by Eden
The Wake doesn’t really need to do that much — it mostly feels and operates like an epilogue — but it provides Neil Gaiman with the opportunity he needed to close out the story of this incarnation of Dream and look to the next one.
Worlds’ End is the quiet before the storm. Or, well, in the context of the collection, it’s the quiet during the storm, since it’s about several travelers who are stuck in the titular inn telling each other stories while they wait out a “reality storm” (it’s The Sandman so just go with it).
Fables & Reflection is an odd one. While it is just a collection of short stories, the issues aren’t presented in order. Three of the issues were published before the A Game of You and “Ramadan,” issue #50, was published after the next story arc. There’s also a brief story that appeared in Vertigo Preview #1 and Sandman Special from 1991. If this seems like it’s all over the place, you’d be right.
I wish A Game of You was a couple of issues longer. And while as much as I want to stop saying “Neil Gaiman doesn’t know how to end these story arcs properly” well, there’s much of that here too. At only six issues, A Game of You brings up a lot of ideas without fully developing them. I still like this storyline but I always want more from it than what we got.