✍️ Written by: Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs
🏷️ Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy
🗓️ Published: 15 July 2020
📄 Pages: 0
🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times Magazine as “the greatest epic in the history of comic books”, The Sandman changed the game with its dark, literary world of fantasy and horror - creating a global, cultural phenomenon in the process. At long last, Audible and DC present the first-ever audio production of the New York Times best-selling series written by acclaimed storyteller Neil Gaiman (who also serves as co-executive producer). Adapted and directed by multi-award-winner (and frequent Gaiman collaborator) Dirk Maggs, and performed by an ensemble cast with James McAvoy (It, Parts One and Two, X-Men: First Class, Split) in the title role, this first installment of a multi-part original audio series will transport you to a world that re-writes the rules of audio entertainment the way that The Sandman originally re-defined the graphic novel.
When The Sandman, also known as Lord Morpheus - the immortal king of dreams, stories and the imagination - is pulled from his realm and imprisoned on Earth by a nefarious cult, he languishes for decades before finally escaping. Once free, he must retrieve the three “tools” that will restore his power and help him to rebuild his dominion, which has deteriorated in his absence. As the multi-threaded story unspools, The Sandman descends into Hell to confront Lucifer (Michael Sheen), chases rogue nightmares who have escaped his realm, and crosses paths with an array of characters from DC comic books, ancient myths, and real-world history, including: Inmates of Gotham City's Arkham Asylum, Doctor Destiny, the muse Calliope, the three Fates, William Shakespeare (Arthur Darvill), and many more.
Ok, I really can't decide on this one. Unlike all the other books I've written about, this one is an audiobook. But it wasn't a "normal" audiobook either; it's an audio...movie? Audio theatre maybe?
You see, it doesn't just have one voice actor reading the book, instead it has a full cast and background sound effects. Audio movie is the best comparison I can make, I think. At first I thought this was weird, but I soon got into it and really enjoyed the book.
The Sandman is based on a characters from the DC comics, so Gotham City and Arkham Asylum make an appearance, but there's no BatMan et al.
The story itself is very dark and definitely not for kids. There's lots of murder, rape and abuse throughout the book, but don't let that put you off, it's still a good "read". What I did find weird, was that although there was a story throughout the book, it wasn't at the forefront. Instead, each chapter (or act as they're called here) is it's own short story, some of which are tenuously linked, whereas others appear to be completely unrelated to one another. Having said that, there are 2 other books in the series, so I'd imagine the bigger picture will come to fruition at some point. 🤷♂️
Either way, I really enjoyed this audiobook, it's well worth a listen.
I entered "0" for the pages field above. Because it's an audiobook, it doesn't have pages. It's 11 hours and 2 minutes long though.
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