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A review by stopnodont
From Hell by Alan Moore
4.0
The word I've settled on to describe this book is: Arduous.
The beginning is brutal. Characters are introduced quickly and the art style does the reader no favors. It's hard to keep track of who's who and what's what. The phonetically-written period dialect requires active translation while reading, despite being very well-executed. This burden continues for quite some time, probably 100 pages or more.
Then, slowly, you realize that you know exactly what's going on and there haven't been any new characters introduced for a while. You start to settle in and get comfortable, and soon the pages are turning quickly. It's never truly thrilling, but by the midpoint of the book it's anything but the chore it began as.
All of that said, this is an impressive piece of historical fiction. The eventual appendices and citations make it clear that a massive amount of effort was put into this book, and although it's all just a very detailed conspiracy theory, this version of the Jack The Ripper tale is as canonical as any other.
This is one of those books that you greatly revere but you're not sure who to recommend it to. You might be inclined to recommend this to an enemy before a friend. This book is brilliant, and I am so glad it's over.
The beginning is brutal. Characters are introduced quickly and the art style does the reader no favors. It's hard to keep track of who's who and what's what. The phonetically-written period dialect requires active translation while reading, despite being very well-executed. This burden continues for quite some time, probably 100 pages or more.
Then, slowly, you realize that you know exactly what's going on and there haven't been any new characters introduced for a while. You start to settle in and get comfortable, and soon the pages are turning quickly. It's never truly thrilling, but by the midpoint of the book it's anything but the chore it began as.
All of that said, this is an impressive piece of historical fiction. The eventual appendices and citations make it clear that a massive amount of effort was put into this book, and although it's all just a very detailed conspiracy theory, this version of the Jack The Ripper tale is as canonical as any other.
This is one of those books that you greatly revere but you're not sure who to recommend it to. You might be inclined to recommend this to an enemy before a friend. This book is brilliant, and I am so glad it's over.