I’ve certainly been following Moore and O’Neill’s continued collaborations in the world of “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” having reviewed both “Heart of Ice” and “Roses of Berlin” for the site. And today, I’m very excited to bring you your first look at the finale to the trilogy, “River of Ghosts.” Take a look:
As seen on Top Shelf’s website, we also know a little bit more about the book itself now as well:
In a world where all the fictions ever written coalesce into a rich mosaic, it’s 1975. Janni Dakkar, pirate queen of Lincoln Island and head of the fabled Nemo family, is eighty years old and beginning to display a tenuous grasp on reality. Pursuing shadows from her past—or her imagination—she embarks on what may be a final voyage down the vastness of the Amazon, a last attempt to put to rest the blood-drenched spectres of old.
With allies and adversaries old and new, we accompany an ageing predator on her obsessive trek into the cultural landscape of a strange new continent, from the ruined city of Yu-Atlanchi to the fabulous plateau of Maple White Land. As the dark threads in her narrative are drawn into an inescapable web, Captain Nemo leads her hearse-black Nautilus in a desperate raid on horrors believed dead for decades.
Not to do the job of Jess Nevins for him, but I suppose it is worth mentioning that Yu-Atlanchi is a reference to “The Face in the Abyss” by A. Merritt, an adventure story about the search for lost Incan treasure, and the Maple White Land is a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World,” a story I’m sure many of you are familiar with from the numerous film adaptations. Also, from the cover we can see that the Hynkel Nazi analogue is still alive and well in 1975 courtesy of what I can only assume is a reference to Isla, She Wolf of the SS. Probably, right?
As O’Neill noted in our interview with him from earlier this year, “After doing a Lovecraft story, a second World War story, and now a South American jungle story effectively, it covers all the bases in adventure storytelling.”
“Nemo: River of Ghosts” is set for a Spring 2015 release so we’re still a ways away from seeing it. I for one am rather excited to see what old Nemo is up to in 1975, however, so next spring can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned.
