Rating: 
Summary: Up there with the best
Review: Before you condemn comic books, you must read Sandman.
Even my mother likes this series! As for me, I think
Worlds' End is one of the best of the Sandman story
arcs (closely rivalled by Brief Lives) simply because
the characters are so extraordinary - and yet so human.
From the envoy of the fairies to a girl masquerading as
a boy in the last days before the steamship, every
protagonist in this collection of tales is engaging
beyond superficial levels. The artwork is as varied and
delightful as the stories themselves. Newcomers to
Sandman may find this collection somewhat harder going
than the others; Worlds' End is rather more abstract in
making its point than are the other collections. Definitely,
however, worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: So this guy walks into a bar...
Review: Brant Tucker and Charlene Mooney are two travellers making their way cross-country, when a snowstorm (in June, no less!) and an otherworldly animal-beast in the middle of a highway interrupts their travel, and the car crashes. Lost in the blizzard, Brant stumbles upon The World's End Inn, a free house. A tavern populated by people and creatures from different worlds and times, displaced from their homes by a 'reality storm', an event so cosmically huge, it resonates across time and space.So, to kill time until the storm passes, they tell stories. The art in theWorld's End framing sequences is top-notch stuff by Bryan Talbot and Mark Buckingham. Very tight, its realism contrasting nicely against the art in some of the other stories. The first story, "A Tale of Two Cities", the story of a man (literally) lost in the dreams of his city. While a favorite of Sandman editor Karen Berger, I must confess I found it a little puzzling and indecipherable. And this is no fault of the artist, because the separation of text and art works very well. The format almost makes up for the lame story. My least favorite in the book. Cluracan's Tale was much more enjoyable, starring and narrated by the lovable, oft-inebriated, arrogant emmisary of Queen Titania of Faerie. Cluracan is sent to a city-state run by a corrupt, piggish king, who is, by a quirk of politics and bloodlines, is also the city's spiritual leader. What follows is an adventurous story of murder, family helping family, and political sabotage. The art's very nice here, conveying a very interesting fairy-tale look, although Cluracan, Titania, and Nuala look nothing at all like they do in this or any of the other books. Hob's Leviathan, a story of the immortal Hob Gadling (my favorite Sandman character, bar none) told by Jim, a young man who met Hob on a Ship in 1914. A stowaway is discoverd, whom Hob knows as a fellow immortal (in case you didn't know, he's the king in the story of the fruit of eternal life). Jim's fascination with the sailboats becomes the readers own. The crew of the Sea Witch are given real personalities here, and are shown to be real people. After the ship is nearly capsized by a sea serpent, every one of these grown men cry. This was my favorite story in the novel, mostly because of Michael Zulli's wonderful art. While sketchy and bland compared to his work in The Wake, it's still beautiful and works with the story wonderfully to convey the wonder and grandeur of those ships. In The Golden Boy, the story of cheesy 70's comic character Prez Rickard, the teenage president, is updated courtesy Gaiman and Madman Comics creator Mike Allred. Given a Christ-like sensibilty, Prez becomes not only the hippest president of all time, appearing on Saturday Night Live skits with John Belushi, but also the best. He disarms the country's nuclear and biological weapons, and puts education back as the #1 priority. And he does it on his own, despite the evil Boss Smiley's offers. Both Death and Dream put in welcome appearances here, after Prez's passing on. Mike Allred's work in always a welcome sight, and I doubt that his ironically animated style would have looked half as good on any other Sandman project. Cerements, a story of a young apprentice in the necropolis Litharge, a city whose chief industry is the 'funerary arts'. After performing a disposal of a corpse, young Petrefax and his disposal party share tales, one of which Destruction pops up in, to give a little history of the previous necropolis, and the death of his sister, the first Despair. Lots of threads of started here which re-appear when members of the Endless return to Litharge in The Wake. Despite the EC-Comics-like horror-style in which it's drawn, the story holds a lot of emotion and warmth. The final story is Charlene's. Maybe not a story, but as Stephen King puts it, in his introduction, "a scathing soliloquy." Finally, a funeral in the sky is witnessed. No one in the tavern knows whose it is, but all are agreed, it is the cause of the reality storm. Afterwards, some leave, some stay. Don't be deceived. Ignore the title. Despite what your senses are telling you, this is NOT a Sandman book. Morpheus shows up on maybe a half-dozen pages. And that's what's so cool about it. There's very little of the grand, and at-times head-swelling epic of Morpheus stuff in here. This was my introduction into the world of Sandman, and a very gentle introduction it is. With some of the best stories in the series to boot.
Rating:
Summary: Eclectic Entertaining and Engaging Short Fiction by a Master
Review: I guess one would be extremely hard pressed to choose which of the Sandman collections can be considered the best, but I'm going to choose this one. I'm a little biased, because it was these stories which hooked me on the Sandman when the series was still being published in the early 90s. Gaiman is an intensely storyteller with a wide bredth of mythology at his command which he weaves together in the individaul issues reprinted in this collection. The artwork but such luminaries like Mike Allred of later Madman fame (in the mesmerizing story "Prez") enhance the spellbinding words that Gaiman has meticulously crafted for the right affect. The Sandman is best appreciated when read it order the magazine was publihsed, which is difficult to do in the TPB and hardcover editions because some of the stories are reprinted thematically, not sequentially. However, if you are not sure who you will respond to Gaiman, Dream and the rest of the Endless this edition will give you a satisfying glimpse of not just great comic storytelling, but great storytelling. I wouldn't call this fantasy, nor would I dismiss this as "a mere comic book." Gaiman helped elevate the medium with his creation, all fans of the written word and graphic art will enjoy this and all the volumes in the Sandman collection.
Rating:
Summary: Bring me a dream...
Review: In this collection of the individual stories of some visitors at the Worlds' End Inn, we see the impact of the Sandman on the lives of those around him. We also get hints of what's to come in the next book, The Kindly Ones. The art is widely diverse and consistently beautiful, and the stories span genre, time, and space, fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle. Here's to comics!
Rating: 
Summary: The construct is more important than the tale
Review: Interesting structure to a series of tales told by travelers stuck at an Inn during a storm. Cantebury Tales was the inspiration and Gaiman employs many levels of stories within stories and even eventually brings the story full circle, which is cheeky. However it seems that the stories were given little precedence and therefore come off very weak. Now part of this is expectation. Fables and Reflections blew me away and may be my fav of the series so I expected this as a series of individual stories to be just as good. So with it being just average I was overly disappointed. There are some good moments and the few appearances of Death and the Endless are captivating. However they are not enough. One note: the end of this book overtly hints at the plot of Kindly One's so if you want to be surprised, read this after that one. I wish Gaiman hadn't done that, myself.
Rating:
Summary: The construct is more important than the tale
Review: Interesting structure to a series of tales told by travelers stuck at an Inn during a storm. Cantebury Tales was the inspiration and Gaiman employs many levels of stories within stories and even eventually brings the story full circle, which is cheeky. However it seems that the stories were given little precedence and therefore come off very weak. Now part of this is expectation. Fables and Reflections blew me away and may be my fav of the series so I expected this as a series of individual stories to be just as good. So with it being just average I was overly disappointed. There are some good moments and the few appearances of Death and the Endless are captivating. However they are not enough. One note: the end of this book overtly hints at the plot of Kindly One's so if you want to be surprised, read this after that one. I wish Gaiman hadn't done that, myself.
Rating: 
Summary: I really enjoyed this!
Review: It's the first Sandman story I ever read and that's why I feel a bit out of place judging it. I'm reading Brief Lives right now too, but it seems like Sandman is beyond anything else in the industry right now. The Invisibles, Preacher and Sandman all have been cancelled so we're stuck with reflecting on these.
Rating:
Summary: Gaiman does Chaucer
Review: Like Fables and Recollections and Dream Country, World's End is a collection of individual stories that have little do with the Sandman arc. Unlike its predecessors, however, there is greater continuity between the stories, negating the impressions I had (particularly in Dream Country), that Gaiman just threw together a bunch of cool - but unrelated- ideas and constructed a book. The stories within World's End are all linked to a singular event: travelers gathering 'round and exchanging their weirdest, most interesting tales (admittedly, an almost done-to-death literary device). Gaiman breathes new life into this convention by inserting a dizzying amount of layers into the storytelling function. In a wonderfully witty Introduction, Stephen King compares the collection to "nested Chinese boxes:" stories existing within stories within stories. Gaiman really flexes his writing muscles here, constructing highly imaginative parallel universes that eerily mirror our own world (fans of Gaiman will note that "A Tale of Two Cities" borrows heavily from the essay he wrote for the SIMCITY 2000 game). He also inserts his most shocking plot twist to date at the end of the book, which forms the basis of the last two books on the Sandman collection and is guaranteed to pique the continued interest of the Sandman readership. I really enjoyed the diversity of the art; to note, the visually arresting rectangular and vertically arranged panels done by Alec Stevens in the aforementioned lead story "A Tale of Two Cities;" John Watkiss' crispness and use of clean lines; the tasteful, subdued tones of Michael Zulli and frequent Sandman collaborator Dick Giordano in "Hob's Leviathan." My only wish would have been for the book to be a little longer. Obviously, that's not a critique at all, but a compliment to Gaiman's skills as a writer. But, when you're plunking down $32.95 (Canadian) for a book, it's a little disappointing to get a relatively slim volume.
Rating: 
Summary: I have to be harsh
Review: Neil Gaiman's Sandman is one of the greatest comic books of all time. Alan Moore may have started the comic-book-as-art movement, but Neil Gaiman made it more accessible by setting his stories in the common world of Myth. Sandman is the comic book that English teachers (should) love, a story that blends both popular and obscure myths and stories of Egyptian, Greek, and other cultures into an entertaining story backed by poignant and timeless philosophy.
That being said, I don't like this book nearly so much as some of the others. "World's End" centers on several travelers who find themselves unstuck from their native universes and they pass the time telling stories together. Like "Dream Country," this is not a story but rather a series of largely conflict-less vignettes, and I don't enjoy those nearly so much as the Morpheus-centric epics like "Brief Lives" and "Season of Mists." In those stories, there is a sense of adventure, but in these short story collections I feel like I am just witnessing Neil Gaiman ramble on about some weird thought he had, a thought that is intriguing but doesn't really go anywhere.
This is of course personal preference, but I think it is best exemplified by the "Prez" story. Our narrator meets a man who tells her a story about an alternate universe President of the U.S. This president was beloved by the people but discovered that he was put in power by a guy named Mr. Smiley, who has a smiley face for a head. That's pretty much the whole story. For this pointless bunch of words to be lodged squarely between "Brief Lives" (a fantastic and thoughtful book where someone dies) and "The Kindly Ones" (a world-shattering book where someone else dies), I don't know, I have to admit that I was kind of bored. I didn't really know why I was being told the things that I was being told, and felt generally unsatisfied.
I like the end of "World's End" very much, when we discover why these people have found themselves at the end of the world, and when we learn what happens to them afterwards, but I didn't much enjoy getting there. I got this one out of the library, whereas I bought many of the other ones, because that's pretty much what it was worth to me.
Rating:
Summary: Travelers' Tales
Review: Telling stories is a lost art. Few do it well anymore, (although Anna Devere Smith and Spalding Gray come to mind) and Gaiman uses A World's End to take a breath and tell some stories before the end of the Sandman series. A tavern in the middle of nowhere is the place to tell stories of Prez Rickard, the elf Cluracan, of a young "man" at sea and a world dedicated to the proper treatment of the departed. As with any collection of short stories, some stories are more successful than others and one character even complains that they are all "boy's own stories" simply variations on a theme. This is basically true and I admire Gaiman for having made this reference himself. They are stories to kill time before the next journey.
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