Considering the recent mishegoss involving J.K. Rowling, I was inspired to reread THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: CENTURY.
The book kicks off with a prologue that reimagines THE THREE PENNY OPERA through the lens of Alan Moore while setting up a thinly-disguised Aleister Crowley's plot to generate the Anti-Christ, a scheme that spans the titular century. The remainder of the narrative skips ahead to the 1969, 1977, and the present day of 2009, and it's the usual festival of Moore's showing off of how much disparate pulp fiction and pop culture he has absorbed (which some find confusing and tiresome, but which I find a lot of fun). The segment in 1969 is awash with the mod psychedelia and excesses of swinging '60's England, the 1977 section conjures up the feel of first wave U.K. punk, and through it all we see the seeds sown for a twisted take on J.K. Rowling's kid-friendly world building (which is pointedly NOT kid-friendly here). It's an admitted hodgepodge but definitely worth reading. A dense work but a deft cocktail of the dark and utterly absurd.
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