The final (for now) volume in the absolute editions brings together both versions of The Dream Hunters, the seven short stories that make up Endless Nights and Sandman Midnight Theatre all prefaced by a short called The Last Sandman Story taken from Dust Covers which deals with the author's own encounters with his characters. The first of [The Dream Hunters] is quite different to all that has come before being an illustrated novella rather than in comic book format. This was done at the request of the artist Yoshitaka Amano and takes Dream to the Orient in a tale of love between a fox and a monk. The story is exquisite and the artwork simply gorgeous and is probably my favourite from all the Sandman books. Told as an adaptation of a fictitious Japanese fairy tale, it uses characters drawn from Japanese folklore and fits them perfectly into the Sandman mythos. The [[P. Craig Russell]] [Dream Hunters] comic book adaptation of this story is used to conclude the volume. To me, the comic is less effective in telling this particular story.

Endless Nights features a story for each of Dream's siblings and one for Dream himself. Death's story, Death in Venice, also appears in Absolute Death but was still worthy of admiring again. Of the others, I think Delirium's tale was my favourite and Despair's quite unsettling but all are worthy of attention. This was released to celebrate Vertigo's 10th anniversary and some very talented artists were recruited to each pen a different story.

Sandman Midnight Theatre brings together two different entities of the Sandman with Wesley Dodds investigating the goings on at the manor Fawney Rig where Roderick Burgess imprisoned Dream. Plotted by Matt Wagner and written by Neil Gaiman with artwork that takes the reader back to 1930's England with a noirish feel it has tempted me to think about trying out the Sandman Mystery Theatre series at some point.

The book concludes with a Sandman miscellany which includes several pages of posters and sketches from The Dream Hunters, more posters used as retail promotion, script with design and layout for Dream's story in Endless Nights and details of statues and figures made for the series.

Although the works are unrelated, it is good to have them all gathered in this volume to complete and match the other releases in the set. ( )

P. Craig Russell, Milo Manara, Frank Quitely, Miguelanxo Prado, cover.