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March 28, 2024, 11:26:50 AM

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"The Assassination Bureau" by Jack London, and Jack London in general

Started by Mark Steels Stockbroker, April 26, 2018, 09:40:08 PM

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Mark Steels Stockbroker

Seeing as a few people looked at that thing I wrote about a Graham Masterton book over a year ago, maybe there is a CaB audience for a more recent one about Jack London that got little attention:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/SPAM/the-ethics-committee/10155961443866013/

Also another of his books mentioned years ago:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/SPAM/femitopia/10150299833276013/


Sin Agog

It's definitely a crying shame people don't know what a cosmic guru this guy could be.  They just tend to think of him as the dog guy.  But Star Rover (The Jacket) is one of the greatest proto-sci-fi things out there.  Based on, I think, his father's early dabblings with using straitjackets on certain prisoners, he interviewed one prisoner who claimed that the tighter the jacket was, and the more cut off he became from his own body, the greater became his abilities to channel up his racial memories.  Right up there with Voyage to Arcturus and The Night Land when it comes to head-spinning works of early 20th Century literature.

I believe he had a few short stories in a similar vein, and one really great proto-Mad Max post-apocalyptic novella.  Also, I really liked Before Adam about the travails of various species of early homunculi (must have been an influence on William Golding's The Inheritors).  Not read The Assassination Bureau yet (really should), though the Oliver Reed movie based on it was alright.  He's definitely got so much more going for him than just being the dog guy.


Mark Steels Stockbroker

I liked the film but it is tonally different to the book. At times it's a jolly old romp set in old Europe and other moments are getting close to heavy anti-war anti-establishment satire, and neither of those strands are exactly in the original text.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Primi Levi was a great admirer of the dog stories, so they shouldn't be underestimated if they could inspire an Auschwitz survivor.

Sin Agog

I'm not saying they're bad, but that they have a tendency to overshadow what a rich imagination he had.  Taken alone, Call of the Wild and White Fang show off his sort of manly tracker Nietzschean side, but the dude also knew how to sit down and dream up some rich worlds that, unlike a lot of the pulp that followed in the decades after his death, were well-written and never skimped on the subtext.  Loved that he was a committed socialist on top of all that.

Primo, by the way. 

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Gah typo.

Some of Levi's SciFi in The Sixth Day is very good.

Harlan Ellison referenced "The Star Rover" in his story Shatterday, which became a Twilight Zone episode starring young Bruce Willis.

ASFTSN

Quote from: Sin Agog on April 26, 2018, 10:02:13 PM
But Star Rover (The Jacket) is one of the greatest proto-sci-fi things out there.  Based on, I think, his father's early dabblings with using straitjackets on certain prisoners, he interviewed one prisoner who claimed that the tighter the jacket was, and the more cut off he became from his own body, the greater became his abilities to channel up his racial memories.  Right up there with Voyage to Arcturus and The Night Land when it comes to head-spinning works of early 20th Century literature.

Interested!

I have read some of his Klondike Tales.  They were great, and 'To Build A Fire' is harrowing and brutal.



Sin Agog