Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard (REVIEW)
Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard (REVIEW)
Ladies and gentlemen - it is finally here! The long awaited sequel to Henry Rider Haggard’s classic work of adventurous fiction (and that’s fiction, not fantasy; this ain’t no Lord Of The Rings, kid - all of the action occurs in places that you can locate on a map...a real map...but I mean what even is a “real” map anyway? It is not like any of the names of these towns, cities, countries, states, oceans, bays, rivers, lakes, islands, forests, mountains - anything featured on a map, really - were dictated to us from some divine source, unless you consider cartography to be the work of God’s disciples. I personally do not; I consider cartography to be a confusing career for confused people to learn how to further confuse people, a la Buster Bluth. That’s just me, though. But, yeah, maps are all just guesswork. Nobody knows what these places are actually supposed to be called. What if God comes down from Heaven, or the Northwest Territories, and tells us that Equatorial Guinea, for instance, is actually supposed to be called “Porter Land”? What, then would we do? Well, we would first have to recall all the world’s maps. That would be the first order of business. Then, we would have to get in contact with the government of Equatorial Guinea and let them know about the proposed change, which is going to be quite a challenge considering the country is dominated by a highly corrupt one party state led by the same dictator that has been running it since he helped get his uncle killed, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Nevertheless, we are going to have to figure out a way to do it. We cannot let tyrants get in the way of our mission to honor the word of God. That would be an affront to God - and that is not what we are about. Last time we did that we almost lost all of the animals in a huge flood. We can’t afford another flood - not now, especially. Social distancing would certainly make Noah’s job a lot harder.) King Solomon’s Mines. Written in the summer of 1885, Allan Quatermain continues the story of its titular protagonist as he processes the death of his only son.
It is a good book, to be sure. If you liked the first one in the series, it is very unlikely that you will not like this one. That is sort of the point of the serialized novel - it is meant to hook you in, like crack.
Just like crack.
