Sandman
author Neil Gaiman collected in a beautiful slipcased box set! Weaving together ancient mythology, folklore, and fairy tales with his own distinct narrative vision, Gaiman created an unforgettable tale of the forces that exist beyond life and death. The Sandman universe is a master-creation following Dream, also known as Morpheus, lord of the Dreaming -- a vast, hallucinatory landscape that houses all the dreams of any and everyone who has ever existed. Gods, demons, mortals, and everything in between. All dreamers visit the Dreaming and have an opportunity to teach Morpheus some surprising lessons. After being captive for 70 years, Morpheus will have to go on a journey to reclaim his objects of power and bring order to the Dreaming. Collects Volumes 1-14 of the Sandman series!
Stats for nerds
16recommend
38mentions
34people
2009–2024years
47% recommend53% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Sandman is a weird thing to have missed. I guess you got into him after he started writing novels?
Sandman is in my opinion Gaiman's best long form work, but for my money his best single issue is probably from his (likely now never to be finished although they do keep teasing, most recently for this October) Miracleman run.
"Winter's Tale" from the Golden Age of Miracleman is doing something comic books aren't allowed to do, even more so than when he wrote Sandman. Winter is far more powerful than her father, and so the story ought to not work because what are the stakes? Introducing some "big bad" that could hurt Winter ruins the flow of the rest of the comic, and yet without such a threat why should we care about her tale? Gaiman sidesteps that by telling it as a children's story, like Judth Kerr's "The Tiger Who Came To Tea". In this form the story within a story can break all the rules. Masterful. And then the outer envelope story continues the Golden Age theme of humans living in a utopia still being humans.
- The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Honestly it is as great as the comics.
- I believe that we are building a future which will attempt to be more efficient, at the cost of personalization. Back in ye olde days a tailor would make a coat for you, designed to fit you, at a wage that would be great for the tailor. It would take a few weeks to make. Now you can buy a coat that mostly fits you, on the spot, at a price that barely pays overseas factory workers. It's not the most ethical, but it was the way that things would end up without strong government guardrails and it has improved many peoples lives.
A lot of these things like AGI are going to be used to scale up cheaper experiences. Sometimes they'll misfire, but overall peoples lives will change, some jobs will no longer exist, and you'll have a different experience than before.
What is important to keep in mind is that this will probably not render the world a technological dystopia. It may make the world more frustrating in some ways, but better in others. For the things you do not like, I give you a quote from Robert Kennedy: "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events." For the fear of the world getting worse over time with technology, I would suggest reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Near the end there is a man who has been alive since the Medieval times. He shares his experiences with the world changing around him and it's a pretty positive approach to life.
- Dune, book 1. You can take away so much from this book. The Bene Gesserit's "Litany Against Fear" and its application makes the book worth reading, and that's just the tip of the iceberg! My favorite part of the book but involves reunion. friendship and loyalty. The audiobook version of Dune, book 1, is also excellent. It includes dramatic acting and ambient music.
Neil Gaiman's Sandman dramatic audiobook (part I) is so good. I feel so lucky that while looking up the link to the book that I just discovered Part II was published in 9/2021. Highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/The-Sandman/dp/B086WQ7J62
- It’s hard to pick a favourite but I figure a decent rule of thumb would be to list books I’ve read at least twice:
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
- The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
- The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
- Watchmen by Alan Moore
- From Hell by Alan Moore
- V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series by Alan Moore
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Immortality by Milan Kundera
- first 3 books in the The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
- The Dark Half by Stephen King
- The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman
- Coalescent by Stephen Baxter
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- I tend to alternate between Sci-Fi/Thriller and How-to-write.
Donald Maass - The Emotional Craft of Fiction
William Gibson - Idoru
Dean Koontz - Strangers
Dean Koontz - Watchers
James Scott Bell - How to Write Best-Selling Fiction
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne - The Salvage Crew (fn FANTASTIC!)
Then a classic like:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
While a bit over-produced, this one was fantastic. Shame they didn't do the whole series.
Neil Gaiman - The Sandman
Rob Grant - Red Dwarf
Steven Pressfield - Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t
An Audible membership, I think, is totally worth it. Sure, audio books are available at libraries. But one must wait and wait.
