The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House

It's never too late for a good story, and the Sandman saga is very good. This collection moves that story forward, mostly in the person of Rose.

This book compiles a sequence of regular-sized comic books. The first story here stands by itself - a tribal tale of a place that could, some day, descend from our own time.

The rest of the book takes a very ordinary young woman and puts her in an extraordinary world. Taken part by part, it sounds fragmentary and disorganized: a nursing home, a bizarre convention, befriending a place, and facing mortal threat in an immortal world. The pieces all fit, though. They sustain a pace and a visual variety that makes this book hard to put down.

Best, however, is the glimpse of intrigue in the Sandmnan's world. We see a little of his own realm, and the plotting of his own minions. We also see his larger world, his sisters, and their covert push against the walls of his domain. This is just the second of a dozen or so collections - there is enough material here to drive that many volumes or more.

If you're new to comics, or just new to the Sandman, give this a try. If you already know the Sandman, you're in for one of the best books in the series.

I am having a hard time understanding the motives of people who claim that The Doll's House is too "rough around the edges", and "not as brilliant as later volumes". These people are not only wrong--they are completely misguided.

You want to know the truth? The Doll's house is probably the best volume of Sandman that there is.

I have read it four times. Yet there are moments in The Doll's House, where I find myself literally sweating from tension as my eyes follow the words on each page. When Dream finally catches up to the Corinthian, I still applaud. Whenever Barbie and Ken share the page, I still laugh, and then shudder as I think of their future. When I see the horrible things happening to Rose Walker's brother, I still have to look away, and when The two siblings are finally reunited, I still shed a tear. It's that good.

All of you people calling it "unfocused", and "flawed" have completely missed the boat, and need to do some serious swimming to catch up to the rest of us.

Doll's House introduces us to so many memorable characters, so many fascinating insights of humanity, and so much memorable dialogue, that it cannot be labeled as anything less than the pinnacle of the series. Whether it shares this spot with the likes of "Brief Lives" and "Season of Mists" can be debated, but no other episode of the Sandman series can capture every human emotion and channel it so perfectly.

Please do not start with this. Wade through Preludes and Nocturnes first, and consider this one your dessert.

I don't understand why people consistantly refer to this title as the weakest entry in the Sandman series. I have read all ten volumes, and have to say that it is in fact one of the best. Of course, finding a bad Sandman book is like finding a bad Beatles album. It's really not about which one is the "worst", but which one is the least memorable; the one you are least likely to refer to over and over again and re-read just for the hell of it. And Preludes and Nocturnes is certainly one of the more memorable episodes.

Gaiman was new to his series, and he did not have very much direction. Preludes and Nocturnes leans towards classic horror, whereas other volumes, such as The Wake, and A Game of You, are closer to fantasy. So Preludes and Nocturnes is different then all the others. So what? There are so many classic moments that are contained within its pages, moments that stick in your mind and don't leave. Moments such as Dream's escape from his prison and the logic that followed, the introduction or Cain and Abel, John Constantine and his quest to find the pouch of sand, Dream's journey to Hell and his battle with Choronzon over the helm, the ENTIRE FRIGGIN CHAPTER OF 24 HOURS, and the final introduction of Death at the end--the sweet, good natured goth girl who just happens to be the same person we often see personified as a dark cloaked figure with a scythe. The list goes on and on and on.

Of course the same could be said for any of the other volumes, but that is exactly my point. Preludes and Nocturnes is not better then Brief Lives, nor is it worse. It exists to advance the story to its eventual conclusion, and it does a great job. There are some flaws--but everyone will find something they don't like in each of the volumes. Don't listen to those people who say "if you read this one first, you'll get the wrong impression of Sandman". Bull. If you don't like this volume, then Sandman is not for you, end of subject.

The worst thing you can do is skip this volume in favor of another, later chapter, such as Season of Mists. Start at the beginning--Gaiman did, and his work turned out just fine in the end.

I'd read a few of Gaiman's novels and had always really enjoyed them, though he gets lazy and sloppy in spots. This was the first of his comic book collections I'd read, and the the first comic book I'd read at all for a very long time.

The artwork is pretty good. Kind of traditional, servicable comic book stuff. It doesn't compare well with the Amano illustrations from Gaiman's collaboration with him a few years back(though that was more an illustrated fable than a comic book).

It's consistent with other Gaiman books I'd read, in that doesn't let inconsistencies in the plot and unresolved characters and situations get in the way of telling a good story (for instance: if Rose is 21 in 1991, and her grandmother was pregnant with her mother in 1916, then Rose's mother was how old when she gave birth to Rose and then Rose's 14 year old brother?) That's more quibbling than anything else, though. None of these things ought to interfere with your enjoying the story, as I very much did.

I had the entire hardcover volumes of The Sandman series sitting on my bookshelf for about the last six years or so, having only read PRELUDES & NOCTURNES (I was first introduced to Gaiman's Sandman back in the early 90s, starting with issue 50 and then stopping right before the final KINDLY ONES, story arc - hoping to read it all in a few chunks, but that never happened) and planning on getting around to the other volumes soon -- well, soon stretched on to a several years, but I started reading again - choosing vol.2 THE DOLL'S HOUSE as my new jumping on point.

Gaiman's story unfolded like a weird experience, much like reading his American Gods or Coraline, and it became more fascinating with each pasisng issue, then ultimately becoming disturbing in the episode called "The Collectors" where Gaiman satirically addresses a Serial Killer Convention, that is remarkable as it is unsettling. Not to mention the first appearances of additional members of The Endless family.

After I closed the final pages, I immediately wanted to pick up DREAM COUNTY (the next volume)- but it was 3:45 in morning, and I need to my own sleep!

Seeming all the little pieces of later story that Gaiman laid the foundation for in these early adventures with his version of Morpheus is quite astounding, as if he had a masterplan all along -- and mabye he did! But I kind of think that Gaiman, like many a great storyteller, created an immense landscape and that he then saw could be a fanatastic tapestry for creative output; where any and every idea could be explored with the confines of The Dreaming. And the characters he created were too juicy not to continue to weave complex and LARGE story around.

Gaiman succeeds brilliantly, as the rest of the series will surely attest.

A lot of Gaiman's work for THE SANDMAN can't be catergorized, nor should it - it effectively evades being ghettoized (eventhough it's a comic book) and that's why it's all the more winning as a piece of late 20th Century literature. Please read.