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This is not a review. I cannot review this thing anymore than i could review the Sun, which is what this is to me. The object around which my entire literary life has revolved for many years. This is the reason i've read over 400 novels.

It is not a comic or a novel, it is an annual, a scrapbook, an appendix, a sourcebook, a Bible. The other League comics are mere stories. This is the world those stories exist in.
Prolix and profound, vulgar and erudite, filthy and funny, pretentious and dazzling, a concept made manifest.

So i cannot review this properly all i will say is, whoo hoo!

Also a second whoo hoo! because the fabled missing LP has escaped onto the net.

https://dorkforty.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/alan-moores-immortal-love/
https://glycon.livejournal.com/17153.html
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/10/24/the-black-dossier-vinyl-record-on-youtub... ( )

La ausencia de trama y una, a mi juicio, excesiva autoconciencia respecto de los principales valores de los tomos anteriores (la generación de un mundo construido a partir de ficciones literarias) pesan en la valoración de esta obra. Junto con pasajes realmente brillantes hay otros literalmente inexplicables. Los personajes parecen sacrificar su propia consistencia como tales a algunas de las manías de Moore. Hay, por otro lado, ajustes de cuentas sociales, políticos e ideológicos que no aparecían en tomos anteriores -quizá por la mayor cercanía de las ficciones que le dan forma-, lo que le resta encanto frente -sobre todo- al primer tomo, donde el cariño por los personajes y las obras originales era palpable. ( )

Largely disappointing, but with some nuggets of gold. I find "The Black Dossier" improves a lot if read in chronological order (the frame story is set in 1958), following the first third of "Century" (set in 1910) and (to a lesser extent) the first two "Nemo" books. This, together with "The New Traveller's Almanac" in the back of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlement Vol. II", gives a lot of badly needed contextual information. Orlando is no longer a nobody to the reader, but an established part of the league. The Lovecraftian elements are now a natural continuation of Nemo I and Nemo II's expeditions. And the end with the Blazing World no longer feels quite as much out of nowhere, and is rather a reasonable tonal transition from the earlier stories to the more high concept later installments.

But that said, this is hardly a good story. There is the gist of one, a decent spy thriller story of betrayals and secrets that Quatermain and Murray find themselves in the middle of, but it drowns in the interspersed lenghty pages of the Dossier, and the trippy end sequence in the Blazing World that (even with the abovementioned contextual information) is not at all entertaining.

As for the Dossier documents themselves, they are -- understandably -- a very mixed bag. Each file in it will indubitably be much more entertaining and engrossing for a reader familiar with and (better) interested in the genre or property being pastiched. I personally loved Bertie Wooster's encounter with a Lovecraftian horror, for instance, and the insights into the original Victorian league's formation and Murray's activities between 1899 and the 1950s. Their fight with their French counterparts before World War One in particular captivated me, and I can't help but feel I'd much rather have had the comic version of that then the metaphysical 'what is the relationship between fiction and realituy' tangent that Moore jarringly in this frame story insists on pulling the narrative towards.
Other parts of the documents are -- to my subjective experience -- terrible. The stream-of-consciousness-style one I couldn't even get through, though I soldiered through everything else. But again, I'm sure most of this is someone's cup of tea, if they like and know the types of text being imitated and understand all the references. Though I suspect Moore's clear fascination with the pornographic aspect of human storytelling might get old for many (I know it did for me).

All in all, a very disappointing read if you're looking for a Volume III to follow up the splendid first two installments of this famous comic. But as a world resource book, it's impressive, and the gradual discovery of the recently-ended "Big Brother" IngSoc-regime in England through the notes in the margins and dialogue in the frame story is both interesting and chilling. The changes in time periods, genres, content and style also ensures that this, unlike endless geographical droning on in "The New Traveller's Almanac" (a natural comparison as it is the Dossier's closest counterpart in the entire saga), never becomes an insurmountable block of text. If you don't like one file, you have a new chance at the next.

And the way Moore takes James Bond down a few pegs without at all making him less competent is both amusing, cool and chilling. Had the story ended on that beat, rather than the self-indulgent Blazing World coda, I might have given the entire thing another star. ( )

Compared to the previous League works, this was at times way overdone. While a lot of readers seem to lavish Moore with praise, in a way, this was reminiscent of the creative extension assignment I used to give my high school students when we read 1984 in class; that often had mixed results. It reminded me due to the various pastiches, collages, and various formats Moore employed, and all that had mixed results for my reading experience. Very well developed, yet at times it is clear Moore is going over the edge, so to say. I did an initial reading, and it is clear I will go back again and read it more closely. So in that sense, in that it lends itself to multiple readings, this is a very good work. It does help to have read the other two, and if you have done some other literary reading, it helps as well. In a way, this is very much like reading Watchmen. However, I think that, unlike Watchmen, Moore may have been trying a bit too hard with this one. The whole 3D thing at the end, while neat, did seem a bit excessive. It was the excess that made me give the three stars; I liked it. That's good enough.

And I will still look forward to the next volume. ( )