fan without prior knowledge of the album concept, it'll entertain but not as much as his regular day job would.  I'm such a nerd that I've sat and read the book while listening to the music.  It didn't enrich either experience very much but it was a fun experiment nonetheless.

2½ sideshows and dodgy back alley deals out of 5