The fourth book in the
Sandman library. As with the others, it was written by good, ol'
Neil Gaiman.
This
graphic novel tells of a rather nasty situation everyone's favorite anthropomorphic personification,
Dream, has gotten himself into. Somewhere in the vicinity of ten thousand years ago, he banished a woman who would not requite his love to
hell. His sister,
Death, convinces him that this was unjust, and that he should, therefore, go and get her back.
Of course, that is no easy feat (are feats ever easy?), and he needs to confront
Lucifer himself in order to raise her from
hell. When
Dream gets there, however, he finds that
Lucifer has decided to close up shop.
Lucifer then gives
Dream the key to
hell, and now
Dream has got to figure out what to do with it.
In a way, this is the most literary
Sandman storyline of them all; it has a most cohesive and skillfully done story. Furthermore, it has a great number of guest appearances; among other people,
Odin,
Thor,
Lucifer, and envoys from
chaos show up. It is quite a good read.