Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA Great Continuation of this Adaptation!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 27, 2022
Audible’s adaptation of “The Sandman: Act III” collects material from Brief Lives and Worlds’ End, the seventh and eighth volumes of “The Sandman” that collected issues 41-49 and 51-56 of the comic series. The stories focus on Delirium of the Endless seeking out her brother, Destruction, who disappeared hundreds of years prior. Their journey brings with it a great deal of tragedy and destruction, particularly fitting as the end of a recent love affair continues to burden Dream. Unhappily, Dream must consult his son Orpheus, who lives on as a head in a shrine following the Maenads mauling of him. Though they eventually find Destruction, their meeting comes at great cost and Dream commits the cardinal rule of the Endless. “World’s End” uses an inn called the World’s End as a framing device for various travelers’ stories à la Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” or Boccaccio’s “The Decameron.” The stories in “World’s End” include “A Tale of Two Cities,” about a man terrified that cities will someday awaken; “Cluracan’s Tale” about the world of faerie; “Hob’s Leviathan” about a girl who poses as a boy to go to sea and there meets Hob Gadling and a king of India; “The Golden Boy” about Prez Rickard, who becomes U.S. President after Richard Nixon, becoming a living representation of the American Dream; and “Cerements,” which tells of the necropolis Litharge and its devotion to various methods of burial.
Dirk Maggs oversaw this adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic series, working to translate the visual medium of the comic books to the audio format. The full cast adaptation makes this possible. “Act III” stars Neil Gaiman as the narrator, James McAvoy as Morpheus, Riz Ahmed as the Corinthian, Kat Dennings as Death, Billy Boyd as Petrefax, Miriam Margolyes as Despair, David Harewood as Destruction, Mathew Horne as Hob Gadling, Andy Serkis as Matthew the Raven, Regé-Jean Page as Orpheus, Kristen Schaal as Delirium, Niamh Walsh as Nuala, Wil Wheaton as Brant Tucker, KJ Apa as Prez, Jeffrey Wright as Destiny, Kevin Smith as Merv Pumpkinhead, Justin Vivian Bond as Desire, Emma Corrin as Thessaly, Joanna Lumley as Lady Johanna Constantine, Kerry Shale as Abel, Simon Vance as Lucien, Samantha Béart as Calliope, Clare Corbett as Eurydice, Barnaby Edwards as the Psychopomp, Ashleigh Haddad as Ishtar, David Holt as the Satyr, among many others.
If these Audible adaptations continue, “Act IV” will adapt the final two volumes, “The Kindly Ones” and “The Wake.” Those will conclude the regular “Sandman” series, though they could potentially adapt “Endless Nights” and “Overture” as well at some future date.
