Finished reading Intracities and Volume One of The Sandman today. I also printed the critiques for The Bunyip in an extremely tiny font, which I'll be reading through over the next couple of days as I edit.

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After reading Volume One of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel (originally published as eight separate comics) : Preludes and Nocturnes, I'm keen to continue reading, although the story line had plenty of ups and downs in terms of quality and atmosphere. Each of the stories in this volume chronicles the struggle of the Sandman (one of several ethereal beings known as the Endless), aka Morpheus or Dream, in his quest to regain powers lost when he was captured in the early 1900s. There's quite a bit of dark, brooding material here, so this is definitely for a mature audience.

The story line was quite bizarre in parts and sometimes verged on being incomprehensible, but I'm guessing some of the more obscure parts might make more sense as I read further volumes. I found the first story to be the most compelling, with the last a close second. The last story introduces another of the Endless, Dream's sister Death. She is quite a bit more cheery than her name suggests and it'll be interesting seeing how some of the Endless in future volumes compare.

Overall I found Sandman : Preludes and Nocturnes a decent read, although it is obvious that Gaiman and the artists were still trying to find their way with this one and were not yet at their peak. Apparently subsequent volumes show a marked improvement in story lines and characterization, as should be expected.

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Intracities (54pg chapbook / UnWrecked Press) is a newly-released anthology of stories put together by Michael Jasper, with stories ranging from mainstream to fantasy and science fiction. The writers were challenged to find the secret histories and hidden places of their current "stomping grounds", and from my perspective they did an excellent job!

The writing is top-notch throughout and I was really impressed with the way people were able to weave in elements of their environment into the stories. I found it difficult to pick the highlights in this collection - they were all so good. If pressed, I'd say the following stood out: Just Like Venice, Only Not by Mary Madewell, Restless by Melissa Yuan-Innes, The Lost and Found of Years by Claude Lalumière (most amusing), Enlightenment by Jason Erik Lundberg, Iron Heaven by the prolific Jay Lake, and Where the Centaurs Roam by Jeffrey Turner. The rest were also very well done and worthy of praise.

So do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of Intracities right away! You won't be disappointed :)

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Tomorrow I'm planning on ploughing through some editing, so hopefully I can get a good chunk of that done in order to submit the final draft of The Bunyip next week. Fingers crossed!

What I'm Reading:
Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2003
Locus, September 2003