Synopsis
Like volumes 3 and 6, Dream Country and Fables and Reflections, "Worlds' End" is a volume of predominantly single-issue short stories, often only obliquely related to the principal story arc of the series. The issues in Worlds' End were written and published in sequence, using a frame narrative.
The story begins in the first person narration of Brant Tucker. He and co-worker Charlene Mooney are involved in a car crash during what seems to be a snowstorm in June while on their way to Chicago. Charlene is badly hurt, and Brant is directed by a talking a hedgehog to a strange inn named "Worlds' End, a free house" by the tavern sign outside. This is revealed later as one of four inns where travelers between realms shelter during reality storms, which may be the consequences of particularly momentous events. Throughout the reading of the collection, then, the reader is aware that some kind of momentous event has occurred, to which the concluding procession alludes; the revelers at the inn gather by its windows to watch a funeral procession cross the sky, which ends with Death looking sadly into the inn and then looking down sadly at her crossed hands, as the crescent moon behind her slowly turns red. The framing sequence is penciled by Bryan Talbot and inked by Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano and Steve Leialoha, with the exception of the funeral procession, which is penciled by Gary Amaro and inked by Tony Harris.
The stories within the collection are each narrated by a different person during a storytelling session at the inn; as the introduction notes, this is similar to the device used in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. This gives each a distinct style both in the telling and in the illustration, with the collection drawn together by the short sequences between stories set at the inn itself. Each story told contains at least one character telling a story within the story.
Read more about this topic: The Sandman: Worlds' End