Narratives And Their Conclusions

The nature of a narrative is shown by the kind of climax or conclusion to which it leads. I concurrently reread Poul Anderson's Matuchek/Old Phoenix sequence and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994) because both series have an inter-cosmic inn.

These four Anderson novels each have a foregone conclusion: the triumph of good over evil. Three Hearts And Three Lions does not describe its climactic battle, just the hero setting off to it. Operation Luna ends with a battle against demons. In each individual skirmish, a good guy dispatches a demon until the demonic survivors flee. Hardly surprising. In Black Easter, James Blish simply reverses this conclusion: the demons win Armageddon.

Worlds' End tells different kinds of stories with a different kind of ending. The "handsome cabin boy" ends her story by saying that she will continue to masquerade as a boy as long as she can:

" '...for now - - you can call me Jim.' " (p. 90)

Brant Tucker narrates from the first word and we assume that he directly addresses the reader. To our surprise, on the last two pages, 161-162, he is seen to be addressing a bar maid in an otherwise empty bar. The conclusion is them saying, "Good night," and him walking away down a dark city street. We are left to reflect on their lives.

Worlds' End II

I like Bryan Talbot's art in The Nazz, Alice In Sunderland and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, particularly the framing sequences for Worlds' End (New York, 1994). It is good that so many pages are set inside the Inn of the Worlds' End and also that a few of the pages are split, showing at a glance both the distinctive artistic style of the story being told and Talbot's depiction of the venue for the story telling.

Worlds' End is my favourite among the Sandman volumes. Everything is of a particularly high quality:

the cover;
the style, layout and presentation of the introductory pages;
Gaiman's writing;
the art of the individual stories;
Talbot's art in the framing sequences.

Worlds' End would be a perfect spin off. Gaiman and others would be able to provide endless stories to be told in the Inn. Such stories would not all have to be recounted during the "reality storm," when the Inn becomes particularly crowded - although the knowledge that the storm occurs outside, either because realities are colliding or because " '...an event of great moment and consequence...reverberates across time and space and myth...,' " gives the six part sub-series an immediate significance within the greater framework of the Sandman series. (p. 141)