The Scarlet Plague (Annotated), by Jack London
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The Scarlet Plague (Annotated), by Jack London
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Includes: -Biography Description: The year is 2072, and the earth has been depopulated by a plague epidemic that struck in 2013. The victims of the scarlet plague are dead within an hour or less of the first symptoms appearing. The plague is so swift that research laboratories are wiped out even as scientists are racing toward a cure. As panic spreads, order breaks down and looting and carnage reign. Broadcast stations fall silent. Aircraft fall from the sky as their pilots succumb. 60 years later an old man, Professor James Howard Smith, scrambles along overgrown railway tracks. He attempts to pass the flame of knowledge to his reluctant grandsons, who have known only a savage existence in an overgrown world - its graphic detail, vivid word-pictures, and remarkable prophetic accuracy make The Scarlet Plague one of the most memorable post-holocaust dystopian stories ever written. In a world of Swine Flu, germ-warfare and genetic splicing it makes the Scarlet Plague just that much more scary.
The Scarlet Plague (Annotated), by Jack London- Published on: 2015-03-10
- Released on: 2015-03-10
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"London's style is typically lush but his viewpoint is skeptical and dystopian . . . [the] story reminds us of the dangers we still court with our careless ways." —The Times
About the Author Jack London (1876-1916) was an American writer who produced two hundred short stories, more than four hundred nonfiction pieces, twenty novels, and three full-length plays in less than two decades. His best-known works include The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang.1875-1962
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Most helpful customer reviews
45 of 45 people found the following review helpful. The Way We Were By Greg Hughes Sixty years after a plague killed billions of people, an old man tries to convey to his three grandchildren what the world was once like so long ago.The cultured, civilized world of mass communication and technology abruptly gave way to a primitive, savage world of cruelty and barbarism. The survivors and their descendents now live like their stone-age forebears: wearing animal skins, hunting with bows and arrows and believing in superstition.In describing the plague's onslaught, the old man tells his grandchildren of the chaos and degradation that wiped out civilization. Money became worthless, the streets of burning cities were littered with corpses, animals grew wild as mankind lost his supremacy over nature.The three boys have a lot of trouble understanding the words "Granser" uses, due to their lack of education. (Even the word "education" is something the boys have never heard of.) Nevertheless, the old man does the best he can, in spite of the children's limited vocabulary.It's interesting to compare "The Scarlet Plague", which was written in 1912, to the more widely-known "Earth Abides". Both books are set in the same place. They both contain that sense of nostalgia, where old men, left over from the "lost world" yearn for a past that was more attractive.This could well be the blueprint for life-after-the-apocalypse stories. If this story hadn't been written, their would probably never have been such books as "Earth Abides", "The Day of the Triffids", "Empty World" or "The Stand."
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. a child's great first science fiction story. By A Customer I found this book among my ninth birthay presents and loved it from the first page. what got to me was the description of a way in which everything we know could be destroyed in a few weeks. Also my boyish imagination and dark side were thrilled about the possibility of being left alone in a city, free to do anything i wanted. As the book advanced in explaining the effects of solitude and the need for information about what had happened I found myself questioning my readiness to face such a situation. I highly recommend this book as a way to introduce science fiction to new readers. You must be aware of several objectionable premises set by the author in terms of a racist future society but also a few "wish it were like that" plots which place as the highest paid occupations those like the ones performed by a junior poetry proffesor. My short review has to end by saying that this book has been a dear memory of mine for the past 29 years and writing about it and recommending it to others it's a way to say thank you to Mr. Jack London a great writer and a reason why today I rather read than almost anything else in my spare time. Thank you, and please forgive my primitive english. Milton Roussel, mroussel@david.intertel.hn
33 of 38 people found the following review helpful. Ancestor of "Earth Abides" Somehow Even Bleaker Than "On the Beach" By Christian E. Senftleben The content of the book may seem to be a re-tread, but it is in fact one of the very first post-apocalyptic plague stories. It set the mold for later versions, such as George R. Stewart's "Earth Abides," Pat Frank's "Alas, Babylon," Nevil Shute's "On the Beach," and of course, Stephen King's "The Stand," amongst others.First off in this book, the world as we know it is already gone. Out of billions, there are now only a few *hundred* people left on the planet - all scattered, all isolated ...all neo-lithic. There were not enough people left with the know-how to restart society and at the story's opening, there is only one man alive that even remembers the old world.Furthermore, this book is not the product of an "All are created equal" mentality. No, this is a book that reflects the thinking of a society that sharply divided between nobles and peasants: the former were as unto the gods, while the latter were barely rabble, just mangy curs that needed stay in their cages ...or, be mercifully put out of their misery altogether. It is to the utter horror of the narrator that the debased, pig-like lowborn eventually take rule over the corpse of high society and make it as fetid as themselves.Most of the book reflects the narrator's callous, maliciously aristocratic view of the world, both past and present. Every low-born in this book is detestable; every high-born is beautiful, desirable and ultimately, profaned and desecrated. The book's characterizations are the stark, black-and-white depictions of a deeply autocratic mindset.The narrator is disturbingly aghast at the thought of "the servants taking over" the world with their "grubby little hands." Every depiction of a non-noble seems to include words like "savage," "stupid," and "animal" in them. For a wearied, forlorn teller of ended glory, there is a frightening amount of venom streaking through his glorious recall of things past. The narrator's narrow-minded adoration of the high-born (and their lofty pursuits) contrasts with his horror and overwhelming disgust over "the great unwashed." Disturbing is not quite the word for the narrator's view of things.While far from PC myself, some years ago I took Stewart to task for his dehumanizing descriptions of the mentally challenged; London's book here makes Stewart seem a gleaming saint by contrast. I realize both are products of their times; I do not so much decry that such thoughts were common - only that they were unnecessary, even in a world such as that.Secondly, I've noticed this book's tone is quite a bit different than Stewart's "Earth Abides," (its closest, to me, subsequent corollary). London's book takes an extremely dim view of human beings in general, an attitude that gives even a dedicated cynic like me some pause.This book is nothing like the noble, stoic (and *egalitarian*) characterizations of Shute's "On the Beach" or Frank's "Alas, Babylon." There is no final embrace of family in the defiance of looming death; no, here the children are cast into the gutters upon first sign of infection. Women are not prized and valued as mothers of a new Eden here (a limited view, but quite representative of its time); no, here they are subjugated, degraded, and beaten with vigorous, even joyful savagery... they are purely victims of brutish man-beasts.Nobody dies peacefully here - there is no dignity or nobility or self-sacrifice at any point throughout; no, all persons here are frenzied, heartless carnivores sprinting about in a cyclone of cruelty and depredation... or, their helpless victims.This is a far more frightful end to civilization than even Stephen King's (much) later interpretation. There's not one shred of beauty or kindness in it from start to finish. It's pure survivalism, dog-eat-dog, and the worst of the worst here live to spread their malignant existence to the rest of the world.I mean, even in Shute's "On the Beach," where by the book's end every single person on earth is *dead*, even with Shute there was some beauty, some love, something hopeful ...even at the end. With this book, however, although humanity ultimately survives, it feels far darker, bleaker, and much more hopeless than even Shute's depiction of total nuclear armageddon.As for the book itself, I was glad to finally read it after all these years of hearing about it. It's been out of print for almost a hundred years from what I can tell, and all I could ever find was its far briefer form as a magazine article.Again, it is representative of its era and its culture and for this, I am quite glad to add it to my collection. While it may sound strange to say this, it is perhaps the bleakest post-apocalyptic tale I've ever read, and I've read dozens.As for approach to the content itself, Stewart's "Earth Abides" decidedly ignores the fall of civilization itself, focusing instead upon its slow decay amidst a resurgent nature; in contrast, London focuses upon the days of society's fall, glances briefly upon the intervening years, and leaves an acrimonious bounty of reproach upon the depleted present.Shute's "On the Beach" was compellingly lovely in its dark depiction of humanity's last, silent gasp amidst the void. Frank's "Alas, Babylon" was the defiant cry of life in the midst of great death. Stewart's "Earth Abides" was a beautiful dirge, eloquently mourning the passing of a once-glorious world amidst an ever-decaying and greatly-diminished present....but, "The Scarlet Plague" reads like a spit of contemptuous bile onto the ashen ground of civilization's humbled remains.For me personally, it's a mixed read; it's likely that my years of anticipation for this book (and frequent study of its numerous descendants) have colored the experience for me, so I don't know how objective I can really be here. I suspect I will have to re-read this a few times before I can find its "voice." I suppose I'm just surprised to read a post-apocalyptic tale with such bile; maybe that's an odd thing to say, but it's how I feel about this book.
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