The Sandman, Volume 3, Dream Country

The Sandman, Volume 3, Dream Country-Neil Gaiman

How I found this book: I wandered into Borders and somehow it ended up in my bag, I swear to God!

Setting: Circa 1991

Main Characters:

Dream/Morpheus: The personification of dreams, he is infamous for not having the greatest of love lives. One of his former lovers, Calliope, one of the Muses, has been imprisoned, much as he had. That covers the first story. In the next story he grants dreams to one particular female cat, which now spreads the message of her dreams to others of her species. In the third, he is the patron to a young British playwright by the name of Will, who is asked to put on a command performance for the King and Queen of the Fairies.

Calliope: One of the Greek muses, and a former lover of Dream, she has been captured now by two writers, both of whom rape her repeatedly to gain inspiration for their books. She begs the Furies for assistance in getting her out of her situation.

The Furies: The Kindly Ones, also the Gracious Ladies and the Three Witches, (and many other things), they are the three women from mythology, the Maiden, the Matron, and the Crone. They play a serious role in future story arcs, and make many periodic appearances, (even in the first two books), but here they are assisting Calliope to escape and suggest she call upon Morpheus for help.

Richard Madoc: A frustrated author who gets Calliope from another author and uses her to assist him in writing a follow up to original breath-through novel.

The Siamese Cat: The Cat never has a name, but she is a cat who has been reveled the secret behind dreams and their importance, and she is spreading the message to the other cats of the world.

William Shakespeare: The Old Bard had to get his start somewhere, who else to give you inspiration as a writer but the King of Storytellers himself?

Uriana “Raine” Blackwell: Another old DC Comic characters, from the Metamorpho comics, she has retired from the business and is secluded now with her deformity that made her a super hero. She wants nothing more than to end if all, but it’s a bit difficult when you are a girl made of elements!

Plot: Since all of these are short stories really, I’ll cover the plot of each in the Themes section.

Themes:

Calliope: Calliope, a Greek muse, is captured by two authors, who then proceed to rape and misuse her in order to get inspiration for their stories. The story is a two-fold one, showing the horrible lengths people will go to when they are in dire need of inspiration, but it also shows a more vulnerable side to Dream. After a few billion years of romances gone wrong, Dream had up until his own imprisonment become a very cold person. Now, newly released, he understands the horror of Calliope’s predicament, and despite the bad blood between the two, (which is further explained in future stories), he can not allow her to be trapped in the situation she is in. Madoc gets his comeuppance, as we see, and Dream realizes that perhaps he has been too harsh and unbending in his past. This leads to a lot of reflection on his part about a great many things as the series goes on.

A Dream of a Thousand Cats: A Siamese cat loses her kittens thanks to human cruelty and callousness. She looks to Dream for answers, and he explains to her how the world is effected and shaped by those who dare to dream of it differently. Now the cat seeks to preach her message to other cats, and have them all dream the dream she does, and by doing so, changing the world. The story serves to tell us that our real world is shaped by the dreams and beliefs of all of us, and that all it takes is one person daring to speak up about that dream to change the world, (a la: Martin Luther King).

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: One of the best Sandman stories, it won a World Fantasy Award in 1991 for best short story. William Shakespeare is commissioned by Morpheus (Dream) to write a play for the King and Queen of the Fairies, Oberon and Titania. The play, which depicts the lives of these fantastic creatures, blends the fantasy and reality of the Sandman universe, and shows how every story is inspired by someone’s dream.

Façade: Raine Blackwell was turned into an Elemental, a being made of the very essences of existence. While this gives Raine extensive powers, it also means that she can no longer relate to the rest of society. When she leaves the agency she was working for, she is left isolated and alone, with no real way of relating to anyone anymore. Dejected, she would love to end it all, but her new nature means that she can’t even kill herself. Death, who just happens to be in the area, happens about Raine and explains to her how she can find a merciful death, and perhaps find peace. This is a look at how a superhero could function in a normal life, and how sometimes that transition is not as smooth as we’d like to make believe it is.

Every book sucks somewhere: Perhaps the only sucky thing about this book is that it is short stories, which means that there isn’t one unifying thing about it. While I think that each is a stellar short story, and certainly several lead into story arcs down the line, it meant that this collection lacked the cohesion other collected books do.

What did I like: I loved how these stories expanded on the universe of The Sandman and let you see glimpses of Morpheus/Dream other than the angsty, “I’ve just been loosed from my unjust prison” side, which has been the focus of the first two books.
I also liked the exploration into just what dreams are, that they aren’t just the fancies people take into their heads when they dream, or when they are sitting at work or school bored with nothing better to do, but they are also our stories, our accomplishments. There would be no Shakespeare if he hadn’t dreamed up his stories; there would be no Martin Luther King Jr. if he hadn’t dared to dream of an America where people of all skin tones could live together as equals. There would be no books without dreams, no songs without dreams, and that dreaming is an essential aspect of human existence.

How would I rate this wormy book: Again, another FAT WORM. It is fun and it explores other areas and thoughts in the Sandman universe.