Support AE!  Buy Books Here:

Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly.

Enter E-Mail Address Below:

The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

Written by Neil Gaiman, Illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano

In 1996, when Neil Gaiman said that he was ending the Sandman series, fans around the world almost had a heart attack. The thought of such a wonderful series coming to an end wasn’t a pleasant one. However, DC commissioned Yoshitaka Amano, well known to gamers as the character designer for much of the Final Fantasy series, as well as Kartia, to do a 10th Anniversary commemorative poster for the Sandman series. Gaiman was so impressed by the art that he agreed to do one last Sandman, but only if Mr. Amano would provide the illustrations. The end result was The Dream Hunter, the tale of a monk and a fox, and the lengths they would go to help one another.

The story is based on a Japanese fairy tale named "The fox, the monk, and the Mikado of All Nights Dreaming." In the book a monk and a fox fall in love and must travel through the realm of dreams in order to save one another from harm. There’s much more to it than that, but if I say anymore it will ruin it for any of you who haven’t read the book yet. It’s a very engaging tale that really draws in the reader. The characters all feel very real, and the way that the words and illustrations play off of one another really brings the story to life.

The illustrations are all very, very good. There are a lot of water colors and abstracts here, making it something that people expecting purely Final Fantasy-esque may be disappointed over. For everyone else though, the illustrations are beautiful, well worth checking out. Yoshitaka Amano has done an exquisite job on these paintings.

If you’re looking for a nice short story to read that’s accompanied by beautiful illustrations, The Dream Hunter is definitely a book to look for.

Reviewed by Mr. Nash