Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives/ Neil Gaiman

The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman dark fantasy, mystery, graphic novel, occult, adventure, thriller 256 pages

I enjoyed this volume because it deals largely with the Endless-- Morpheus' family consisting of Morpheus himself (or Dream), his sisters: Death, Delirium, and Despair, his sister-brother Desire, and his brothers: Destiny and a final one to be announced after reading this book. Normally, I'd relish the option to ruin something this big for other readers, but I enjoyed stressing over figuring out who this guy was (Hint: his name starts with a "D") and I want all of you to have fun with it too.

Gaiman returns to his linear plot-form and it works out well. The major plot arc of this volume is that Morpheus and his sister Delirium are looking for their long-lost brother, and they must travel the Waking World looking for him. Although they travel together, Delirium is the only one who really wants to find their brother. Morpheus is mostly going along with it because he thinks that he might run into his recently broken-off romantic interest (an interest who never actually appears in the book...yet?) The light-hearted and cooky Delirium is a perfect foil to the starchy and serious Dream, and these two seem like they could have their own buddy cop show if they really wanted to. Their constant bickering and disagreement makes for a very entertaining read.

If I had to complain, there would be two major points I'd argue with on this volume. The first is that the side characters are all very one dimensional. Gaiman's previous characters were complicated and well-designed, but it seems like the characters introduced in this volume were all motivated by only one thing, which made them predictable.

My last complaint is that the long-lost brother Endless turns out to be a pretty big sap by the end of the story. It really does suck to see a character with such promise living a zen-like existence on an abandoned island somewhere (okay that's a little bit of a spoiler, deal with it). I understand that this black sheep may actually be the wisest of all his brothers and sisters, but I don't wanna read about what's smart. I want to read about what's EXCITING! Have him living in a van down by the river turning tricks for crack or something...COME ON!

Annie Fuller Credibility Scale (pre-7): 1
Annie Fuller Credibility Scale (post-7): 2

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