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romination 's review for:
The Sandman Vol. 11: Endless Nights
by Neil Gaiman
So I don't want to go story by story on this or anything but suffice to say of the post-main arc books they put out for Sandman so far, this was my favorite one. The work it does, presenting short stories that show aspects of the Endless without going all the way in on being like "THIS IS EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM!!!! THIS IS EVERYTHING THAT MAKES THEM TICK!!!!!!!" is great, because it shows how they intersect with humanity - or at least the non-immortals - in different ways.
Despair and Delirium are definitely the most difficult of them, though that's in part because Delirium herself is one of the more difficult to pin down. How are you supposed to write a straightforward story about basically a broken mental state? The way they put it together worked pretty well and both of these having that kinda grungy/whimsical collage look that works for them. The art design on these parts was some of the wildest, though it did at times get a little difficult to read, especially Despair. These were also some of the broadest ones, showing the multiple different ways they can manifest in people.
The two that seemed maybe most disposable were Desire and Destruction. They were just kinda flat stories - I guess it makes sense that Destruction's not really about that aspect of himself, since he's given up his post, but what was really weird about it is that after he peaced off and was like "later guys!" to his family, apparently they can get in contact with him and ask him to like hang out at random now? Maybe it's because of Dream's death making him more available. Desire's was more or less "tity woman seduces men for her own means" and I dunno, of all the aspects of what it can mean to be like literally possessed by desire, making it all just be boning is kinda the most straightforward aspect of it that they could do.
Also, there's a bunch of naked men but you don't see a single dong.
Well really I guess Destiny was the most pointless but it was like 4 pages so whatever.
But yeah anthologies can be pretty difficult to do - and god knows some of the Sandman short story collections have been BAD - but this one manages to pull it off pretty well. Even though I was kinda talking mess about Desire up there, like let's be real, there's a lot of joy you can get from just watching all these dudes get so overcome with desire that they start trying to kill each other. This one manages to pull it off well, managing to be able to tell contained stories, tell stores that feed into each other, and tell stories that set up other books, all in the space of 7 stories.
And no Shakespeare in sight!
It's no mean feat, and I'm a little shocked they managed to do it so well. It's the second to last I'm reviewing, but it's the first after the main 10 volumes that I read, and it really started me off on a pretty high note.
Despair and Delirium are definitely the most difficult of them, though that's in part because Delirium herself is one of the more difficult to pin down. How are you supposed to write a straightforward story about basically a broken mental state? The way they put it together worked pretty well and both of these having that kinda grungy/whimsical collage look that works for them. The art design on these parts was some of the wildest, though it did at times get a little difficult to read, especially Despair. These were also some of the broadest ones, showing the multiple different ways they can manifest in people.
The two that seemed maybe most disposable were Desire and Destruction. They were just kinda flat stories - I guess it makes sense that Destruction's not really about that aspect of himself, since he's given up his post, but what was really weird about it is that after he peaced off and was like "later guys!" to his family, apparently they can get in contact with him and ask him to like hang out at random now? Maybe it's because of Dream's death making him more available. Desire's was more or less "tity woman seduces men for her own means" and I dunno, of all the aspects of what it can mean to be like literally possessed by desire, making it all just be boning is kinda the most straightforward aspect of it that they could do.
Also, there's a bunch of naked men but you don't see a single dong.
Well really I guess Destiny was the most pointless but it was like 4 pages so whatever.
But yeah anthologies can be pretty difficult to do - and god knows some of the Sandman short story collections have been BAD - but this one manages to pull it off pretty well. Even though I was kinda talking mess about Desire up there, like let's be real, there's a lot of joy you can get from just watching all these dudes get so overcome with desire that they start trying to kill each other. This one manages to pull it off well, managing to be able to tell contained stories, tell stores that feed into each other, and tell stories that set up other books, all in the space of 7 stories.
And no Shakespeare in sight!
It's no mean feat, and I'm a little shocked they managed to do it so well. It's the second to last I'm reviewing, but it's the first after the main 10 volumes that I read, and it really started me off on a pretty high note.