Sandman: The Dream Hunters (30th Anniversary Prose Ed'n) back

A poignant story of doomed love, self-sacrifice and revenge into which Gaiman slides some of his former SANDMAN cast.

The love is between a fox and a monk, and when Gaiman is in fable mode, the prose is a measured and masterful meld of Important Words and Powerful Pauses.

A badger and fox place bets on which of them can make a humble monk leave the small, remote temple he's been tending so that they can have it for their own, but the smiling monk sees through their guises each time and gently sends them on their way.

Much to the fox's surprise, she finds herself in love with the monk, and apologises. But when she discovers a plot amongst demons to destroy the monk through three booby-trapped dreams, she sacrifices her most prized possession to seek the counsel of Lord Morpheus, and there discovers The Baku, the eaters of dreams.

Now also available as a graphic novel adaptation by P. Craig Russell, this came about specifically because Gaiman loved the poster Amano painted for SANDMAN's 10th Anniversary (me too, it's on my bedroom wall) and wrote the prose for him to illustrate.

Unlike Gaiman's SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS his DEATH collection - and most especially his more recent return in SANDMAN: OVERTURE which leads directly into SANDMAN VOL 1 - this is, I concede, merely tangential to the SANDMAN series.

But such is its ability to move that when I recorded it one Christmas for my best friend Anita whose Multiple Sclerosis had by then robbed her of her peripheral vision (and so ability to read lengthy prose), I ended up having to take brief breaks from the microphone in order to retain some form of dignity.

It's an absolute choker, I promise you.