“Within only fifty million years of this, life makes its debut. Eden was white-hot and radioactive. Eve and Adam were both anaerobic, breathed formaldehyde and cyanide.”
— Alan Moore. Snakes and Ladders
“Snakes and Ladders is currently available as a CD and comic. What’s it about? Well, it’s about Oliver Cromwell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the dawn of time and the information explosion, magic , the DNA double helix, and author Arthur Machen’s breakdown after the death of his wife, all in or around the Red Lion Square area of London.
Snakes and Ladders is a board game, here usually called Chutes and Ladders, where you can advance if you land on a ladder, or fall back if you land on a snake/chute. Moore uses the game as a metaphor for how life can be random. He also explores snakes in creation myths and as a metaphor for DNA.
It’s not for everybody, and you may have to listen to it several times to follow and enjoy, but if you have an appreciation of Alan Moore’s language and an interest in sometimes obscure English history, give it a try.”
— by Stephen Bitsoli @ http://bitsolisbibliofiles.blogspot.com/2011/07/snakes-and-ladders.html
Of the 6 or 7 CDs of Spoken Word by Alan Moore, this (along with MOON & SERPENT, recorded at the same time in 1999) is Moore’s finest hour, and one of the most haunting, insightful, and mind blowing CDs of all time. A+.
Heroic Times 