The Sandman: Book of Dreams

Neil Gaiman

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9780063286559
• Print ISBN:
  9780380817702
• Subtopic: Literature General

An entrancing collection of stories based on the World Fantasy Award-winning Sandman comic book series by Neil Gaiman—the basis for the highly anticipated Netflix series and hailed by the Los Angeles Times Magazine as “the greatest epic in the history of comic books”—including contributions from Tori Amos, Clive Barker, Susanna Clarke, Tad Williams, and Gene Wolfe,  among other celebrated names in fantasy and horror

There is a dark king who rules our dreams from a place of shadows and fantastic things. He is Morpheus, the lord of story. Older than humankind itself, he inhabits -- along with Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium, his Endless sisters and brothers -- the realm of human consciousness. His powers are myth and nightmare -- inspirations, pleasures, and punishments manifested beneath the blanketing mist of sleep.

Surrender to him now.

Sandman: The Book of Dreams is a stunning collection of visions, wonders, horrors, hallucinations, and revelations from twenty-one incomparable dreamers – inspired by the groundbreaking, bestselling graphic novel phenomenon by Neil Gaiman.

Ain’t You ’Most Done?

Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe is one of our finest living authors. He wrote my favorite modern novel (it’s called Peace), one of my favorite science fiction novels (it’s called The Book of the New Sun), and he is two books into one of my favorite historical novels (the books are Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete).

The critic and encyclopedist John Clute described Gene Wolfe as “Sergeant Bilko as Aslan” (by which he meant Phil Silvers and not, of course, Steve Martin).

Here he tells a story of dreams: the ones we have when we sleep, and the ones that power us during the day. Of dreams, and of redemption.

THE HOT PINK DRAGSTER HAD NOT MOVED IN A MINUTE and a half. It seemed like five; but Benson was careful and accurate in all matters involving time, and it had been one minute and a half. He shifted the transmission into PARK and took his foot off the brake. One and a half minutes—ninety seconds—was a long time. In ninety seconds flat, no more, a skilled man in one of the company’s seventeen hundred Magus Muffler and Brake Shops could prep a car for the installation of a new tailpipe, a new exhaust pipe, and a brand-new Magus Muffler—copper, nickel, and chrome plated in successive layers and guaranteed for as long as the customer retained title to the car on which it was installed.

In seven more seconds, the time would be two minutes.

A small carrying case on the rear seat held sixty-four of his favorite compact discs. Benson reached in back for it, got it, and opened it, removing a collection of nineteenth- century sea songs.

The dragster’s brake lights faded, and he shifted his car into DRIVE. He had counted on an hour, possibly an hour and a half, at his office before the helicopter that would fly him to the airport arrived. Now he would be lucky to get ten minutes. The dragster crawled forward, and his car with it; when both stopped again, they had traversed perhaps fifty feet.

He returned the transmission to PARK and put the CD into the dashboard player. His back and neck hurt, presumably from the tension induced by this endless delay, and the pain was creeping down both arms. He would have to learn to relax.

Oh, the smartest clipper that you can find,

A-hee, a-ho, ain’t you ’most done?

Is the Marg’ret Evans of the Blue Cross Line,

So clear the deck and let the bulgine run!

To me hey rig-a-jig in a low-back car,

A-hee, a-ho, ain’t you ’most done?

Benson could play that himself, and sing it, too. Play and sing it pretty well, not that anybody cared. He pictured himself seated on the tarred hatch-cover of a transatlantic packet with his guitar on his lap and a villainous black stogie smoldering between thumb and forefinger, ringed by delighted sailors and passengers.

The brake lights of the dragster glowed as obstinately red as ever. Wouldn’t that fool kid ever make it easy on himself? Benson let his head loll to one side, then the other, rolling it upon his shoulders.

Oh the Marg’ret Evans of the Blue Cross Line,

A-hee, a-ho, ain’t you ’most done?

She’s never a day behind the times . . .

If things had gone differently, perhaps he, too, would be making CDs and giving concerts, appearing occasionally on TV, consulted by authorities on folk music who would want to know where he had learned this song or that and from whom he had learned it: seamen’s songs and rivermen’s songs, songs sung by lumberjacks and Civil War soldiers.

With Liza Lee upon my knee, oh!

So clear the track and let the bulgine run!

He was making ten times more than he could possibly have made like that, but money wasn’t everything; in fact, once you had food and clothes, a warm place to sleep and a few hundred pocket money, more money meant very little.

One of the dragster’s brake lights had gone out, or perhaps the two had flowed together, condensing into a single cyclops light belonging to a newer car. Sweat trickled down Benson’s forehead into his eyes. The air-conditioning was already set on MAX, but he moved the fan control up to HIGH, conscious of increased pain under his breastbone where his stomach joined the esophagus. Acid indigestion. He tried to recall what he had eaten for breakfast. Ham? No, the ham had been on Sunday.

When I come home across the sea,

A-hee, a-ho, ain’t you ’most done?

It’s Liza, will you marry me?

So clear the track and let the bulgine run!

To me hey rig-a-jig in a low-back car,

A-hee, a-ho, ain’t you ’most done?

Benson blinked and closed his eyes, after one hundred and twenty-three seconds blinked a second time, aware of weakness and pain. He lay on his back; something had been thrust into both nostrils; the ceiling was off-white and very remote.

Wires clung to him like leeches.

AFTER A TIME that was neither long nor short so far as he was concerned, a nurse appeared at his side. “You had a close call,” she said.

He was not sure what she meant. It seemed best to keep quiet.

“You’re awake, aren’t you, Mister Benson?” She looked at him more closely. “This is real. You’re not dreaming.”

He managed to say, “I never dream.”

“Really?” She turned to scrutinize what appeared to be an oscilloscope.

“I daydream. Of course.” He tried to smile, although he was aware that she was not looking at him. “Much too much, I’m afraid . . .” Talking was no longer worth the effort.

Still not looking at him, but not looking now (he thought) so that she would not have to see his expression, the nurse said, “You’ve had a heart attack, a bad one. Probably you’ve already figured that out for yourself.”

“It seemed the most likely explanation.” Privately, he was relieved. It was better to know the truth, to be sure. People survived heart attacks and lived for years. Decades in some cases.

“But you’ve come through it.” The nurse turned to face him. “You’re going to be all right.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re a very important man.”

Under the circumstances, that seemed humorous. Smiling took little effort this time.

“We’ve had all sorts of people phoning and trying to get in to see you.”

He could easily imagine what it had been like. He said, “I apologize.”

“Oh, it’s okay, we’re used to it. But for the present, only family members, and no calls. It’s for your own good.”

She bustled away, stopping in the doorway to ask, “You really don’t dream? Ever?”

“No,” he murmured. He tried to make his voice stronger, strong enough to carry to her. “Not even when I was a child. I can’t imagine what it’s like, to tell you the truth.”

She regarded him skeptically.

“Like hallucinating, I suppose.” He had not thought of this before. “But I’ve never done that either.”

“Everyone dreams, Mister Benson. It’s just that sometimes the unconscious mind tells us to forget, cuts us off from it.”

I don’t, he said, but the words never reached his lips—she had left too fast.

If she was right, he reflected, somewhere in his memory there was a vast reservoir of unremembered dreams; he searched for it, but it was not there.

A TOUCH WOKE him. The same nurse was bending over his bed. “Mister Benson?”

He blinked. “Would you do me a favor, Nurse? A great favor?”

That surprised her. “Certainly, if I can.”

“Call me Tim.”

Involuntarily, she glanced at the door. “It says Otis Benson. That’s the name we have you down under.”

It brought back a book that Michael had liked when Michael was young. Benson told her, “Winnie the Pooh lived in a hollow tree in the woods under the name Sanders.” It was easy to smile now. “Or at least, I think it was Sanders.”

She smiled, too. “That’s right. I read that to my little nephew.”

“I,” he tried to clear his throat, “on the other hand, have lived under the name Otis Benson. My real name is Timothy Otis Benson. I dropped the Timothy a long time ago.”

“I see.” As though unsure what to say, she added, “My name’s Ruth. You can call me that if you want to, Tim.”

“I will, Ruth. My mother called me Tim. Tiny Tim. I’d like to be Tim again.”

“I understand. Tim, your daughter’s here to see you. I said I’d see if you were strong enough. Are you? We won’t let her stay long.”

Benson, who had no daughter, said, “Of course I am. Send her in,” and watched the doorway with some interest after the nurse had gone.

It was Daisy, and before she came in he had discovered an armless chair of enameled metal beside his bed. As he tried to decide whether the sorrow in her face was genuine he said, “I thought it was you. Won’t you sit down?”

She did, knees primly together, hands folded in the lap her salient chest clearly prevented her from seeing. After a second or two, it occurred to him that she was dressed for the office, and he asked her what time it was.

She raised her left hand to con...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Frontispiece: Death by Clive Barker
• Preface by Frank McConnell
• Masquerade and High Water by Colin Greenland
• Chain Home, Low by John M. Ford
• Stronger than Desire by Lisa Goldstein
• Each Damp Thing by Barbara Hambly
• The Birth Day by B. W. Clough
• Splatter by Will Shetterly
• Seven Nights in Slumberland by George Alec Effinger
• Escape Artist by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• An Extra Smidgen of Eternity by Robert Rodi
• The Writer’s Child by Tad Williams
• Endless Sestina by Lawrence Schimel
• The Gate of Gold by Mark Kreighbaum
• A Bone Dry Place by Karen Haber
• The Witch’s Heart by Delia Sherman
• The Mender of Broken Dreams by Nancy A. Collins
• Ain’t You ’Most Done? by Gene Wolfe
• Valóság and Élet by Steven Brust
• Stopp’t-Clock Yard by Susanna Clarke
• Afterword: Death by Tori Amos
• Biographical Notes
• About the Author
• Also by Neil Gaiman
• Copyright
• About the Publisher