Fantastic Tales by Jack London
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A collection of fantasy/horror stories by Jack London? This was my first thought after discovering this on the shelves of the library. As I found out later, much of London's writing is in this genre. I am a classic ghost story fan, and having enjoyed [b:The Call of the Wild/White Fang|37677|The Call of the Wild/White Fang|Jack London|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1168977937s/37677.jpg|6180419] as a child I thought I'd really like these. While it turns out the book is nothing like I thought, it was still enjoyable - albeit more for historical reasons than for entertainment value.
As it turns out only the first story in the book is anything resembling a ghost story. Most of the tales are classic science fiction, reminiscent of [a:H.G. Wells|880695|H.G. Wells|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1201281795p2/880695.jpg], or horror reminiscent of [a:H.P. Lovecraft|9494|H.P. Lovecraft|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1299165714p2/9494.jpg]. (What is it with initials?) While the short stories in this collection present some amusing or terrifying situations that are good ideas for fiction, the tales tend to bore me before they are over from lack of character development. However, that's a personal preference that wouldn't bother some others. I'm sure London's science fiction inspired many writers, as the forward in this version claims.
Other stories are just completely socialist propaganda, although I have to agree with the criticism that London, despite joining the party, never really understood the real structure that makes up the idealism of socialism. The socialistic worlds he creates in his stories function like the government of Stalin; not something that would convince too many people I don't think, but still interesting to the student of history or human nature.
There are a few stories that stand out in my mind as marvelous. One of these is the last story in this collection, "The Red One". This tale alone makes the entire book worth whatever boredom you might suffer in the dryer stories. I might go so far as to add "The Red One" to a list of must-reads for any reader of English.
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