John Watkiss

A wonderful collection of short stories that are only loosely connected to the overall narrative, but give a lot of depth to it.

In the introduction, Gene Wolfe says:

"... you will understand yourself and the world better for having read [this] and ... you will have been both ennobled and troubled by the experience ... this is not just art ... but great art."

I can give no better or more accurate review than this

The Sandman that is a short story collection version! I'm certainly not one opposed to short story collections. But it seems this may have existed because they wanted to draw Arabia or the Orpheus myth. (Though I loved seeing gigantic Hades & Persephone.) It's the Sandman that is the "collected shorts in the middle of the series" so I don't think it would ever be the favorite of anyone.

A good mix of alternate history fantasy and myth-making here. It's interesting that Morpheus, The Sandman, is a key character in each tale, but only shows up for a small portion of each. As with all Gaiman stories, characters are key, and we get a wide variety. We also get a variety of settings and plots, showing that he is no slouch in those areas either.