The Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell.
Title: The Sandman: The Dream Hunters.
Author: Neil Gaiman.
Artist: P. Craig Russell.
Genre: Fiction, graphic novels, mythology, folk tales, fantasy, romance.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2009.
Summary: The world was different in old Japan. In those days, creatures of myth and legend walked upon the earth, swam in the sea. Some were kind and some were cruel. Some were wild and some, at great cost, could be tamed. So it was that a wily fox made a wager to dislodge a humble young monk from his home - and lost her heart in the betting. So it was also that a master of the demons of this world set his own eyes on the monk, seeking to seize the pious man's inner strength for his own. And so it was, the King of All Night's Dreaming would find himself intervening on behalf of a love that was never meant to be... (A graphic novel adaptation of an illustrated novella by Neil Gaiman.)
My rating: 8/10.
My Review:
♥ The monk made his evening devotions... with slightly less enthusiasm than usual. It is one thing to pray; it is another to pray to entities who will search you out on the road and beat you across the head with sticks if you say something that offends them.
♥ The monk unfolded his token to show it to them, and it was then that he knew for certain he was dreaming, for he could read the characters on the paper he carried.
They were simple characters and they described one who transmuted things from formlessness and shapelessness into that-which-was-not-real, but without which the real would have no meaning.
♥ "Follow me."
"Will you take me to the king of dreams?"
"You would not seek to question a poem, or a falling leaf, or the mist on the mountain top... Why, then, do you question me?"
"From your reply, I presume you are a poet."
"I serve the king of dreams, and I do his bidding. But you are correct, once I was a poet. And like all poets, I spent too long in the kingdom of dreams."