The family is: Death, Dream, Destiny, Delirium (who was once Delight), Despair, Desire and Destruction. Destruction is not revealed until much later on.
Death spawned of a whole new fan community. Massive art and fic selections, and the GothBunnies? took her to heart.
Death is portrayed as female, compassionate and stylish.
Predictably Death gets her own mini-series - surprisingly, so does Delirium.
Dream, in comparison, is portrayed as stuck in his ways and duty-bound. Which is odd for a personification of imagination. Then again, HereBePlot?.
Destiny says little and does less - he carries the BigBookOfPlot?.
Delirium has by far the best lines, alternately coloured eyes and a talking pet dog named Barnaby.
Destruction is big and boistrous. A scotts accent would not be amiss.
Desire is whatever s/he wants to be - but generally tall white and androdgynous.
Oh, of course - one wonderful point. All of the endless appear as appropriate to the sight of whoever is viewing them. For most of the book they keep 'standard' forms (presumably ones applicable to modern day westerners) - but during flashbacks and one classic 'Eye of the cat' episode they look somewhat different.
Despair is a half-dead sumo wrestler. I'm not entirely sure why.
Plot wise - several threads meander together. The major one appears to be the infighting (mainly between Dream and Desire)
Redemption is a theme throughout. The somewhat non-canonical hell, the rescue of Dream's exiled not-lover, eventually the reincarnation of Dream himself (I did put in SpoilerSpace...)
Some of the backstories and filler stories are works of art in their own right. The cuckoos nest is particularly nice, though it does not compare to the scene in the diner (twenty four hours) to my mind. One of the wonderful things about the series is how small elements even of the filler stories later come back to haunt you.
EmperorNorton? gives a wonderful alternate view on the 'why' behind those events - but even that tale of the FisherKing? becomes integral to the main plot.
Um. There's nothing else to say - except get it, read it NOW.
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