Bison Frontiers of Imagination
2 total works
There was a dark and sinister time in the early days of humankind, long before anyone had even dreamed of language, civilisation or fire. In Before Adam, Jack London, author of White Fang and The Call of the Wild, imagines an amazing fantasy where the modern day world meets the prehistoric. Tormented by a succession of terrifying dreams, a young American boy is faced with the strange truth that his consciousness has become intertwined with that of Big Tooth, his Mid-Pleistocene ancestor. Through these primeval dream memories, he witnesses Big Tooth's life - a life as one of the 'Folk' race, without developed language, social structure or fire. He sees, too, the Folk's fierce battles for survival against the more advanced Fire People, and the primitive Tree People. As he struggles to make sense of Big Tooth's world, he begins questioning the very notion of eugenics. Before Adam is Jack London's fictional tour de force. In it, he brilliantly recreates the dawn of humanity, depicting the prehistoric world as a place of dark conflict where only the strongest will survive.
Jack London's fabled powers to entertain and enthrall are in full force in this collection of fifteen fantastic tales. The restless energy of his vision ranges far in time and space, from the psychological tension of an extraterrestrial encounter to a frontier tall tale of a trapper hunting a mammoth. London tells an effective Victorian gothic story and offers an intriguing consideration of the science and problems of invisibility. Particularly gripping are the well-imagined horrors and new worlds of the future, including a chilling novella depicting a world ravaged by an alien virus. These remarkable stories testify to the wide-ranging creative power of one of America's great writers.