It is books like these which make you believe in {D}ream( no pun intended). It is that brilliantly written. Every chapter, every page, every dialogue takes your breath away (good thing I am at least of fifth heightening, eh? ;) )! The amount of reference to pop-culture is insane. You don't pay attention to a dialogue and chances are that two references have slipped by you. And that is part of what makes the book so rich.

About the characters, you fall in love with Dream (is kind of inevitable), you admire and love Death, you respect Destiny, you are constantly amused by Delirium, you understand Destruction even though you don't agree with him, you feel bad for Despair and you absolutely hate Desire!

I do not know if that was intentional, but when the new Dream Lord came along, for some reason I didn't like him. He hasn't even started doing anything, it was just that I didn't like him. May be it was his attire, may be it was his viewpoint, may be it was the way he talked (yes I could hear him talk), may be it was something else. The point being I didn't like him!

Now as for this book, barely two pages in the book and I knew something huge and something terrible was coming. There was no jokes flying around, talks were serious, moods were sombre, even when someone was telling a joke and somehow the background was dull! Doesn't mean that the story was dull though. It maintained all the sharpness of Volume 3, and every chapter had a thrill you went through, and an anticipation which forced to turn to another page and reach the next chapter.

By far, the best fantasy book I ever read!