9, 10 and 11) World’s End, The Kindly Ones and The Wake by Neil Gaiman (Sandman vols 8-10). Excellent stuff. I still think Brief Lives is the best of them, but this is all very effective writing. Now to go back to the beginning and see what I missed…
The most disappointing thing about reading the Sandman series is that it rather diminished my admiration for Gaiman’s novel American Gods which I had read first over a year ago. Basically many of the most effective bits from the novel were previously done by Gaiman in the Sandman series, and done better (eg the undertakers; the technique of vignettes apparently tangential to the main story; the various deities who appear in both). So I feel more or less prepared to write my long-postponed review of the novel. But first I hope to go and see RotK tonight.
Just to be contrary, I remember thinking when I last read it (at least 5 years ago) that it was better than any of the books they’d written on their own.