The Island Of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells

I'm sure the story of this book is known vaguely by a lot of people, at least I had some knowledge of it prior to picking it up, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it until I read a review on a book called The Madman's Daughter a few weeks ago.

The Madman's Daughter is a sequel of sorts to Moreau, though penned by a different author, it tells the story of Moreau's daughter and her quest to find her father. The review made it sound like such a great read, but I thought I had better start off with the original, which I've just finished.

Without saying too much, The Island...is the story of Pendrick, a man who survives a shipwreck and is saved by another boat, only to be thrown from that one when it makes it's next stop to allow fellow traveller Montgomery to disembark to an island.
On this island, Montgomery introduces Pendrick to a Dr. Moreau, a secretive man, and they decide Pendrick will have to stay, as boats do not often pass by them.
Pendrick is unable to leave the mysterious of the island alone, he is too curious and oddly disgusted by the other inhabitants of the island, dark faced people with strange gaits, and what is all that screaming coming from Moreau's "room"...

As I've said I already had some vague ideas as to what the book was about, and because of that the pulp of the story was not a surprise to me. I think these kind of stories, especially by Wells, rely on that shock factor, that moment where the audience and the protagonist's thoughts align as they come to the big realisation of the story together, but I missed out on that having already known or guessed what the inhabitants of the island were.

Saying that though, the writing and the pace are fantastic, and the amount of mystery, and wells decision to unveil slowly rather than one big "Ta Da!" in the climax works really well and balances the story on a precipice  so that even in the last few pages, you're wondering if something's going to change to tip the story the other way.

I'm not a big sci-fi reader really, but I'm embarking on the challenge of writing a dystopian script right now so I felt this book could only help!

Have you read this book, or it's "sequel"? What did you think?