Finished The Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman.

This volume features four stories — a muse is forced to provide ideas to a writer, a cat wants to change the world through dreams, actors perform a Shakespeare play for demons, and a comic book character longs for death.

I really liked the writer story. Who hasn’t wished for a muse you could call on any time? But the muse is abused and raped during the story, which really, really disturbed me. I also just didn’t get the Shakespeare story, and the cat story was just bizarre. So, was the last story about a comic book character wishing for death. Overall, not as interesting as the other books/stories in the series.

So, thumbs down.

Up next: More Sandman.

Finished The Sandman: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman. Since I have so many of these to review, I’m just going to do a brief summary and a thumbs up or thumbs down of each novel. I’ll do a post later with some thoughts on the Sandman series in general.

This time, Dream must track down some creations who’ve escaped from his realm and stop the “dream vortex,” a human woman who can break down the barriers between people’s dreams. This is a little different from the first Sandman arc in that Dream is a much more minor character. In fact, one whole episode (or comic) is devoted to the dreams of other people.

Thumbs up.

Up next: More Sandman.

Finished The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes. This is a graphic novel collection of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.

The Sandman series focuses on Dream, an Endless being who is responsible for overseeing the world of human dreams. Dream also has several Endless brothers and sisters, like Death, Destiny, Desire, etc.

In Preludes and Nocturnes, Dream gets accidently gets captured by a human seeking to imprison Death and is held prisoner for something like seventy years. When he gets free, Dream takes revenge on the son of the man who captured him and then sets out to find three tools that were taken from him – a ruby, a helm, and a pouch of sand. And it goes on from there.

My significant other loves these books and gave the whole Sandman series to me to read. I think the idea of Dream is a pretty cool concept, and some of the art is visually stunning. I enjoyed Dream’s quest in this one, and some of the other characters he encounters, like John Constantine and Lucifer, are interesting.

But the novel is pretty dark in places. It’s really more psychological horror than anything else, which isn’t a genre I normally read. You know me, I like to be entertained. Still, Gaiman will always make you think.

So, thumbs up.

Up next: Several more Sandman books.

Finished Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward. This is the fourth book in her Black Dagger Brotherhood series.

This one’s about Butch, a human ex-cop who’s fallen in with the big, buff vampires, and Marissa, a pampered noble who feels constrained by the rules of the vampire high society. There’s the usual angst, battles, love found, love lost, and love found again.

Butch is one of Ward’s better heroes. He never fit in with his human family, but he doesn’t really fit in with the vampires either. I also liked Marissa a lot because she’s unhappy with her situation and actually does something about it herself — instead of waiting for someone to rescue her.

I thought the main conflict between the two was a little contrived (or at least went on too long throughout the book). Butch doesn’t feel he’s worth. Marissa doesn’t approve of his actions. It went back and forth like that a lot.

Also, one thing I am a little tired of in Ward’s (and other writers’) novels is this insane possessiveness that the men have towards their women. In this book, a vamp from a previous book has to be physically restrained because his wife gives Butch some of her blood to drink — even though that’s the only way to keep Butch alive. Um, you’d think the vampire could put aside his jealousy long enough to, I don’t know, save his friend’s life. But maybe that’s just me.

Still, Ward weaves her characters’ stories together in interesting ways, and I’m interested in reading the ffith book.

So, thumbs up.

Up next: Some Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman.