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The Dreaming #1-3
The Dreaming Collection
Where dreams turn into living nightmares...
Behind the gates of the exclusive Australian boarding school, Greenwich Private College, wait beautiful Victorian architecture, an excellent education, and a terrible secret: students have been known to wander into the surrounding bushlands and vanish... without a trace! Mysterious forces are at work, and as the rigorous atmosphere of the school starts to slowly crumble around them, twin sisters Amber and Jeanie are about to learn that the key to the school's dark past may lie in the world of their dreams...
Now in one complete collection, experience the beauty and terror of The Dreaming all over again with new color illustrations and an exclusive new chapter of the Greenwich College saga!
Behind the gates of the exclusive Australian boarding school, Greenwich Private College, wait beautiful Victorian architecture, an excellent education, and a terrible secret: students have been known to wander into the surrounding bushlands and vanish... without a trace! Mysterious forces are at work, and as the rigorous atmosphere of the school starts to slowly crumble around them, twin sisters Amber and Jeanie are about to learn that the key to the school's dark past may lie in the world of their dreams...
Now in one complete collection, experience the beauty and terror of The Dreaming all over again with new color illustrations and an exclusive new chapter of the Greenwich College saga!
608 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2010
3 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
Queenie Chan
45 books86 followersQueenie Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1980, and migrated to Australia when she was six years old. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems, but didn’t follow that career path due to graduating in 2002, in the middle of the dot-com bust. In 2004, she began drawing a 3-volume mystery-horror series called “The Dreaming” for LA-based manga publisher TOKYOPOP. To date, it has been translated into multiple languages.
She has since collaborated on several single-volume graphic novels with best-selling author Dean Koontz, as prequels to his “Odd Thomas” series of novels. After that, she worked on Small Shen, the prequel to Kylie Chan’s “White Tiger” Chinese fantasy series.
She is currently living in Sydney, Australia, and is working on a series of 8 short ghost stories, titled “The Man with the Axe in his Back”. It will be out as e-books in both prose and comics-prose format in August 2014.
She has since collaborated on several single-volume graphic novels with best-selling author Dean Koontz, as prequels to his “Odd Thomas” series of novels. After that, she worked on Small Shen, the prequel to Kylie Chan’s “White Tiger” Chinese fantasy series.
She is currently living in Sydney, Australia, and is working on a series of 8 short ghost stories, titled “The Man with the Axe in his Back”. It will be out as e-books in both prose and comics-prose format in August 2014.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 28, 2021
Reread Aug 2021. Thoroughly enjoyed this first reread. I only vaguely remembered the details so was able to read it with fresh eyes. My previous review stands. This time I still found the book atmospheric and truly creepy at times.
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Reason for Reading: Boarding school horror? Hello? I am so there!
Anyone who missed out on this manga trilogy the first time around is in for a treat with this omnibus edition that includes all three volumes plus an extra short story. The book also starts with gorgeous full colour illustrations and ends with an in-depth interview with the author.
Written by an Australian, set in the Australian Bush in an eerie Victorian Boarding School in the middle of nowhere, this is a classic Gothic horror tale. Twin sisters arrive at the school after there parents divorce via the ministrations of their aunt, but they must pretend they are one year apart as the owner of the school does not permit twins entrance. The creepy looking, old and violent tempered Mrs. Skeener isn't fooled for one minute though. The girls find the school strange right from the start when they see the room at the end of one of the halls that has been sealed off and wall-papered right over with a small but creepy painting on it. In fact the entire school is hung with an art collection done by an anonymous former student; the paintings are Victorian in nature but very macabre. The dreams begin right away. Both girls start having the same dreams and then they start to vary slightly. Then it happens, a girl disappears but she's not the first. Over the years a girl has disappeared every year or so, way back to the school's Victorian origins when a party of ten girls and a schoolmistress vanished in the bush. At this point the twins realize that their dreams may have some connection to solving the sinister secret of Greenwich Private College.
Holy wow! This was fantastic! I love boarding school stories and this is as creepy, eerie and Gothic as it gets. A story that sucks you in and keeps you turning the pages but not too fast as I just loved Queenie Chan's art, especially her architectural details of the building both inside and out. I was hooked with this manga and read the entire book in one sitting, getting up only for a couple of stretches. There is a lot to the story including background on the characters, foreshadowing and creepy reveals. The main characters are wonderfully portrayed; both through text and illustration we get a clear sense of their personalities, even the twins are distinctly unique persons. The plot unravels slowly through the first volume and then picks up speed very fast in volumes 2 and 3 ending in an eerie fashion typical of the genre. The added short story is wickedly fun and I'm sure fans will enjoy owning a copy of this new collected edition. This is a treasure I'll go back and read again sometime.
-------------------------------------------
Reason for Reading: Boarding school horror? Hello? I am so there!
Anyone who missed out on this manga trilogy the first time around is in for a treat with this omnibus edition that includes all three volumes plus an extra short story. The book also starts with gorgeous full colour illustrations and ends with an in-depth interview with the author.
Written by an Australian, set in the Australian Bush in an eerie Victorian Boarding School in the middle of nowhere, this is a classic Gothic horror tale. Twin sisters arrive at the school after there parents divorce via the ministrations of their aunt, but they must pretend they are one year apart as the owner of the school does not permit twins entrance. The creepy looking, old and violent tempered Mrs. Skeener isn't fooled for one minute though. The girls find the school strange right from the start when they see the room at the end of one of the halls that has been sealed off and wall-papered right over with a small but creepy painting on it. In fact the entire school is hung with an art collection done by an anonymous former student; the paintings are Victorian in nature but very macabre. The dreams begin right away. Both girls start having the same dreams and then they start to vary slightly. Then it happens, a girl disappears but she's not the first. Over the years a girl has disappeared every year or so, way back to the school's Victorian origins when a party of ten girls and a schoolmistress vanished in the bush. At this point the twins realize that their dreams may have some connection to solving the sinister secret of Greenwich Private College.
Holy wow! This was fantastic! I love boarding school stories and this is as creepy, eerie and Gothic as it gets. A story that sucks you in and keeps you turning the pages but not too fast as I just loved Queenie Chan's art, especially her architectural details of the building both inside and out. I was hooked with this manga and read the entire book in one sitting, getting up only for a couple of stretches. There is a lot to the story including background on the characters, foreshadowing and creepy reveals. The main characters are wonderfully portrayed; both through text and illustration we get a clear sense of their personalities, even the twins are distinctly unique persons. The plot unravels slowly through the first volume and then picks up speed very fast in volumes 2 and 3 ending in an eerie fashion typical of the genre. The added short story is wickedly fun and I'm sure fans will enjoy owning a copy of this new collected edition. This is a treasure I'll go back and read again sometime.
November 30, 2018
A pretty average manga but still very enjoyable. This was at times quite creepy and I LOVED that this was set in Australia and had aboriginal mythology. The artwork was nice and the story was ok.
February 28, 2013
I liked this a lot. I loved that it was set in Australia and incorporated Dreamtime themes. The images were wonderful - I was surprised that they were so effective at conveying menace and dread. Now that I have finished the (satisfyingly creepy) story I am going to go back and spend some time appreciating the details, particularly the gorgeous Victorian costumes.
April 27, 2016
Creepy gothic manga set in Australia. Twin girls get shipped off to stay with their aunt at a remote boarding school, where strange disappearances are becoming too commonplace. I probably shouldn't have read this one after dark.
March 19, 2024
Still eery and spooky!!
June 9, 2018
“But let's face it—if the three of us can't outrun an old woman lugging an axe, then perhaps we deserve to be chopped up.”
A myth of the old world is mapped onto the new, with terrifying results, in this three volume graphic novel by artist/writer Queenie Chan.
Jeanie and Amber are twins, who have learned to rely on each other in place of their distant parents. Arriving at the prestigious Greenwich Private College, located in the depths of the Australian bush, they are told they have been enrolled as sisters born a year apart and to not reveal the truth. “There are rumours about this school,” their Aunt tells them, “And I suppose the Vice Principal believes in some of them.” As nightmares follow the discovery of disturbing paintings by a former student, it is revealed that Mrs Skeener does believe the rumours about what twins can awaken within the ancient bush and for a very good reason.
This is a complex narrative combining tropes of gothic horror, a manga aesthetic and indigenous mythology in a way that, while it may not satisfy purists, is both consistent and interesting. On one level, it is yet another story about why bringing psychic powers (“There are lots of superstitions involving twins”) into a haunted house is a bad idea—at least Amber is sufficiently cluey to protest the slumber party séance. But on another, it is concerned with the gothic idea that the crimes of the past stain the future, given a satisfyingly colonial resonance. The Australian setting is introduced subtly yet powerfully, in the discovery of the trees that “weep blood” and history of Ms Anu, gradually revealed to be an indigenous girl who attended Greenwich on a scholarship, returning as a teacher with her own agenda. Even the school's original purpose, as a dumping ground for the unwanted, seems a reflection.
There are many reflections, morphings of arms into branches and hair into water, and repeating motifs of mirrors and moons. But visually, I never found these books confusing. The strong, flowing lines of the artwork create direction within the pages. The use of odd angles and receding perspectives of corridor and grove keeps everything dynamic, as well as suggesting the off-kilter world of the school. Details of surpassing delicacy, the pattern of wall paper or the ornament of lamps, provide variation without distraction; there is a definite flavour of Art Nouveau as well as of traditional manga.
In her original afterword to the first volume, Chan explains that her inspiration lay in the fate of a former classmate, who vanished while hiking in Tasmania. This is Australia as the vast unknown, that swallows up the unwary with never a trace. Many have drawn on this wellspring, to vastly different results. The Dreaming was released in the same year as the film Wolf Creek (Wr. & Dir. Greg McLean, AFFC et al.) and the differences between the two narratives could not be more marked (incidentally, The Dreaming was optioned by Odins Eye Productions in 2010). In Wolf Creek and its subsequent spin-offs, the danger of the bush is incarnated by a middle-aged white man, the explorer, miner and disenfranchised farmer who preys on subsequent, softer intrusions. The Dreaming utilises an older symbolism, the legendary of the Yalanji indigenous nation.
I grew up with The Quinkins (Percy Trezise, illustrated by Dick Roughsey, Collins, 978) and for this reason, they shall always haunt the bush for me. This kind of borrowing from an indigenous culture has become increasingly problematic for a non-indigenous author, but I support Chan's decision. As indicated, she consciously and visually maps a European-style fairy tale over the Australian setting. The fairy tale is how the girls, all aliens themselves, make sense of the horror that is engulfing them (in the same way that Jeanie quotes Tolkien and the character Millie, of all things, H. P. Lovecraft). They have no direct access to the Quinkins or to the original perspective that created them. The heroic Ms Anu is aware of them as a tradition of her people, but even she has to wade through the mire of colonialism to rediscover it. The Yalanji knew better than anyone how cruel their home could be and Chan adapts their iconography to suggest what is really out there, not to appropriate it for her own narrative.
The key to both the narrative of The Dreaming and its art is slippage—of form through form, identity through identity and time through time. In recent time, Chan has created the Fabled Kingdom and illustrated a series continuing the adventures of Dean R. Koontz's Odd Thomas in comic form. But I still find The Dreaming to be among her most intriguing works. If the conclusion drawn by this tale of female friendship and betrayal is harsh, there is no denying the beauty of the telling or the validity of the emotions involved. “I wasn't wrong,” Mrs Skeener says to Jeanie. She may not have been right, but who can say with certainty they would have done any different? Sometimes, even the things you are most sure of can slip irresistibly away...
A myth of the old world is mapped onto the new, with terrifying results, in this three volume graphic novel by artist/writer Queenie Chan.
Jeanie and Amber are twins, who have learned to rely on each other in place of their distant parents. Arriving at the prestigious Greenwich Private College, located in the depths of the Australian bush, they are told they have been enrolled as sisters born a year apart and to not reveal the truth. “There are rumours about this school,” their Aunt tells them, “And I suppose the Vice Principal believes in some of them.” As nightmares follow the discovery of disturbing paintings by a former student, it is revealed that Mrs Skeener does believe the rumours about what twins can awaken within the ancient bush and for a very good reason.
This is a complex narrative combining tropes of gothic horror, a manga aesthetic and indigenous mythology in a way that, while it may not satisfy purists, is both consistent and interesting. On one level, it is yet another story about why bringing psychic powers (“There are lots of superstitions involving twins”) into a haunted house is a bad idea—at least Amber is sufficiently cluey to protest the slumber party séance. But on another, it is concerned with the gothic idea that the crimes of the past stain the future, given a satisfyingly colonial resonance. The Australian setting is introduced subtly yet powerfully, in the discovery of the trees that “weep blood” and history of Ms Anu, gradually revealed to be an indigenous girl who attended Greenwich on a scholarship, returning as a teacher with her own agenda. Even the school's original purpose, as a dumping ground for the unwanted, seems a reflection.
There are many reflections, morphings of arms into branches and hair into water, and repeating motifs of mirrors and moons. But visually, I never found these books confusing. The strong, flowing lines of the artwork create direction within the pages. The use of odd angles and receding perspectives of corridor and grove keeps everything dynamic, as well as suggesting the off-kilter world of the school. Details of surpassing delicacy, the pattern of wall paper or the ornament of lamps, provide variation without distraction; there is a definite flavour of Art Nouveau as well as of traditional manga.
In her original afterword to the first volume, Chan explains that her inspiration lay in the fate of a former classmate, who vanished while hiking in Tasmania. This is Australia as the vast unknown, that swallows up the unwary with never a trace. Many have drawn on this wellspring, to vastly different results. The Dreaming was released in the same year as the film Wolf Creek (Wr. & Dir. Greg McLean, AFFC et al.) and the differences between the two narratives could not be more marked (incidentally, The Dreaming was optioned by Odins Eye Productions in 2010). In Wolf Creek and its subsequent spin-offs, the danger of the bush is incarnated by a middle-aged white man, the explorer, miner and disenfranchised farmer who preys on subsequent, softer intrusions. The Dreaming utilises an older symbolism, the legendary of the Yalanji indigenous nation.
I grew up with The Quinkins (Percy Trezise, illustrated by Dick Roughsey, Collins, 978) and for this reason, they shall always haunt the bush for me. This kind of borrowing from an indigenous culture has become increasingly problematic for a non-indigenous author, but I support Chan's decision. As indicated, she consciously and visually maps a European-style fairy tale over the Australian setting. The fairy tale is how the girls, all aliens themselves, make sense of the horror that is engulfing them (in the same way that Jeanie quotes Tolkien and the character Millie, of all things, H. P. Lovecraft). They have no direct access to the Quinkins or to the original perspective that created them. The heroic Ms Anu is aware of them as a tradition of her people, but even she has to wade through the mire of colonialism to rediscover it. The Yalanji knew better than anyone how cruel their home could be and Chan adapts their iconography to suggest what is really out there, not to appropriate it for her own narrative.
The key to both the narrative of The Dreaming and its art is slippage—of form through form, identity through identity and time through time. In recent time, Chan has created the Fabled Kingdom and illustrated a series continuing the adventures of Dean R. Koontz's Odd Thomas in comic form. But I still find The Dreaming to be among her most intriguing works. If the conclusion drawn by this tale of female friendship and betrayal is harsh, there is no denying the beauty of the telling or the validity of the emotions involved. “I wasn't wrong,” Mrs Skeener says to Jeanie. She may not have been right, but who can say with certainty they would have done any different? Sometimes, even the things you are most sure of can slip irresistibly away...
October 15, 2021
I picked this up at random from the library and it wound up being the perfect October read: an atmospheric haunted school with elements of possession, Aboriginal mythology, ominous dreams, seances, psycho girls with knives, sins of the past catching up to the present, etc. My favorite movie is Suspiria, so clearly I'm a sucker for the "schoolgirls solving a supernatural mystery" subgenre of horror and fantasy. The artwork is beautiful; Queenie Chan clearly relishes the opportunity to draw Victorian costumes and architecture, and the setting is rendered in exquisite, meticulous detail.
May 24, 2018
Great creepy graphic novel. The plot pulled in many fun myths from various cultures that I've never seen before, ,and the dark vibe of the setting was rather interesting. As a whole the plot didn't seem to move all that much until the ending, but it was an interesting read as a whole.
February 18, 2021
The atmosphere of this still gets me to this day. I feel unsettled as I read it, and the story came together so nicely. Or rather, so unnicely. And those dresses! Scary or not, you gotta love those dresses!
January 18, 2024
Such a fun and spooky manga good for middle school students all the way up to adults! Beautiful and creepy artwork, and an air of eerieness and mystery in the story. A great series that will have you plugging in a nightlight when you go to bed!
December 15, 2017
3.75 stars.
Interesting story. Would love to see more of the story of Millie and her family.
Interesting story. Would love to see more of the story of Millie and her family.
June 24, 2019
Yo I forgot how creepy this was...
Side note- why did my mom let me read this when I was 10?????
Side note- why did my mom let me read this when I was 10?????
July 17, 2021
I read this manga when I was a teen. I don't remember the story well but back then I found it quite creepy and very enjoyable.
March 4, 2022
Overall: mysterious, suspenseful, enchanting. This 3-book graphic novel collection had lots of fun twists and turns. It was delightfully creepy and darker than I expected! I enjoyed the almost entirely female cast and how so many elements of the horror genre were intertwined in this story.
March 14, 2025
A criminally underrated OEL manga that blends dark academia, supernatural horror and Lovecraftian terror. So many scenes perfectly instill creeping dread, and there are several page-turn reveals that still stick in my mind when I think of masterful use of the medium.
July 7, 2013
The Dreaming is a lite horror manga. Set in an extremely remote Australian bush area, a set of twins begin attending a boarding school. Girls get abducted, people disappear or change into someone else, and no one can really figure out what is going on. Who or what is wrecking havoc on this school? You will have to read on to see how all it plays out.
The artwork is bit bad at all; I think it kind of has a slight American comic feel to it even though the artist is from Australia. While not very scary (which is good because I don't like to read things that scare me), the novel turns out to be a page turner to find out what exactly is going on at this school.
It was missing a wow factor and any sort of other things like comedy or romance to punch it up in my opinion, therefore I give it a solid 3 stars since it was by no means a bad read but not exciting.
The artwork is bit bad at all; I think it kind of has a slight American comic feel to it even though the artist is from Australia. While not very scary (which is good because I don't like to read things that scare me), the novel turns out to be a page turner to find out what exactly is going on at this school.
It was missing a wow factor and any sort of other things like comedy or romance to punch it up in my opinion, therefore I give it a solid 3 stars since it was by no means a bad read but not exciting.
December 9, 2010
(3.5 / 5) I picked up this manga because the storyline seemed like an homage to "Picnic at Hanging Rock", one of my all time favourite movies. Focusing on the mysterious disappearances of schoolgirls at a boarding school in the middle of the Australian bush, "The Dreaming" is a beautifully illustrated story - sumptuously detailed, in fact - but it is let down by the story that runs out of steam towards the end and doesn't live up to what it hinted at in the beginning. It is still a good read, though, and enjoyable.
January 22, 2018
This book is about these two girls that get sent to a privet school in the middle of no where and Jennie she has nightmares and she always sleeps and the nightmares start coming true.This book is a graphic novel and I like this book because this book is about mysteries. The people that likes comic books and like to read about mysteries would like this book. i recommend this book to middle schoolers and high schoolers.
April 30, 2014
This is such a thick book and I cannot believe how quickly I got through it. Something new and exciting happens every time you turn the page. Quite scary in some parts though so it's good for me because I like that kind of book but just to warn you, the pages make you jump as if you were watching a movie.
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July 4, 2017Must have must have must have must have!!!
July 17, 2014
I give it 4.5 stars for a manga/graphic novel.
January 27, 2014
I have read this at least 4 times! I love it, and I hope that queenie writes more books :)
July 10, 2014
Interesting plot line. It makes me want to read more of her stuff!
August 2, 2024
Great look. I love the designs of the Victorian outfits.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews