This book is full to the brim with wonderful pirate tropes. Without this, the pirate genre in general may well never have been so popular, and would definitely be very different. This was a very influential novel.

The story is narrated by Jim Hawkins, a boy who works at an inn, He has a fairly normal life there, until somebody named Billy Bones comes to stay and then somebody named Black Dog comes by looking for him. Before long, Billy Bones is dead, and Jim finds himself in possession of an old treasure map that used to belong to him and decides to set out on an adventure. He comes into contact with an old sea cook named Long John Silver, then they start their quest to find the treasure.

As I mentioned at the start, this book is full of typical pirate tropes, and I love it for that! I love the pirate genre and in this book you have pirates with pet parrots, mysterious tropical islands, lots of references to real life pirates, life out on the sea and all other wonderful things. My favourite part, actually, is probably when they are wandering around on the island at night, I don’t want to spoil it, but what happens is really quite creepy and certainly left a lasting impression on me.

One downside, though, is that while this is a moderately short novel, it still manages to be a little be boring at times. The boring sections never last for any significant length of time, but, I found sometimes something interesting will happen, and then immediately after something mediocre will happen and your excitement will go if you continue reading. I also felt that, while there were some rather interesting characters in the novel, Jim wasn’t really one of them, the narrator just seems to be a generic boy of his time and is not really very exciting, especially when compared to the likes of Long John Silver (who is a very good character)

Still, this novel is definitely worth reading, especially for those who are fans of the pirate genre!

Rating: 7.9/10

Buy it here.

This graphic novel is a sequel to the first League of Extraordinary Gentleman book, and also, quite cleverly, takes place during the novel The War of the Worlds, telling us what all of the characters (who are all taken from other novels) did during the invasion of Earth.

I think the alien invasion storyline is a big step-up from the first one; it gives the whole thing a much bigger feeling of suspense and really raises the stakes too. Without wanting to spoil anything, I will tell you that the team will have some significant personal losses during the course of the story. What I did find, though, was that this second volume was much more sexually explicit than the last and, since this is a graphic novel, there are some very graphic images that go along with these scenes, so, I thought I had better put a warning!

On the subject of images, this volume, just like the first, is illustrated by Kevin O’Neill, and a very good job he does too! Again, there is a wonderful feeling to the nineteenth century England which is created through the pictures, and they’re able to set the tone of the piece quite well. I was also especially fond of the way the tripods were depicted: large and menacing, but cool and steampunk-y at the same time! Also, there are small easter eggs (most commonly references to classic novels) hidden in the background of scenes and whatnot, which are fun to spot.

I think this is a nice step up from the first one in terms of quality, and anybody who enjoyed that, should definitely read this one too! I’ll also add, that while this is a sequel, it works perfectly well as a standalone too, you don’t really need to have read the first one to be able to enjoy this, and, in fact, I hadn’t read the first when I first read this! It’s just a wonderful crossover of literary characters in the nineteenth century.

Rating: 9/10

Buy it here.