A review by inhonoredglory
The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

5.0

I never did make a review of this, back when I read it in 2017. I was just being introduced to Gaiman back then and now I'm a complete and utter fan of his work. I want to read through the entire Sandman series now, one after the other, so I get a better sense of how he's linking all these individual stories together. Because it really is that marvelous: Each tale individually, but how they all link up, in brilliant, purely imaginative ways. I'm still continually astounded by how many myths, tales, traditions, allusions, and genre conventions Gaiman stuffed into this, and still make it all fit wonderfully. That's my inspiration right now, to achieve something so varied, so vast as this, and just be like... hey this is a wild, wonderful, and strange world that will scare you and comfort you and make you cry for its dark and beautiful catharsis. That's Sandman through and through, and Gaiman's most definitive opus. It's the work from him that, to me, feels most him, with all the ghosts and gods, themes and meanings he's ever loved.