 "The highpoint of The Sandman, and that's saying something" | 2008-09-26 |
| - Reviewed By solofire6 |
| The Sandman, Neil Gaiman's masterpiece, is something quite rare--it's excellent from start to finish. Nowhere does the series falter, it just gets better and better. "Brief Lives" is the pinnacle of the series. As Dream, the Sandman of the title (he also goes by Morpheus), searches for his lost brother Destruction alongside his sister Delirium, it becomes evidently clear what Gaiman has been building to since the beginning: change. Change within the heart of Dream. Since being imprisoned for 70 years by human sorcerers, Dream has become increasingly compassionate and kind. When this is pointed out to the Lord of Dreams, he denies it, maintaining that he has not changed at all. And here lies the tragedy of Morpheus--his stubbornness and his unwillingness to accept what's standing right in from of him. br /br /In a sprawling fantasy epic detailing the spectrum of imagination, Gaiman has hidden a very simple story--one of redemption and change. It's this subtlety, this humanity, that sets The Sandman above the rest and makes it classic, a series everyone should read. |
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 "Great beginning but flops at the end" | 2008-06-06 |
| - Reviewed By tzitzitlini |
| This is another great collection of Sandman stories which anyone who is a fan of the series should read. My only complaint with this collection is that the stories start out very strong but the ending is a bit of a flop. I am glad that I read it since this does contain events which will probably be of greater importance further along in the series. |
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| "Change Makes The Sandman Impossibly Better" | 2008-02-16 |
| - Reviewed By swilliamfoley |
I thought Season of Mists was my favorite The Sandman volume until I read Brief Lives.
Brief Lives absolutely has it all--drama, action, comedy, romance, and philosophical ponderings. It focuses upon Morpheus rather directly--unlike other volumes where sometimes he exists within the stories only peripherally--as he helps his sister Delirium track down their brother known as Destruction.
Destruction is part of The Endless. The other members of The Endless are his brothers and sisters Destiny, Death, Dream (Morpheus), Desire, Despair, and Delirium. He long ago abandoned his post and family, choosing instead to exist on his own terms. Addle-brained Delirium unusually makes up her mind and decides she wants to reunite with her favorite brother. She is very surprised when she manages to enlist the aid of her brooding brother, Dream, especially after all her other brothers and sisters refuse to help her.
Dream accompanies Delirium on quite a journey as created by Neil Gaiman who makes brilliant use of legend and mythology, both preexisting and self-manufactured. They finally find Destruction, but things don't go exactly as expected and incredible possibilities are revealed.
I love this volume so much because something happens to Dream that hasn't really occurred in the previous volumes--he changes. While always dynamic in dialogue and appearance, Dream was not a character who seemed to evolve. I enjoyed Lord Morpheus just as he was, but now that Gaiman introduces a changing Dream, a Morpheus who suddenly empathizes with mortals and family members, he becomes all the more fascinating.
Furthermore, the afterward by Peter Straub was absolutely riveting. Brief Lives was enthralling on its own, but Straub's afterward analyzing the volume makes it, and the intricacies of Gaiman's artistry, all the more impressive.
~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant |
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| "Graphic SF Reader" | 2007-09-03 |
| - Reviewed By bluetyson |
Dream is sulking, until his sister Delirium motivates him to help her look for Destruction, their brother who has abdicated his Endless responsibilities.
On the way, through the various people they meet, and reflected in his servants and helpers, we see Dream's thought processes begin to change and mellow, even more so after he finally gets around to dealing with his son, Orpheus, after such long neglect.
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| ""If this isn't literature, nothing is." --Peter Straub" | 2007-07-30 |
| - Reviewed By mksmith1 |
This is one of my two favorites in the 11-volume "Sandman" series, which has proven Gaiman to be a genius storyteller. Three centuries ago, Destruction -- one of the seven Endless, who existed even before the gods -- abandoned his responsibilities, left his realm, and went off to do his own thing. Essentially, he ran away from home. Not that the world has lacked for destruction since then, but he's not behind it, anyway. Delirium, who has roughly the persona of a three-year-old combined with a drugged-out-flower child -- but is a very sweet person for all that (well, . . . not "person" . . .), misses her big brother and tries to find one of her siblings to help her look for him and convince him to return. Dream (the Sandman) finally agrees to accompany her, but for his own reasons, and the quest brings in a number of innocent bystanders (who suffer, as bystanders do), as well as an assortment of ancient but now out-of-work deities. A number of neat ideas are tossed out casually, too, like the notion that a few thousand people still exist on Earth from the very earliest days of civilization, or even from the dawn of the species.
Bernie the lawyer, killed by the collapsing wall of a derelict building, tells Death, "I did okay, didn't I? I lived fifteen thousand years. That's a pretty long time." To which Death, a pragmatic sort who resembles a Goth girl, replies, "You got what everybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more, no less." Great stuff. |
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| "A must read" | 2007-06-27 |
| - Reviewed By kevin2769 |
| Read this series! I read these when they were published as individual comics and revisiting the series has been a joy. Read them in order if at all possilble. I wish Gaiman had the time to write another graphic novel series. |
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| "It's going to be a beautiful day..." | 2006-12-28 |
| - Reviewed By andynjen |
Did anyone other than myself get addicted to this series due grossly in part to Gaiman's amazing work with his novel "American Gods"? I thought "American Gods" reminded me of King's phenomenal work with Roland in his gunslinger world - and finally, Gaiman expanded on this work with the next chapter of his Sandman stories in "Brief Lives". It seems that I continually go up then down and further up again with this series, and this is one of those chapters that shot me further up into the sky than imaginable. With a fair swoop of his creative pen, Gaiman brings us family, voyages, and the truth about those pesky little creatures roaming our world known as Gods. They do exist. They roam our world. They were here before the birth of this planet, and finally, Gaiman exposes them to the world. They are merciless, they are wealthy, they are strippers ... they are us. Again, nobody could do it like Gaiman does and he proves it with his greatest heroine creation "the Sandman" and with the series entitled, "Brief Lives".
For the past several episodes, Gaiman has been dropping hints that Sandman had a missing brother that left the family a long time ago, there was sadness, but most were moving away from any sort of emotional scarring. Well, I should say "most", because little sister Delirium cannot seem to forget about her big brother. She wants to find him, and while most of her other siblings turn her away, Sandman jumps in headfirst in hopes that he can eliminate the worries about loosing a woman that he has been with for some time. He needs to shake her feelings, so he travels with his sister to find their brother, Destruction. As they travel, they meet up with old friends, Gods, which assist with their journey. These friends of the family assist with unlimited spending cash, a chauffeured vehicle, and a path towards their final destination. While our travelers decide to stay in the "real world", they learn more about the dying breed of Gods and, my favorite, that Death does not show favoritism.
Just as we prepare ourselves for a two part episode, an unexpected guest (who is actually expecting them) welcomes our travelers into his home, only to share his disappointment with his current state of the world as well as his position. In a rather emotional ending, Gaiman twists his words together to point the finger back at our current society as well as the state of this series. He even takes Sandman closer to his family, and asks him to perform a deed that was unexpected as this journey began. In one quick collection of stories, Gaiman has successfully given us back the power, the force, and the drama that reminded me of how this series began. Since the first collection, I didn't quite see that same emotion until I read "Brief Lives". In a short 150 pages, the raw force of the series was sparked back. The family dynamics, the power of the unknown, and the idea that our world - planet Earth - is just the backdrop to a much larger grandiose story that will constantly boggle our mind and expand our universe - was exactly what made this "Brief Lives" the best collaboration.
Overall, I would like to say that if you read just one collaboration in this series YOU MUST READ "Brief Lives". I fell in love with this entire family all over again this in one short collection. We had a chance to see their lives, their human nature, and their need for each other. I loved being back with Sandman, in which I missed him with the prior collection. He is the star and full supporter of these graphic novels. Gaiman, I believe, realizes this as he receives most of his praise for those in which he blows our minds with simple stories with amazingly sharp characters. There was not one flawed scene in this entire collection. I could - and will - read this again. For those seeking Gaiman's best work, and what makes him stronger than the words that he prints - I would highly suggest "Brief Lives".
There - I have drooled enough. Time to read it again.
Grade: ***** out of ***** |
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| "One of the series' best." | 2005-11-30 |
| - Reviewed By xterminalx |
Neil Gaiman, Sandman: Brief Lives (Vertigo, 1995)
Sandman has had its ups and downs over the years. Brief Lives is very much an up, perhaps second in the series only to Dream Country in its brilliance.
Brief Lives tells the story of Dream and Delirium, off to search for their missing brother Destruction, who abandoned his realm three centuries before. As they search, the people they try to get to help them have a startling habit of ending up dead, leaving Dream to question the wisdom of Delirium's quest.
The book ties up a few minor loose ends from other books in the past, but that's just icing on the cake. Gaiman and co. stick with a simple story here, perhaps the simplest they've yet told in the books, and in doing so they truly allow Gaiman's considerable narrative talents to shine through undiluted. We already know we're going to get good art and great characters. The story's the thing, then, and this one shines. **** ½ |
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| "Family Matters" | 2005-10-25 |
| - Reviewed By tylerism |
In Brief Lives, the stories that Gaiman has hinted at throughout most of The Sandman series (of the desertion of one of The Endless; and of Dream's son, Orpheus) come to pass, as Dream and Delirium take a road trip together to try to set things right again.
Though it is perhaps the most resonant volume philosophically, dealing deeply (but not melodramatically) with impermanence and mortality, this is thus far the volume I've enjoyed the least. Everyone has different tastes, after all. And yet it is still marvelous and still fully five stars. If you're a lover of literature (whether or not you like "comics") you owe it to yourself to read this series. |
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| "Dream and Delirium go on a roadtrip..." | 2005-09-29 |
| - Reviewed By lavoyd |
And what they find is more than they expected. Along the way, we meet several interesting denizens of Gaiman's myth-in-the-modern-world universe, and get different perspectives on the missing member of the Endless family, Destruction.
Jill Thompson's whimisical art style is complimentary to this often poignant story which is ultimately about family.
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