***** - Excellent
**** - Good
*** - Okay
** - Bad
* - Terrible
+ - Half-star
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
Public Domain Books
Fiction, Fantasy
***+
DESCRIPTION: Few gentlemen in 19th-century London are as decent and upright as Dr. Henry Jekyll... which is why his lawyer friend, Mr. Utterson, is perplexed by the
man's associated with an unsavory fellow known as Hyde. He's even named the despicable, ill-reputed beast as an heir in his will! Convinced Jekyll is a victim of blackmail,
Utterson digs deeper - only to uncover a truth so terrible he can scarcely believe it.
REVIEW: Like many older stories, some allowances need to be made for an archaic writing style. Unfortunately, as a modern reader, I find that such allowances don't
do much to excuse the general tedium of stories like this. A long, slow build to a foregone conclusion runs headlong into a long, slow reflection by the doomed Dr. Jekyll as
he recounts the thought processes and experiments behind his greatest triumph and failure... a recounting full of gaps and self-pitying sidetracks. Compared to some other
classic sci-fi/fantasy tales, though, this story positively flies along. Stevenson also has some nice descriptive passages and a few characters that, while sketchily drawn,
nonetheless stand out distinctly in the memory. (Not all of them, unfortunately...) I'm glad I finally got around to reading it, but I doubt I'll bother reading it again.
You might also enjoy:
Frankenstein (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, Fiction - A doctor is plagued by his own abominable creation)
Testament of the Dragon (Margaret Weis, YA? Fiction - An English nobleman sells his soul to a dragon, earning immortality - but at a terrible price)
The Invisible Man (H. G. Wells, Fiction - A scientist's quest for invisibilty dooms his sanity, and his life)
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Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
Public Domain Books
Fiction, YA Adventure
***+
DESCRIPTION: Young Jim Hawkins never anticipated a life of adventure, content to live and work with his parents at the quiet Admiral Benbow inn... but when the surly
old sea dog came to stay, trouble soon found him. When the man breathes his last, he leaves behind a sea chest, a curious map, and a dark collection of murderous enemies. Jim
soon finds himself swept far away from the family inn, as part of an ill-fated expedition to Treasure Island searching for pirate treasure.
REVIEW: As I've mentioned previously, I keep meaning to expand my reading horizons beyond fantasy and the occasional sci-fi. It was also free on Kindle, so now seemed
as good a time as any to catch up on yet another classic I never got around to reading in my youth. It proved reasonably interesting, full of danger and adventure... and if
characterization tended to stereotype and Jim proved uncommonly lucky in his perpetual ability to win against all odds (or at least fail in beneficial ways), well, it is
ultimately a sailor's tale, and nobody exaggerates a tale quite like a salty sailor. The pirate slang and sea jargon grew thick at times, and the elder-day writing style
made for occasionally slow going, but overall it kept me reading. Not a bad story, and certainly worth the price. (I've read worse "classics," I can tell you that much.)
You might also enjoy:
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Avi, YA Fiction - A well-born girl on an ill-omened trans-Atlantic vessel finds herself accused of murder)
King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard, Fiction - Three Englishmen seek legendary diamonds in the heart of colonial Africa)
The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme series (Elizabeth Haydon, YA Fiction - In a magical world, a boy who yearns for adventure gets more than he bargained for)
Stowaway (Karen Hesse, YA Fiction - A boy stowaway joins Captain Cook's landmark circumnavigation of the globe)
The Liveship Traders trilogy (Robin Hobb, Fiction - Magical living ships ply the seas of a fantasy world)
Captains Courageous (Rudyard Kipling, YA? Fiction - Washed overboard, a spoiled American boy must work for his keep aboard a fishing schooner)
The Piratica series (Tanith Lee, YA Fiction - In an alternate Earth, a teen girl sets sail to become an honorable pirate queen, like her mother before her)
The Bloody Jack Adventures (L. A. Meyer, YA Fiction - A 17th-century London girl poses as a ship's boy on an English man-of-war, beginning a life of grand adventure)
Ghost Ship (Deitlof Rieche, YA Fiction - An old figurehead in a girl's tourist-trap family restaurant hides a long-lost secret of the sea)
Rogue Wave (Theodore Taylor, YA Fiction - Short stories of adventure by land, sea, and air)
The Crimson-Eyed Dragon (D. M. Trink, YA Fiction - A teen boy discovers secrets tied to a silver dragon statue from an antique store)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne, Fiction - Three men find themselves captive aboard a madman's revolutionary submarine)
The Goonies
(1985 movie DVD, boys embark on a modern-day pirate treasure hunt)
Treasure Planet
(2003 Disney animated movie DVD, an imaginative science-fantasy update of the classic tale)
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