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A Game of You (The Sandman #5)

by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author), Shawn McManus (Illustrator), Colleen Doran (Illustrator), Bryan Talbot (Illustrator), George Pratt (Illustrator), Stan Woch (Illustrator), Dick Giordano (Illustrator), Samuel R. Delany (Introduction)

4.43 of 5 stars 4.43 · rating details · 22,493 ratings · 417 reviews

Volume Five of New York Times best selling author Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed creation THE SANDMAN collects one of the series’ most beloved storylines.Take an apartment house, add in a drag queen, a lesbian couple, some talking animals, a talking severed head, a confused heroine and the deadly Cuckoo. Stir vigorously with a hurricane and Morpheus himself and you get this fifth...more

Paperback, 192 pages

Published May 3rd 2011 by Vertigo (first published September 3rd 1992)

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Jul 17, 2012 Brooke rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A Game of You, the 5th volume in the Sandman series, is my favorite so far. One thing I've noticed Gaiman is very good at is picking up little threads he dropped in previous stories and building on them (this was one of my favorite things about Buffy; there's nothing more rewarding for a viewer/reader than a story that doesn't forget its past). The most notable one that gets picked up in this volume is the main character, Barbie, who was a minor character in The Doll's House. In that volume, we...more

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Feb 26, 2009 Mark Russell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels

It's difficult to review the Sandman books without discussing details that will rob the reader of important surprises, but this is essentially yet another story in which the corporeal world is drawn into a war being waged on the ethereal plain. It centers on a woman (who had a bit role in A Doll's House) who is a princess in the psychic realm, and must return there in order to save a kingdom her earthly self doesn't really know anything about. As always with Gaiman, it's full of great twists and...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Tyson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels, 2011

Easily the best volume of The Sandman through the first five. The story is the least forced of all of them. The earlier volumes seem to have too much crammed in them, and sometimes the story is awkward and unnatural. Gaiman is trying to play with deep ideas, but sometimes he doesn't let the idea speak for itself. In this volume I think he finally does manage to do that.

The theme is one of inner worlds, those inner fantasies, monologues, realities we all create and carry with us. Morpheus, as the...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Harry Doble rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels-and-comics

The fifth Sandman arc wisely takes a step back from the grandiose concept of Season of Mists, which saw just about every esoteric mythological figure converge on the realm of the Dream King. It focuses on the fantasy world of one particular woman, Barbie, whom readers might recognise as one half of that unsettling couple partnered with husband Ken earlier on in The Doll's House.

Since the vortex Rose Walker inadvertently tore down the walls between their separate dreamworlds, Barbie has left Ken...more The fifth Sandman arc wisely takes a step back from the grandiose concept of Season of Mists, which saw just about every esoteric mythological figure converge on the realm of the Dream King. It focuses on the fantasy world of one particular woman, Barbie, whom readers might recognise as one half of that unsettling couple partnered with husband Ken earlier on in The Doll's House.

Since the vortex Rose Walker inadvertently tore down the walls between their separate dreamworlds, Barbie has left Ken and has been doing it rough in the city. She lives in an apartment block with her best friend, a pre-op transsexual named Wanda; lesbian couple Hazel and Foxglove; the quiet, bookish Thessaly; and a strange man named George. The world of dreams has been dead to her since she left Ken and she spends most of her time painting unusual patterns on her face. A sequence of mysterious events unfold as Barbie's childhood fantasies start to bleed out into the real world with horrifying consequences, and sees Morpheus largely resigned as as a background character observing until the time is right for intervention.

The Sandman is often cited as an example of a series that helped break down the heterosexual male dominated audience for comic books, and whilst individual stories have dealt explicitly with gender A Game of You is a very feminine story arc from start to finish. The sacred fantasies of little girls as princesses is at the core of Barbie's dreamworld, deconstructed beautifully as she retreats deep into her inner psyche. It is the development of the secondary characters that really make it however as they follow her in, from the woes of the lesbian couple when one of them falls pregnant to Wanda's lifelong struggle with transgenderism. All she wanted to do is wear pretty dresses, and for it the last chapter here is absolutely gutting.

This is the power of The Sandman, Gaiman and Vertigo's flagship dark fantasy series transcends mere spectacle to be one of the most incredibly poignant experiences I've had the pleasure to come across. I can't sing praises of A Game of You highly enough, and so far this isn't even my favourite entry of the series.(less)

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Nov 04, 2010 Federiken Masters rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Gaimanistas, feministas y LGBTistas..

Recommended to Federiken by: Su autor.

Leído del rejunte que tengo entre las ediciones viejas de Zinco y la de cuadernitos de Planeta.
Otra saga de Sandman que revisito y que se gana una estrellita extra al releerla. La primera vez que la intenté disfrutar, desordenada, incompleta y apenas teniendo nociones vagas de cómo era Sandman, no me convenció mucho. Me parecía una historia fantástica genérica más, con personajes acaramelados que se esforzaban por mostrarse más humanos y falibles. Además, el hecho de no haber leído nunca Narnia...more Leído del rejunte que tengo entre las ediciones viejas de Zinco y la de cuadernitos de Planeta.
Otra saga de Sandman que revisito y que se gana una estrellita extra al releerla. La primera vez que la intenté disfrutar, desordenada, incompleta y apenas teniendo nociones vagas de cómo era Sandman, no me convenció mucho. Me parecía una historia fantástica genérica más, con personajes acaramelados que se esforzaban por mostrarse más humanos y falibles. Además, el hecho de no haber leído nunca Narnia y haber dejado al Señor de los Anillos a mitad de "La comunidad..." (y eso que el Hobbit me encantó)me hizo perderme de varios guiños y detallitos que siempre suman. Si bien sigo sin entender varios de esos guiños y sigo pensando más o menos lo mismo de los personajes, la historia en sí va mucho más allá. Con una lectura más cabal se ven ideas que distan mucho de ser moralina tolerantista (si es que existe el adjetivo), y el relato se presenta sólido, interesante y rico en varios matices. Sobre la naturaleza de la magia y las mujeres; la luna como símbolo mágico y como satélite estéril; la violencia en un mundo color rosa; la identidad sexual y la lamentable estigmatización hacia los "distintos"; sobre la mente infantil como hogar de mundos imaginarios-reales y muchas nociones teóricas más que hacen que en algunas partes parezca más un ensayo que una historia.
Entre otros aspectos positivos de la saga está la presentación de la no adorable pero sí querible pareja de lesbianas que van a tener un notorio peso en las miniseries de muerte; y la primera y última aparición de Wanda, una de las travestis más graciosas, queribles y entrañables de la ficción. Una verdadera mártir del noveno arte.
Entre los negativos, además de los citados al principio tenemos un bailecito de dibujantes que dejan resultados muy dispares. Los números de McManus están bastante bien, y aunque no sabe dibujar mujeres que muestren las cualidades que sí transmite el guión, su narrativa funcional sirve. No puedo decir lo mismo del capítulo dibujado por Doran, que se nota que está hecho a las apuradas, y con más buenas intenciones que talento ("Como varios de tus reviews", objetarán algunos. Y yo les daré la razón pero quejándome que no tiene que ver una cosa con la otra). Claro que los puntos negativos palidecen por completo frente a los positivos, y este libro no hizo más que aumentar mi fanatismo condicional por una verdadera obra maestra de la historieta mundial.

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Apr 26, 2008 Siria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, fantasy, graphic-novel

Hmm. I am divided on this one. I didn't like it as much as I did Season of Mists, for all that this is in many ways a more intelligent and incisive book. It's dark and it's often gruesome (Hazel's dream about her baby attacking Foxglove's was possibly one of the more disturbing things I've ever seen), and the dual storyline meant that the reader is often left questioning which one is reality and which fantasy, if such a concept can ever be attached to a work by Gaiman at all. Wanda was fabulous,...more

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Feb 05, 2008 Maria added it · review of another edition

Estos libros tienen tanto éxito en la biblioteca que tengo que conformarme con el que queda en el estante, si es que queda alguno, y leerlos desordenados. En los primeros me molestaba que se cambiara de dibujante en cada capítulo, ahora ya le he cogido el punto, e incluso le intuyo un sentido.
Este me ha tocado bastante más que los otros dos (2, 4). Copio (y tal vez sea un spoiler, si os importan ésas cosas):
"Los niños y las niñas son distintos, ¿sabes? Los niños fantasean con ser más rápidos, li...more

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Jun 08, 2007 Imogen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This came into my bookstore and I hadn't read it in a couple years, plus it's the one with the transwoman in it, and I was feeling emotionally vulnerable. So bring it on!

So... yeah. So when I was a little kid I read this and it was like, I was a baby transsexual and all I knew about it was that I'd better not talk about it or admit it to myself or to anybody else. So this book touched me in kind of a weird place and I was SUPER stoked that it treated a transwoman as a human being and, y'know, i...more

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Sep 10, 2008 Kara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels

I loved this one. As Barbie goes into her dream world and faces the little girl left dreaming inside her I can only wonder what dreams of my own that started long ago are waiting to be faced. This one was interesting in that a larger lesson seems to be coming out of it, a lesson of loss, a lost innocence, a lost friend, a lost dream. What is also unique about A Game of You, is that facing something internal, whatever it may be, often seems like a journey. Losing any part of life as we know it al...more

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Jul 06, 2010 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jennifer by: Pete

Shelves: neil-gaiman, graphic-novels-and-mangas, 2010, pete-owns

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 22, 2009 Morgan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Morgan by: Kestrel Plump

Good story, well told. I still wonder about male cartoonists who fetishize dykes. I have a hunch that Gaiman, writing in the early 1990s, knew that his audience healthy cross-section of freaks, weirdoes and misfits, so he tried to appeal to as wide a variety of freaks, weirdoes and misfits by playing to a number of niche markets by featuring a trans-woman for the trans/gayman sector, the dyke couple to fill the void left by Love and Rockets, and the previously character-less buxom blonde Barbie...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Skip rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 19, 2013 Paul Hamilton rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fantasy, graphic-novel

In my review for The Doll's House, I noted how much I love when authors pick threads or tiny details from previous storylines or one-shots or even other works and expand upon them later. The gratification received as a reader when you see this happening is heavy, and it feels like a reward for paying close attention. The A Game Of You storyline then is entirely this kind of deal. A small portion of The Doll's House (Rose Walker's roommates' individual dreamscapes, and specifically Barbie's) fill...more In my review for The Doll's House, I noted how much I love when authors pick threads or tiny details from previous storylines or one-shots or even other works and expand upon them later. The gratification received as a reader when you see this happening is heavy, and it feels like a reward for paying close attention. The A Game Of You storyline then is entirely this kind of deal. A small portion of The Doll's House (Rose Walker's roommates' individual dreamscapes, and specifically Barbie's) fills in this arc as she revises her role as Princess of a strange realm, and we revisit Martin Tenbones, Wilkinson, Luz and the other companions on their quest to defeat the Cuckoo.

Some of the set-up is even reminiscent of The Doll's House, including the assorted cast of characters as tenants in the same building, and as events from The Dreaming filter into their real world, they are drawn against their will into the conflict that eventually overtakes Barbie. We see more connections, including references back to "24 Hours" from Preludes & Nocturnes, Nuala makes an appearance from Season Of Mists, and so on. It is in this volume that the real continuity and inter-connections Neil Gaiman is fabricating emerge and it works wonderfully.

It should be noted that it's hard to really describe the outcome of Princess Barbie's quest without dipping into heavy spoiler territory. Suffice to say that the confrontation with The Cuckoo is, as I should just assume by now in Gaiman's writing, unexpected but marvelous. There are so many elements to the end of this tale that work for me, including the fact that the "antagonist" is perhaps not so at all, the "savior" role is perhaps the one who causes the most damage in the end, and throughout it all Dream acts, as he does most of the time when in direct contact with humans, sage and all-knowing even though we know by now that he isn't.

Having admitted that I usually stop after the good but dense and far-out Season Of Mists in my read-through of The Sandman, I'm delighted to find that the very next volume rewarded me with a book that is on par with The Doll's House and now I can't wait to forge ahead all the way to the end.(less)

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Oct 23, 2012 Ideasmith rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first long-form Sandman story that doesn't break in between for a short, breather tale. It's a different style from Book 2: The Doll's House which was probably the last one that was so dark and intense.

A Game of You is a connecting story from the first half to the second half of the Sandman arc. At another, more in-your-face level, it's a fantasy tale, set in the mind of Barbie (whom we first met in Book 2: The Doll's House). A mythical land, magical creatures and a mysterious villi...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Magila rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics, comics-non-superheroes, horror, fantasy

2.5 (saved in the very end from a static 2)

This was the episode of the X-Files where they decide to do a black and white homage to film noire with werewolves. It's a total departure from the main Sandman storyline, after an epic 4th installment, and the ink and color didn't seem as on point as earlier books either.

Sure, there were positive messages about acceptance, and the the Sandman saves it in the end and made it interesting, but I wouldn't have been sad to completely skip this installment....more

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Jun 08, 2012 Yupa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fu il mio primo contatto con Sandman. La storia a metà strada, mi fu prestato da un individuo noto al tempo come Macross Plus.
E mi lasciò piuttosto freddo, mi trasmise davvero poco. Lo lessi persino due volte: quel poco di interessante che sembrava esserci lo trovai costruito, calcolato, poco sentito.

Anni più tardi ho recuperato l'intera saga del Plasmatore.
L'ho letta in ordine, un volume per volta, e mi sono ritrovato col Gioco della vita in mano.
Sarà perché ho imparato (che brutta parola!) a l...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned, favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I finished A Game of You really quickly because first: It freaking hypnotized me! I mean I know I loved Sandman but I had forgotten how much it just takes me somewhere else and releases me from reality (in a very Very good way!). And second: because I loved the parallel stories in it.

I've said it back in my day (although not that the internet knows) that Gaiman is an absolute genius and I really missed being parted with the King of Dreams but A Game of You awakened something in me that I forgot...more I finished A Game of You really quickly because first: It freaking hypnotized me! I mean I know I loved Sandman but I had forgotten how much it just takes me somewhere else and releases me from reality (in a very Very good way!). And second: because I loved the parallel stories in it.

I've said it back in my day (although not that the internet knows) that Gaiman is an absolute genius and I really missed being parted with the King of Dreams but A Game of You awakened something in me that I forgot I could feel. I immediately went to get The Graveyard Book and American Gods (as much as I can buy at the moment) to have more of his work available to me. When I first started reading The Sandman I didn't know Neil had books too. So this is fantastic! Sorry sorry...back to A Game of You!

I was really please with seeing Hazel and Foxglove again! By a little mistake of mine I read the Death issue in which they appear before reading A Game of You and I thought I would never see them again but...here they were! In reverse order like my two personal River Songs! So it really felt nice coming back to them. Also to Barbie, every time I think of the brilliancy of her character and of how she is not always really what you expect but still fulfills what she is (if that makes any sense) makes me love her ridiculously too much!

Okay this is suppose to be a review not fan-girl screaming about the characters. Maybe I'm not the best reviewer for things that get me so much because I haven't been able to get over Wanda's death entirely (it is like 24 hours since I've read it) and that is overlapping with other deaths in other books...

Anyway, to conclude this really weird and probably completely inappropriate commentary on A Game Of You I will end in a rather cheesy note (just to put the cherry on top of the ice-cream) by saying that the way Neil Gaiman manages to involve fantasy, horror, a little bit of gore and drama even romance into his stories and give full, lovable and unique characters is not only admirable but magical.

The Sandman is terribly special for me and since the beginning has felt like home. Literary genius or not, it's like Gaiman and the magnificent illustrators of the series actually opened a little door into the Dreamworld that we all already know and recognize with some obscure and subconscious part of our minds...!(less)

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Apr 17, 2012 Scott Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed this one. I held out awhile waiting for Season of Mists to come available at the library but it just wasn't coming...(still on hold). So I went ahead and read this one. This is the first volume of the series since volume one that truly felt like it had an overarching storyline. I liked that. Although Volume one is still my favorite at this point because it had the most Morpheus...Wonderfully creative stuff. I love the point where Barbie says that she believes we all have magical,...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Ronyell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Sandman Fans!!

Shelves: 6-star-reads, action-adventure, alternative-worlds, best-books-of-2012, book-series, books-i-want-to-own, cult-classic, drama, fantasy, favorites, graphic-novels-comics, horror, mystery, neil-gaiman, read-in-2012, reviewed-books, strong-hero, surreal, vertigo-comics, young-adult-teen-books, ronyell-s-epinions-reviews, my-blog-reviews

6 stars!

Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” series just keeps getting better and better every time I read them and the fifth volume “A Game of You” definitely does not disappoint me! This time, Dream (Morpheus) is dealing with a world that may look cute on the outside but on the inside, a sinister force is at work here and it is up to Dream to save the day!

In this volume, “A Game of You,” a young woman named Barbie (think of Ken and Barbie, the dolls that every little girl used to play with) who starts suf...more 6 stars!

Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” series just keeps getting better and better every time I read them and the fifth volume “A Game of You” definitely does not disappoint me! This time, Dream (Morpheus) is dealing with a world that may look cute on the outside but on the inside, a sinister force is at work here and it is up to Dream to save the day!

In this volume, “A Game of You,” a young woman named Barbie (think of Ken and Barbie, the dolls that every little girl used to play with) who starts suffering dreamless nights after she broke up with her boyfriend Ken. One night however, Barbie is put into a coma of sorts and her friends Hazel and Foxglove, two lesbian couples, Wanda, a drag queen and Thessaly, a quiet and mysterious woman try to enter Barbie’s dream world in order to rescue her from the forces of the Cuckoo, an evil being that is invading her dreams! There are a total of six chapters in this volume and they are:

Chapter 1: Slaughter on Fifth Avenue
Chapter 2: Lullabies of Broadway
Chapter 3: Bad Moon Rising
Chapter 4: Beginning to See the Light
Chapter 5: Over the Sea to Sky
Chapter 6: I Wake Up and One of Us Was Crying

Wow! This volume was beyond fantastic and is probably the best volume I have read so far out of Neil Gaiman’s famous “Sandman” series! Neil Gaiman has definitely done a brilliant job at weaving a truly frightening and exciting story about how Barbie is swept away in a dream world where she is a princess and the evil forces of the Cuckoo tries to kidnap her while her real body is in a comatose state in the real world. I loved seeing the stark differences between Barbie’s dream world and the real world as the real world is dark and dreary while Barbie’s world seems to resemble a world similar to Narnia as she travels with talking animal companions and goes on an epic adventure to escape the evil forces of the Cuckoo. I also loved how Neil Gaiman made this volume so dark and gory, since I am a huge fan of anything that has blood and gore in it and this volume definitely has tons of blood and gore that is shown in the most disturbing way possible! The artwork by Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, George Pratt, Stan Woch, and Dick Giordano is truly amazing, especially with the scenes of Barbie being in her dream world as her dream world is set up as a world similar to Narnia as there are green trees and endless landscapes covering each page. Also, I loved the details being put into the gory scenes that occur in the stories as they look truly gruesome and terrifying at the same time.

As with the other volumes in the “Sandman” series, this volume contains some extremely gory and bloody scenes that might make many readers’ stomachs turn. One of the most disturbing moments in this book was when a character peels another person’s face off and then rips out the person’s eyeballs and their tongue out and nails the other person’s peeled face, eyeballs and tongue to the wall to talk to it. This is definitely a truly disturbing scene that might make some readers feel really uncomfortable if they do not like seeing gory scenes in a novel. Also, there is so much killing in this volume that might be too disturbing for readers who do not like reading about murders in novels.

Overall, “The Sandman: A Game of You” is easily the most disturbing yet the most exciting of Neil Gaiman’s fantastic “Sandman” series and it is definitely a favorite of mine that fans should definitely check out! I would recommend this book to readers ages sixteen up since there is so much disturbing content in this volume that would be too terrifying for younger readers. Now I am off to read the next volume in the “Sandman” series, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections.

Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog(less)

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Feb 19, 2012 John Kirk rated it 4 of 5 stars

This starts out as a nice fluffy story about a fantasy quest with talking animals. Then they start dying... I liked the concept of a "skerrie" in the Dreaming, the artwork is great, and the character motivations all make sense, but there are a few glitches when you look back at the story as a whole.

(view spoiler)...more

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Aug 19, 2011 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels

Like the majority of The Sandman saga up until this point, Gaiman's A Game of You somehow failed to be intiguing or convincing. Despite its best efforts to be both off the wall and imaginative there's still an undercurrent of conventionality that I can't quite pinpoint. Maybe Gaiman's trying too hard to make his core group of characters oddballs and misfits and ends up dehumanising them to the extent that his lesbian character, Hazel, fails to understand how one gets pregnant and he wheels out t...more

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Feb 10, 2011 Tancredi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novel

"Il desiderio in una mano, la merda nell'altra: guarda quella che si riempie prima."

Sul volume in particolare:
Il genio visionario e la fantasia illimitata ed originalissima di Gaiman qui toccano un primo picco degno di nota.
Non è da tutti, del resto, scegliere come personaggio (in questo caso, addirittura protagonista) la bambola Barbie. O meglio: una sua versione decisamente umanizzata. E' il più onirico ed il più freudiano dei volumi, come suggerisce quest'altra citazione:

"Sai, chiunque tu sia...more "Il desiderio in una mano, la merda nell'altra: guarda quella che si riempie prima."

Sul volume in particolare:
Il genio visionario e la fantasia illimitata ed originalissima di Gaiman qui toccano un primo picco degno di nota.
Non è da tutti, del resto, scegliere come personaggio (in questo caso, addirittura protagonista) la bambola Barbie. O meglio: una sua versione decisamente umanizzata. E' il più onirico ed il più freudiano dei volumi, come suggerisce quest'altra citazione:

"Sai, chiunque tu sia, cosa disse Freud riguardo a chi sogna di volare? Disse che significa che stai in realtà sognando di fare l'amore.."
"Sul serio? Allora dimmi, cosa significa quando sogni di fare l'amore?"

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Sulla storia in generale:
Parlare di "The Sandman" mi mette imbarazzo e non solo, perché di fronte ad un'opera mastodontica e superiore come questa non posso che sentirmi un mero ammasso di carne pensante per sbaglio, per una malata frizione casuale tra i miei neuroni.

La verità è che "The Sandman" è l'opera di un genio fuori dal comune, che non si può comprendere mai del tutto, nemmeno leggendolo mille volte. Per la profondità della sua scrittura, per la finezza dellle sue citazioni letterarie, per la cura paziente e poetica con cui ogni singola parola pausa e virgola viene scelta, per il modo oserei dire "chirurgico" con cui si intrufola nell'animo umano, mettendolo a nudo.
"The Sandman" è un'opera che sostanzialmente è una rappresentazione di ciò che siamo, una rappresentazione dell'essere umano, con tutte le sue pieghe, le sue contraddizioni e le zone nascoste, in ombra.
La finezza della sua analisi dell'uomo la si può vedere ad esempio nella creazione dei sette Eterni: Sogno, Morte, Destino, Distruzione, Disperazione, Desiderio, Delirio. Sette personificazioni di sette elementi che scuotono gli uomini, che ne plasmano la crescita.
Parlando della trama, che qui è veramente l'intreccio invisibile e complesso di mille fili narrativi, "The Sandman" è fondamentalmente la storia di una crescita morale, quella di Sogno, il protagonista, che sceglie un percorso forzato con lo scopo di redimersi completamente, viaggiando tra dimensioni più o meno allegoriche, contattando e interagendo con una miriade di personaggi (ed è STRAORDINARIA la caleidoscopia varietà di personalità secondarie che Gaiman crea, arricchendo la storia).
"The Sandman" è soprattutto la prova che il fumetto, o meglio, la "graphic novel" è un'opera d'arte degna della qualità di letteratura. Non a caso un episodio di questa serie di fumetti è riuscito a vincere un premio riservato alle opere letterarie. (less)

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Dec 30, 2010 Karissa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love the Sandman series so far and this book was no exception. Gaiman has a way of telling dark stories that are very creative and really expand your mind and make you think.

Barbie's best friends are a drag queen named Wanda and two lesbians that live in her apartment building. Barbie seems to be dragging a bit because she never dreams. She remembers dreaming as a child; wonderful vivid dreams, but those times are long past. When a creature from her dreams dies in front of her on the street an...more

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Dec 15, 2009 BarkLessWagMore rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novel, dark-fantasy, disturbing

I read these comics many moons ago and as my memory isn't what it used to be I can't remember a heck of a lot of the storylines. Death was always my favorite character but this one, featuring Barbie and her dreamworld, is reminding me why I loved the Sandman comics so much way back when.

There are two worlds here; Barbie's gritty urban reality and that of her unique friends including drag queen Wanda and lesbian neighbors, and Barbie's dreamworld where animals speak. The two worlds collide when...more

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Apr 26, 2009 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Something about "A Game of You" just captivated me. Focusing on the story of Barbie and "the Land", I felt like I was reading a new-age Alice in Wonderland, although taken to much stranger lands where creativity, (and not drugs), was the primary influence for such a wonderfully tragic journey. From hundred year old witches that can communicate with the dead by cutting off their faces and nailing it to the wall to transsexuals who are individually courageous/heroic but self-conscious and unsure o...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novelas-graficas

Creo que no puedo decidir cual es mi favorito de la serie de Sandman, tengo que terminarlos primero. Pero este está muy cerca junto con la primera parte. De nuevo este es otro capítulo en el que Morfeo no es precisamente el protagonista, sino que seguimos la historia de un personaje que apareció brevemente en el volumen 2, Barbie. Ha pasado tiempo desde que Ken dejó a Barbie (lo sé, lo sé) y ahora ella vive en un departamento en Nueva York donde también vive su mejor amiga, una drag queen llamad...more

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May 16, 2011 Fox rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, graphic-novel, horror, mars-book, series, 2011

The first thing I noticed about this volume was that it was dedicated to Jonathan Carroll. Less than two pages in, I realized why. How cool is it to realize that the book (graphic novel, whatever) you're reading dovetails with a book you read less than a month ago? How cool is it when you learn that it did this without even meaning to? Long live Martin Tenbones, then!

This book is classic Carroll, though A Game of You and Bones of the Moon were written independently. A Game of You is engaging, be...more

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Jul 17, 2011 A. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comic

I am not good at reviews, sometimes I wonder why I bother. This book helped me re-evaluate how I was mentally categorizing the story divisions in The Sandman. Specifically, I had assumed that certain characters that appeared in earlier volumes were one-shots, never to reappear, that they were unrelated to other things. BOOM, they're back in this volume and many things begin to connect that I never expected. Color me impressed, my respect for Gaiman's storytelling abilities just went up a notch.

T...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Michael Nash rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*4rth reading* *spoilers*
I’ve never liked “A Game of You.” With an author like Gaiman, I’m willing to believe that that’s a failure on my part rather than his, that I simply didn’t “get it,” but since this review is subjective from my point of view It’s still only getting three stars. I love the beginning and general premise. The scene in the first chapter where Martin Tenbones (whom we have seen before in Barbie’s dreams during “Doll’s House”) bursts into the New York street provides one of the...more *4rth reading* *spoilers*
I’ve never liked “A Game of You.” With an author like Gaiman, I’m willing to believe that that’s a failure on my part rather than his, that I simply didn’t “get it,” but since this review is subjective from my point of view It’s still only getting three stars. I love the beginning and general premise. The scene in the first chapter where Martin Tenbones (whom we have seen before in Barbie’s dreams during “Doll’s House”) bursts into the New York street provides one of the most classic examples of Gaiman’s world in which the distinction between fantasy and reality is blurred. The entire sequence with George and Thessaly is brilliant, and Thessaly is a great character (who, as I recall, is one of the several previously introduced characters that shows up in “The Kindly Ones”).
It’s the ending that bothers me. I understand that often plot points in fantasy novels are intended to be ambiguous, and especially here where Gaiman is working the postmodernism for all it’s worth. However, I feel like he gives just a bit too much to leave these points as ambiguous as they are. For example, if Morpheus had just alluded to the fact that he had created the skerry of the dream upon which the land was built a long time ago, I would have been fine with that. Instead, Gaiman shows the person for whom he created it, names her, and implies that they have a previous relationship, leaving the reader wondering about who she is. In similar fashion, the nature of the Cuckoo is left ambiguous, despite maddeningly specific references to Barbie being directly responsible, and to its presence in her head being related to the Rose Walker vortex incident in “Doll’s House”. Oh, and the hurricane, although it is implied to be the result of Thessaly tampering with the moon, is never adequately explained, which is annoying because of its centrality to the plot.
I was also bothered by the portrayal of Alvin/Wanda’s parents. For all of his interest in stomping stereotypes, in portraying them as unrelentingly awful Gaiman seems to glibly reinforce the New York crazy, yet accepting/ fly over country full of ignorant bigots dichotomy which is all too often taken for granted. Mr. Gaiman has no doubt never gotten involved with the Wiccan community in Nebraska.
I suppose that you might, as the introduction suggests, lit. crit. the piece to death. But that goes against one of my principles: that if a piece must be lit. crit. ed to understand it, than author has failed. To paraphrase Stephen King, all of that sparkly shit that excites English majors is only window dressing to be added in once you already have a good story. So I guess I will continue to not like this volume, and keep in mind that love *most* of the rest of the series.
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Oct 31, 2011 Moira rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mám pocit, že ten komix je o hodně složitější, než na jaký si hraje. Přeci jen to napsal Gaiman. A bohužel (a tentokrát to už pocit není... xP) nejsem schopná to prokouknout. Proto jsem raději přeskočila úvod, kde se děj pitval, jinak bych ve svých očích velmi hluboce klesla. Tečka.

Tento díl Sandmana je... jiný. Sám Gaiman na konci napsal, že vlastně ani tento nápad nechtěl zveřejnit. (Nechal se ukecat... :D) Chápu proč se zdráhal, je to pro něj něco neobvyklého. Píše o něčem tak obyčejném a nám...more

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“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” — 3,728 people liked it

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A Game of You (The Sandman #5)

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