Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
Pulls together by the end, but less interesting than the last set of tales.
This volume is one of the shorter books in the collection. It follows a couple who seek refuge after a car crash. The find a place where they find rest, food, and others who were in need for shelter. These people tell stories, some real, some made up.
**spoiler** What really hit me was that there were many worlds. These travelers needed a break from their particular world until they were ready to return. It seemed as though each person face grief in one way or another that they had to escape. The shelter became that escape. In the end there was a funeral every traveler saw. It was an all encompassing funeral for all their grief. Then the grief was gone. The need for escape was over. Once by one the travelers returned to their world.
**spoiler** What really hit me was that there were many worlds. These travelers needed a break from their particular world until they were ready to return. It seemed as though each person face grief in one way or another that they had to escape. The shelter became that escape. In the end there was a funeral every traveler saw. It was an all encompassing funeral for all their grief. Then the grief was gone. The need for escape was over. Once by one the travelers returned to their world.
a story within a story, within a story. I am so delighted to have been a guest at the World’s inn
There's nothing really wrong with this volume I guess, I just didn't find it terribly engaging and it feels more like filler than anything else. Although half this series feels like filler to me and I'm still not really sure what the over-arching plot is supposed to be or if there even is one. I think I just like a little bit more structure in my stories than this series is generally willing to provide because it seems like every other volume is just 'here's a bunch of random stuff we've thrown together'. It's still decent writing but I'm just not that into it.
It's boring - no, it's NOT boring to keep giving the books in this series 5 stars. I mean those 5 stars. 5 stars means amazing, and I think this stuff is amazing.
Based on experience from number 7, I read the preface (which was at the front of the book, this time, as a preface normally is) last. I dived into the story itself first. I like that. That way I really enjoy the book without any previous information about the tales. When I then read the intro, it's like sharing the experience with a friend. You know, the way you chatter with your friends when you come out of a movie you enjoy.
Stephen King did the intro here. Only recently - and since I joined Goodreads - did I learn how well Stephen King tells stories. I have only read one of his stories so far, and I have seen several of his stories as film only. I had always thought of him as pure horror, which I am not interested in. Well, here he wrote a sentence that gave me vague flashes of my childhood - vagueness akin to that in the first tale told in the World's End Inn. Her wrote "... reading our comics up in the sweltering storage space about Chrissie Essigian's garage on a rainy summer afternoon..." That was evocative for me. It made me blink a few times as vague echoes sounded from my past. I haven't read comics in a garage like that, but I know the feeling of immersion in stories, of diving in and going to those worlds, of feeling those stories with all your being.
Stephen King used another phrase in another paragraph that is quite telling: "Pictures and word-balloons don't mean dumb." And that is why I am recording these reads on Goodreads. This is not some silly picture book to use as filler for my reading challenge. Gaiman's tales of The Sandman crawl under your skin and trigger reflection and thought for a long time after you read them. If anyone questions your reading of books of this caliber, just use Stephen King's phrase on them.
This book could be regarded as an interlude with all the storytelling from strangers around a kind of campfire - beings caught in a bizarre storm and seeking shelter in the inn. You see a mere glimpse of the Sandman in some of the tales told in the inn. But then, because of some portents told in earlier books and because of how the storm in this book ends, you know it was no ordinary interlude!
Enjoy...
Based on experience from number 7, I read the preface (which was at the front of the book, this time, as a preface normally is) last. I dived into the story itself first. I like that. That way I really enjoy the book without any previous information about the tales. When I then read the intro, it's like sharing the experience with a friend. You know, the way you chatter with your friends when you come out of a movie you enjoy.
Stephen King did the intro here. Only recently - and since I joined Goodreads - did I learn how well Stephen King tells stories. I have only read one of his stories so far, and I have seen several of his stories as film only. I had always thought of him as pure horror, which I am not interested in. Well, here he wrote a sentence that gave me vague flashes of my childhood - vagueness akin to that in the first tale told in the World's End Inn. Her wrote "... reading our comics up in the sweltering storage space about Chrissie Essigian's garage on a rainy summer afternoon..." That was evocative for me. It made me blink a few times as vague echoes sounded from my past. I haven't read comics in a garage like that, but I know the feeling of immersion in stories, of diving in and going to those worlds, of feeling those stories with all your being.
Stephen King used another phrase in another paragraph that is quite telling: "Pictures and word-balloons don't mean dumb." And that is why I am recording these reads on Goodreads. This is not some silly picture book to use as filler for my reading challenge. Gaiman's tales of The Sandman crawl under your skin and trigger reflection and thought for a long time after you read them. If anyone questions your reading of books of this caliber, just use Stephen King's phrase on them.
This book could be regarded as an interlude with all the storytelling from strangers around a kind of campfire - beings caught in a bizarre storm and seeking shelter in the inn. You see a mere glimpse of the Sandman in some of the tales told in the inn. But then, because of some portents told in earlier books and because of how the storm in this book ends, you know it was no ordinary interlude!
Enjoy...
This one could be a standalone in the series. A group of unusual characters gathered during a storm at an Inn and start telling some interesting stories. Another enjoyable read in the Sandman series.
This was cute, a bit like short stories. I wonder how it'll tie in later. As a standalone it's entertaining
This is my favorite volume to date. There is so much packed into this book and it captures and holds you until it’s over. Yet, it doesn’t seem over and I am glad that I have volume 9 because I am craving more.