“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

The Sandman Volume 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Jill Thompson and Vince Locke
Vertigo (1995)
110 pages

I read this after skipping Volume 6: Fables and Reflections, at the time the only volume my sister didn’t own. I don’t know if that detracted from the experience of reading this volume — we already have Fables and Reflections now and I still haven’t read it.

I think it’s the best story arc of the Sandman collections I’ve read (I only have Fables and Reflections and Endless Nights left). It deals mainly with the Endless, Dream’s family, as he and his sister Delirium search for their brother Destruction.

What I liked: the stories, of course. I think Gaiman is sometimes better with short, poignant stories than longer novels. I also liked the art from this volume more than some of the others. I loved Delirium. Now I understand why the LJ population of Gaiman’s fans adore Delirium. (Death remains my favourite Endless, if only because she chucked that piece of bread at Dream’s head in the first volume.) And of course there’s the king of dreams himself — I still like Dream, despite all his emo-ness (and the context escaped me, sadly, since I skipped the previous volume, but then again, he’s always been a rather melancholy character), and he’s surprisingly predictable in how he gets frustrated with his little sister.

I’m not sure what I don’t like — I did wish that everyone didn’t have to feel the need to point out that Dream has changed — the story carries that through well enough without this being pointed out. Otherwise this volume pretty much was perfect to me.

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The Sandman Volume 8: Worlds’ End by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Michael Allred, Gary Amaro, Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano, Tony Harris, Steve Leialoha, Vince Locke, Shea Anton Pensa, Alec Stevens, Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss and Michael Zulli
Vertigo (1995)
168 pages

This volume had stories within stories within stories. A “reality storm” blows in, leaving a bunch of travellers from different times and places stranded at an inn called Worlds’ End. To pass the time, they tell stories. The stories are mostly stand-alone, with characters who had appeared before in the series making an appearance, and the Endless appearing from time to time in them, but not being central to the story. I sort of missed having Morpheus around.

I liked some stories better than the others — Jim’s story, Hob’s Leviathan, was the one I liked best, about a boy going to sea and seeing a sea-monster, and I also liked the style the artist used. I also liked The Golden Boy, the story about the boy president. I liked the art in the first story, Tale of Two Cities. It makes the story even more creepy.

The readers are made aware that something momentous is going on as the focus shifts between the stories and the inn. The ending made me go asdk;kl (again — I’m doing that too often lately), wondering what had happened outside the inn.

Not one of my favourite volumes, but it certainly has some very interesting stories.