Sandman VI, VIII, IX

Sandman VI, VIII, and IX by Neil Gaiman
Reason for Reading: Graphic Novel Challenge, Dream King Challenge, for the love of Neil Gaiman

The sixth Sandman graphic novel, Fables and Reflections is a series of short stories similar to Dream Country and World's End. While most of the tales don't add to the main plotline, like all of Gaiman's graphic novels, there are characters, plotlines, and details that come from previous storylines or will play into future storylines. One of my favorite stories is Three Septembers and a January, a tale that sounds too fantastical to be true... except that it is a true story. Joshua Abraham Norton, a failed businessman moves to San Francisco and declares himself the Emperor of the United States. He prints his own currency and publishes his royal decrees in the newspaper. Thanks to Gaiman, we at last learn the behind the scenes story, which involves a contest between Desire and Dream.

Other stories include Orpheus, which introduces us to Dream's son and sets up the background for the next major plotline and a number of other fairy tales and myths. Fairy tales, Roman emperors, mythical cities, and the French Revolution are just a few of the dazzling number of settings.

Next up is Brief Lives, where Delirium convinces Dream to help her search for their missing brother, Destruction. The Endless have been introduced previously, but in this novel we finally get a more satisfying look at their lives, their realms, and their sometimes dysfunctional relationships. Previously, I had not cared much for Delirium, but in this novel as she leads Dream on erratic and (to his mind) pointless search, I started to really warm up to her. She has a knack for misadventures and for saying the wrong thing at the right time. Also, interesting is Gaiman's portrayal of Destruction as a kindly soul weary of his duty, taking up art in his retirement.

This novel starts as a kind of a lark, a buddy adventure between the free-spirited Delirium and the straight-laced Dream, and takes a more serious turn as the people around them start dying. Dream, who at the beginning of the series was remote, cold and willing to let humans die without a second thought, has evolved to a point where he is more in tune and sympathetic with humanity. Determined to make their mission succeed so that their human companions will not have died in vain, Dream finds himself making a choice that he knows will possibly lead to his own destruction.

Between Brief Lives and The Kindly Ones, is World's End, which I had previously read and reviewed here.

And finally, we arrive at The Kindly Ones, the climax of several loose plotlines that we've been following since the first few novels. Over the years, Dream has managed to accumulate a number of beings with grudges against him. In this novel, several of them come together to carry out their revenge. Lyta Hall, who had once, with her husband, attempted to fill the void left when Dream was imprisoned, knows that Dream had claimed her son, Daniel. When she comes home and finds her son missing, she immediately latches onto getting revenge and seeks the help of the Furies, empowered to bring destruction to those who have spilt family blood.

Dream is not necessarily innocent. He has, by the decisions made throughout the course of the series, caused the events of The Kindly Ones. He has spilt family blood, although it was a mercy killing. He did claim Lyta's son, although it wasn't him who kidnapped her. Dream knows his responsibility, and his actions to save himself and his kingdom become increasingly half-hearted. At last, the novel ends with Dream and Death sitting on a desolate peak together, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. Death is my favorite character of the series, and the exchange between the two as Dream finally accepts his fate is heart-renching.

Should I read it? You'd be missing out if you didn't.

Sandman IV & V

Sandman IV: Season of Mists & Sandman V: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman

In earlier novels, it was revealed that Dream had banished his one-time lover, Nada to hell, where she had languished for 10,000 years. In Season of Mists, prodded by his siblings, Dream decides that the time has come to free her, even though Lucifer had threatened to kill him not too long ago. When he gets to Hell, though, things are not what he expected. I don't want to give any more away than that, but this is an entertaining novel that gets back into the story arc of the first two novels.

Like the other Sandman novels, this one introduces a short story in the middle that seems unrelated at first, but turns out to be set during the drama of the rest of the novel. Although a little creepy, it ends up happy (happy-ish?).

This novel also sets up some interesting characters that ultimately play a part in later novels. We meet Dream's entire family, Death, Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Destiny, and they all have a nice family dinner. Okay let's admit it, they are pretty dysfunctional. Nearly immortal beings with completely different aims, and age-old rivalries do not a good dinner party make.

We also get to meet quite a few gods, goddess, and beings of the mythological variety. Again, they make for interesting company hanging out together in Dream's Castle. Part of Gaiman's brilliance in this series is imagining how all these bizarre characters would look like and how they'd react to one another.

A Game of You on the other hand, while incorporating a few characters from previous novels, is very separate from the rest of the Sandman story arcs and actually does not focus much on Dream at all. Barbie, who was introduced in The Doll's House, has stopped dreaming. But her life begins to take a strange turn when a giant creature that she seems to half remember from her dreams calls her name on the street and tries to warn her of something before being shot to death by policemen.

Barbie quickly finds herself caught up in a conspiracy she could never have imagined. Pulled away into the Dreaming, she encounters a world where she is princess and her loyal subjects are in hiding from an evil creature called the Cuckoo. Barbie's friends, Hazel, Foxglove, and Wanda, all waking from horrible nightmares, realize that Barbie has fallen into a sleep she won't wake from. Their neighbor, Thessaly, who is, as it turns out, a witch, offers to help. She helps them all enter the Dreaming in order to find Barbie and bring her back from the clutches of the Cuckoo.

This novel is not nearly as expansive as most of the Sandman novels, but it is a nice change. I enjoyed the characters, especially Thessaly. Although she does help Barbie's friends look for her, she is willing to do it in the face of extreme consequences. She is motivated by revenge and even dares to defy Dream when he finally does make an appearance.

Two excellent additions to the Sandman series.

Should I read it? Do you like Neil Gaiman? Then why the heck haven't you read them already?

Coraline

Have you gone to see the movie Coraline yet? No? Get going already, because it's awesome.

Coraline Jones is bored. With her parents both busy working as writers, there's not much for Coraline to do. So she spends her time exploring the new flat that she and her parents have moved into. There's eccentric neighbors living in the same building. Miss Forcible and Miss Spink are retired actresses who keep a pack of their dearly departed dogs stuffed on a shelf and feed Coraline 50-year-old taffy. Mr. Bobinsky upstairs is a gymnast who is working on his mouse circus.

And in perhaps the greatest departure from the novel, Coraline makes a new friend in Wybie, grandson of the house's owner. He gives her a strange doll he found that looks exactly like Coraline, and that's when things start to get strange.

One day while counting everything around the house, Coraline encounters a strange little door that leads to another apartment just like her own, except better. There's an Other Mother and an Other Father, an amazing garden, a piano that plays itself, and the food is way better.

But things aren't quite what they seem. Her Other Mother and Other Father have buttons for eyes and if Coraline wants to stay forever, she'll need to have buttons sewn in her eyes as well.

This delightfully creepy book could have been translated any number of ways to the screen, and most of them would have been completely wrong. But the gorgeous, stop-motion movie is funky, eye-poppingly beautiful, and completely perfect for the tone of the story. Even Coraline's ordinary world looks fantastic, and the only word for the Other World is AMAZING. The delights that the Other Mother initially prepares for Coraline are stunning.

When you think 3-D, you might be thinking chintzy, but the effects are subtle and well-suited for the movie. There is of course the little moments with things flying out of the screen, but they were a real enhancement.

The source material is most definitely creepy, and the movie does not skimp on the creepy factor. In some ways, the movie is scarier than the book because instead of just imagining the hideous monster that is the Other Mother, you actually get to see her as a boated spider-creature. And oh yeah, the bat-dogs are pretty creepy/cool.

I loved this book and I loved the movie. It is a very rare thing when that happens, so I commend the film makers for bringing Gaiman's vision to the screen.