The Sandman: Season of Mists - Neil Gaiman

This is the fourth volume in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and, in my opinion, the finest. Season of Mists has only one story, but the scope and breadth of it is breath-taking. It revolves around a simple yet intruiging premise: what would happen if the gates of Hell were shut, and Lucifer decided he had had enough of being its ruler. The story begins with a family gathering of the Endless. These are the siblings of the eponymous Sandman, also known as Dream and Morpheus. It is our first visit to the realm of Destiny, the eldest of the Endless and the story is introduced with all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. One by one the ...  Read the complete review

After the stand-alone tales of the third Sandman collection, Neil Gaiman is back to writing a large scale story spread across a number of issues that seeks to address some long pressing questions as well as introduce a host of new characters, realms and possible directions for the series hereafter. ‘Season of Mists’ is the most singularly focused effort in the series yet, taking the customary time-out for a single issue in the middle but otherwise retaining an almost exclusive focus on the series’ protagonist the King of Dreams, rather than, as the series had done previously, pursue an assortment of seemingly unrelated plot threads tied up neatly by the conclusion. In ...  Read the complete review