The Sandman: Book of Dreams [Mass Market Paperback]

Neil Gaiman (Author), Ed Kramer (Author), Gene Wolfe (Author), Steve Brust (Author), Clive Barker (Author), Tori Amos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2002

There is a dark king who rules our dreams from a place of shadows and fantastic things. He is Morpheus, the lord of story. Older than humankind itself, he inhabits -- along with Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium, his Endless sisters and brothers -- the realm of human consciousness. His powers are myth and nightmare -- inspirations, pleasures, and punishments manifested beneath the blanketing mist of sleep.

Surrender to him now.

A stunning collection of visions, wonders, horrors, hallucinations, and revelations from Clive Barker, Barbara Hambly, Tad Williams, Gene Wolfe, Nancy A. Collins, and sixteen other incomparable dreamers -- inspired by the groundbreaking, bestselling graphic novel phenomenon by Neil Gaiman.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Though he won the World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction in 1991, Gaiman is best known as the writer who transformed the WWII-era DC Comics character the Sandman from a Batman-style detective/vigilante into the much darker Morpheus, aka Dream, the being who presides over the realm of Dreaming. One of seven siblings who represent various states of consciousness?Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Dream and Delirium?Morpheus is head of the allegorical family called the Endless. Here, popular fantasy writers expand upon Gaiman's original concepts, with mixed results. Colin Greenland's bittersweet "Masquerade and High Water" and Barbara Hambly's "Each Damp Thing" provide insights into the backstage workings of the Endless. Tad Williams's "The Writer's Child" is a finely crafted story about loyalty and the value of innocence. Weak spots include George Alec Effinger's resurrection of a saccharine Little Nemo for "Seven Nights in Slumberland," Lisa Goldstein's bland "Stronger Than Desire" and B.W. Clough's vignette "The Birth Day." Susanna Clarke's "Stopp't-Clock Yard" and a lyrical meditation on Death by songwriter Tori Amos close the anthology on a strong note; a b&w drawing by Clive Barker opens it on a garish one. Though perhaps most interesting as an example of media-crossover, this collection presents some powerful writing about, and memorable images of, the other reality wherein we while away a third of our lives.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This anthology features stories about The Sandman, DC Comics' best-selling adult graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. Clive Barker wrote the frontispiece (not seen), and singer Tori Amos contributed the afterword. The 18 mainstream writers expand and elaborate the Sandman mythos. Readers don't need a familiarity with the Sandman comic to appreciate these stories. Recommended for short story collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (January 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380817705
• ISBN-13: 978-0380817702
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy

More About the Author

I make things up and write them down. Which takes us from comics (like SANDMAN) to novels (like ANANSI BOYS and AMERICAN GODS) to short stories (some are collected in SMOKE AND MIRRORS) and to occasionally movies (like Dave McKean's MIRRORMASK or the NEVERWHERE TV series, or my own short film A SHORT FILM ABOUT JOHN BOLTON).

In my spare time I read and sleep and eat and try to keep the blog at www.neilgaiman.com more or less up to date.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Taking the good with the bad, July 22, 2002

By 

J. Carroll "Jack" (Island Heights,NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sandman: Book of Dreams (Mass Market Paperback)

Sandman, Neil Gaiman's wonderful creation, is the concept that this group of stories is based on. Like any story collection, this one has its hits and misses.
Hits:
"Chain Home, Low" What happened to those affected by Dream's disappearance?
"Each Damp Thing" Barbara Hambly has a good grasp of Gaiman's cast of characters. Set in The Dreaming this one would have made a good comic.
"Seven Nights in Slumberland" Little Nemo? Now Windsor McCay's work makes more sense. I think.
Both Wanda stories. A character that certainly warranted more examination than the comic allowed.
"Endless Sestina" For the sheer nerve of it.
"The Gate of Gold" The flip side of "The Writer's Child," but much more fulfilling. There really are "good" dreams.
"A Bone Dry Place" Dream and Delirium together again.
"The Mender of Broken Dreams" The concept is not new, but it is so well written you won't care.
"Valosag and Elet" There are so few folktales being written anymore. At least good ones.

"Stopp't-Clock Yard" Captures the true essence of Gaiman's creation. This is another one that Gaiman could have written.

Misses:
Desire stories. This character is tedious as all stories end up being variations on the same theme. Especially "The Witch's Heart" it goes on and on....
"The Birth Day" A clever idea but not fully developed.
"Splatter" A little obvious.
"The Writer's Child" Ditto.
"Ain't You `Most Done?" 32 pages long and I couldn't remember what it was about by the time I finished the book. And it's one of the last stories.
Advertising Clive Barker's participation. It's a frontispiece and it's Death not Dream.
Taking an existing character, whose popularity lies in a graphic medium and using him and his supporting cast as the basis of an anthology is a risky proposition. While this book is not entirely successful, it's definitely worth a read for the Sandman fan.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars cool book, February 14, 2002

By 

Marymac (QUB, Belfast, N. Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sandman, The: Book of Dreams (Paperback)

This is a really very cool book, although you need a fair bit of the Sandman background for it all to make sense - I first read it when I'd only read the 'The Kindly Ones' sequence and some of it went over my head. Then I got the rest and suddenly quite a lot of things became clear...
It loses a star cause there's no actual Gaiman stories (although his comments at the start of each book are nearly as interesting as the stories - 'what Gandalf's rock'n rolling younger brother would look like if he were secretly a pirate' is a truly funky description for anyone).
For me the best are the Barbara Hambly, 'Stopp'd Clock Yard' and the 'Ain't you the most done' stories - the collection does veer pretty wildly between cool, cute 'n funky and seriously weird / sick.... Depends what you like. Like the comics, don't let children read it.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faithful to the Dreaming, January 20, 2005

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Sandman: Book of Dreams (Mass Market Paperback)

It is funny how one can initially misjudge a book. When I first picked this volume up it was because I saw Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker's names on the cover. Then, on first perusal, I saw that Gaiman had not even written the introduction. Moreover, Barker's only contribution was the frontispiece- a drawing of Death. Nor did I immediately recognize the names of any of the contributors to the collection. I felt cheated. I jumped to the conclusion that this was a hack written collection of short stories intended to exploit the popularity of the Sandman series. I threw the book down in disgust.

Then, a little over a year later, I came back to it. Upon actually reading it, I discovered that Gaiman handpicked these stories. Indeed, he actually wrote the brief introductions for each writer and story. As for the stories themselves, there are some hauntingly, lovingly, skillfully, written tales here. What is more important, most of them genuinely capture the atmosphere of the Dreaming from the graphic novels. I could not have been more wrong about this fine collection- it was exactly what I was looking for.

These stories are so faithful to the original that the reader might want to read the entire 10 volume Sandman Library before attempting it. There is much here that assumes a familiarity with the entire series.