Sandman: The First

Well, he wasn't really the first.  Out of all the Endless, Dream is the third oldest, after his brother Destiny and sister Death.  After Dream comes Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium.  Right off the bat, you can see some patterns.  The most obvious would be the alliteration, but that is only there to catch your attention.  All of these . . . beings go by other names.  Destruction is also Olethros, Destiny is called Potmos, or even Mister Destiny, and Delerium goes by Mania, and on occasion - especially in the past - she went by the name Delight.
The next pattern you've hopefully caught up on is evident in the pseudonyms.  They're all Greek.  And, as it comes down to it, Dream is known as either Oneiros or Morpheus, probably the most famous of all the sibling Endless.  Commonly, he is the Sandman . . .

Enough with the spooky rambling introduction.  This blog is and will be (for at least the next five entries) about a certain sub-sect of the literary genre of Science-Fiction / Fantasy.  Even when I was young I was confused . . . I always put those two titles in boxes (or shelves) far separate from each other.  Science-Fiction dealt with space-ships of epic proportions, alternative science "experiments" gone haywire - or succeeding, depending on what the initial outcome was postulated to be, and possibly little green men playing a jumpy jazz tune in a cantina on a desert planet a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  Fantasy, on the other hand, dealt with flying beasts of epic proportions, alternative hominoid-shaped creatures, and little hairy men playing a smooth folk tune in a tavern in a shire of an unknown time and place.  See the difference?
However, over the past few years I have come to terms with these two genres, and now can understand how librarians and other "literary experts" can group them together, if only to save money on shelf labels.
Both Sci-Fi (SyFy?) and Fantasy take on the ideas of alternate worlds and dimensions.  Whether the bright green flash over the ridge was a UFO crash landing in order to find the successor to a heroic intergalactic guild, or a dragon's flame ricocheting off of a paladin's broad-shield, both have histories and futures worth knowing about.
There have been many great stories over the course of modern human history that have postulated the existence of the otherworldly, even those beings co-existing with humans in our own time.  Ranging from the legends as familiar as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (great movie, by the way), to the lesser-known - but just as worthy - books of Piers Anthony and Robert Jordan, the general public has always had the thought of neighbors, not separated from us by a patch of grass and white picket fence, but rather a patch of space and time . . . . . . .
Two of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman and Orson Scott Card, play around with this idea quite a bit.  Neil Gaiman (http://www.neilgaiman.com/) is more open about the "god-factor."  He was raised Jewish, and then his family (excluding himself) converted to Scientology.  Possibly due to that, Neil Gaiman is adept at analyzing and discussing facets of religions and belief structures, old and new (and possibly not-yet-seen).  His books include American Gods, Anansi Boys, Good Omens and Neverwhere, to name a few.  I'll discuss a few of his works throughout the next few entries.  He also writes graphic novels, my favorite being Sandman.  You saw a brief introduction to it earlier, and will definitely learn more about it.  In addition, movies have come from some of his literature, such as Coraline, Mirror Mask and Stardust.









Orson Scott Card (http://www.hatrack.com/), on the other hand, is a Mormon, and some of his literary work displays that.  He is the author of the Ender series, starting with Ender's Game, and continuing on with series and sub-series to form a spider-web map of the epic.  In these stories, the presence of a god is not looked at so much as aliens are, and how humans can, will, and could interact with other sentient beings of our universe.  Other novels, however, do find place in the Mormon belief structure and others. Folk of the Fringe is one of these books.  In addition to that, OSC peers into the inner workings of governmental and political systems of the modern and post-modern US in his newest novels of Empire and Hidden Empire; I have only read the former.

I believe that we are not alone in this life.  I have conflicting views on whether our co-inhabitant(s) is / are (a) supreme being(s) or just (an)other life form(s) trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck.
I'll write both summaries and opinions, and you'll read them.  Then, you'll write your own opinions and reactions, and I'll read.