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Nemo: The Roses of Berlin by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill

Holy moly, it's six years since I read a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-connected book. That's partly my own fault, because two volumes of Nemo have been out for almost all of that time; but between July 2018 and July 2019 they published the final League adventure, which I've recently purchased in its collected hardback form, so I'm catching up on those two remaining spin-offs before I dive into that. And then maybe a re-read of the entire series, because it's been a very, very long time since I read the first two volumes (I don't know how long exactly, but looking at my blog archives I can see I read the third book, Black Dossier, in the middle of 2008!)

As for The Roses of Berlin, it's a fun adventure, though it made for a somewhat halting read because of the amount that's in German. Maybe us English readers are meant to just skim past that, but I felt the need to translate it just in case, and so read the whole book accompanied by Jess Nevins’ annotations — interesting and insightful, but reading them alongside the book makes for a rather stop-start experience. I’m sure there’s an argument for authenticity in having the German characters speak German, but it would make for a smoother read if they didn’t. One other thing: there are clearly some plot elements of this that do make it a sequel to the first Nemo book, not just a standalone second adventure, and there are tie-ins to other League stories too, so it was a shame it’s been so long since I read those. As I said, I should re-read all of the League-universe books in a more condensed timespan.