Sandman: Season of Mists

For a long time Season of Mists was my favorite volume in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. It's the volume that really made me fall in love with this series, and it stayed my favorite for a few years until I got around to reading the eighth volume, Worlds' End. (It took me a long time to collect the entire series).

The premise of Season of Mists is pretty straight forward. Fed up with his duties and just plain bored, Lucifer quits. He kicks everyone out of hell, locks the door, and gives the key to Dream. This concept completely hooked me. I loved the way this played with Christian mythology. Maybe the Devil is sick and tired of the endless war with heaven. Maybe he'd rather just chill on a beach somewhere.

For his part, Dream has to deal with a host of mythological being who all want Hell for their own. Odin, Thor, and Loki want to move in so they can avoid Ragnarok and the end of their world. Egyptian and Japanese gods want to expand their current lands. The demons of Hell want their world back so they have somewhere to live. And Chaos and the Faerie would prefer Hell to remain empty. Dream has to sift through their requests and decide who to give the key to, since he definitely doesn't want it.

Start to end I love this volume and what it has to say about choice and free will. There are themes here that are echoed in my other favorite works by Gaiman: American Gods and Good Omens. They're more condensed here, and more raw since Gaiman hadn't been playing with them as long. This was also the volume that really sparked my interest in mythology. Revisiting it is always a lot of fun, especially for Lucifer's monologues about what his role is in God's plan and how that gets interpreted than others.

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