The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives | Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, ...

The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives | Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, ... | Change Makes The Sandman Impossibly Better

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The Sandman Vol. 7...

	The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, ... Vertigo, 1995 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Delirium, youngest brother of the Endless, prevails upon her brother, Dream, to help her find their missing sibling. Their travels take them through the world of the waking until a final confrontation with the missing member of the Endless and the resolution of Dream's relationship with his son change the endless forever. .

"If this isn't literature, nothing is." --Peter Straub

This is one of my two favorites in the 11-volume "Sandman" series, which has proven Gaiman to be a genius storyteller. Three centuries ago, Destruction -- one of the seven Endless, who existed even before the gods -- abandoned his responsibilities, left his realm, and went off to do his own thing. Essentially, he ran away from home. Not that the world has lacked for destruction since then, but he's not behind it, anyway. Delirium, who has roughly the persona of a three-year-old combined with a drugged-out-flower child -- but is a very sweet person for all that (well, . . . not "person" . . .), misses her big brother and tries to find one of her siblings to help her look for him and convince him to return. Dream (the Sandman) finally agrees to accompany her, but for his own reasons, and the quest brings in a number of innocent bystanders (who suffer, as bystanders do), as well as an assortment of ancient but now out-of-work deities. A number of neat ideas are tossed out casually, too, like the notion that a few thousand people still exist on Earth from the very earliest days of civilization, or even from the dawn of the species.

Bernie the lawyer, killed by the collapsing wall of a derelict building, tells Death, "I did okay, didn't I? I lived fifteen thousand years. That's a pretty long time." To which Death, a pragmatic sort who resembles a Goth girl, replies, "You got what everybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more, no less." Great stuff.

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Change Makes The Sandman Impossibly Better

I thought Season of Mists was my favorite The Sandman volume until I read Brief Lives.

Brief Lives absolutely has it all--drama, action, comedy, romance, and philosophical ponderings. It focuses upon Morpheus rather directly--unlike other volumes where sometimes he exists within the stories only peripherally--as he helps his sister Delirium track down their brother known as Destruction.

Destruction is part of The Endless. The other members of The Endless are his brothers and sisters Destiny, Death, Dream (Morpheus), Desire, Despair, and Delirium. He long ago abandoned his post and family, choosing instead to exist on his own terms. Addle-brained Delirium unusually makes up her mind and decides she wants to reunite with her favorite brother. She is very surprised when she manages to enlist the aid of her brooding brother, Dream, especially after all her other brothers and sisters refuse to help her.

Dream accompanies Delirium on quite a journey as created by Neil Gaiman who makes brilliant use of legend and mythology, both preexisting and self-manufactured. They finally find Destruction, but things don't go exactly as expected and incredible possibilities are revealed.

I love this volume so much because something happens to Dream that hasn't really occurred in the previous volumes--he changes. While always dynamic in dialogue and appearance, Dream was not a character who seemed to evolve. I enjoyed Lord Morpheus just as he was, but now that Gaiman introduces a changing Dream, a Morpheus who suddenly empathizes with mortals and family members, he becomes all the more fascinating.

Furthermore, the afterward by Peter Straub was absolutely riveting. Brief Lives was enthralling on its own, but Straub's afterward analyzing the volume makes it, and the intricacies of Gaiman's artistry, all the more impressive.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

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The highpoint of The Sandman, and that's saying something

The Sandman, Neil Gaiman's masterpiece, is something quite rare--it's excellent from start to finish. Nowhere does the series falter, it just gets better and better. "Brief Lives" is the pinnacle of the series. As Dream, the Sandman of the title (he also goes by Morpheus), searches for his lost brother Destruction alongside his sister Delirium, it becomes evidently clear what Gaiman has been building to since the beginning: change. Change within the heart of Dream. Since being imprisoned for 70 years by human sorcerers, Dream has become increasingly compassionate and kind. When this is pointed out to the Lord of Dreams, he denies it, maintaining that he has not changed at all. And here lies the tragedy of Morpheus--his stubbornness and his unwillingness to accept what's standing right in from of him.

In a sprawling fantasy epic detailing the spectrum of imagination, Gaiman has hidden a very simple story--one of redemption and change. It's this subtlety, this humanity, that sets The Sandman above the rest and makes it classic, a series everyone should read.

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Great beginning but flops at the end

This is another great collection of Sandman stories which anyone who is a fan of the series should read. My only complaint with this collection is that the stories start out very strong but the ending is a bit of a flop. I am glad that I read it since this does contain events which will probably be of greater importance further along in the series.

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Dream is sulking, until his sister Delirium motivates him to help her look for Destruction, their brother who has abdicated his Endless responsibilities.

On the way, through the various people they meet, and reflected in his servants and helpers, we see Dream's thought processes begin to change and mellow, even more so after he finally gets around to dealing with his son, Orpheus, after such long neglect.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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