'The island was just the beginning...
'In H G Wells' 1896 novel The Island of Dr Moreau a shipwrecked traveller finds himself alone on an island ruled by a mad doctor and inhabited by creatures who are at once both beast and human. He escapes to civilisation only after the scientist is dead and the beast-men have taken absolute control. Yet this is not the end of the matter. The peoples of the island are not done with humanity. Now the conflict between the two has begun in earnest.
'The City of Dr Moreau presents a sprawling history of the islanders, and an alternative vision of our own times. Spanning more than a century, criss-crossing across numerous places and many lives, we witness the growth of Moreau's legacy, from gothic experiments to an event which changes the world. From the wharves of Victorian London to a boarding house with an inhuman resident, to an assassin on a twentieth-century train ordered to kill the one man who knows the truth to a diplomat whose mission to parley with beast-men will surely be her last, we follow secret skirmishes and hidden plots which emerge, eventually and violently, into the open.'
J.S. Barnes is no stranger to writing follow-ups to Victorian era fiction, Dracula's Child, also published through Titan Books last year, was an interesting and creative expansion upon Stoker's original work in a way that felt true to the original yet completely its own. Barnes is trying to do that again here with The City of Doctor Moreau, a companion piece to H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr Moreau.
Unlike with Dracula's Child I came to this book completely fresh, having never read the original work. As such, I don't know how well Barnes manages to recreate the writing style of Wells (something he did brilliantly with Stoker's writing); but it's easy to see how this book has a very different kind of voice to his other work, and very much feels like fiction from more than a century ago.
The book follows a number of different characters, across an ever expanding timeline as Barnes decides to focus on the world around Moreau, rather than simply trying to create what people would normally expect from a sequel. The story begins before the events of the original book, where we're introduced to several characters that will make multiple appearances across the narrative. This first time frame gives readers an insight into what led Doctor Moreau to leave his native home of London for his island home, shedding some light onto the characters past.
From here the book moves forward in time to a point that's almost running parallel to the original story, before jumping further forward to take place following the events of the book. This is really where the majority of the book takes place, as it explores the possibilities of what happened to the island and its inhabitants once the original tale had come to a close.
What's perhaps most interesting about the book and the way it's structured, however, is that it rarely focuses on the main events in its timeline. Instead, the book follows characters that are on the periphery of things, people who only discover some big event has happened after the fact. For example, we never see the inhabitants of the island taken away from their home directly, but we learn of it. We also don't see the construction or running of the titular city, but are there just after the revolution that takes place there. Barnes allows the reader to discover these major moments through outsiders looking in, much in the same way that most people learn about major events in the real world. We don't get to be a part of the revolutions, nor do we see the meetings that take place behind closed doors, but we do see the ripples these moments cause.
It's an interesting way to frame the book, and it's one that I'm not sure I've seen in other novels like this. Having been used to following characters that are the protagonists of their stories it feels unusual to have a book structured this way, though it proves to be an intriguing and entertaining way to learn about the world that Barnes is crafting here; using Wells' original work as a foundation.
As someone who hadn't read the original story I found this is be a great introduction to it. I learnt about the book, the characters, and their world without it ever feeling like it was required reading; or that the story was being spoilt for me. It was an imaginative and engaging tale that I'd have loved to have seen more of, to have spent more time with the characters to the point where I was a little sad to see it all come to an end.
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