Another book that Mount Benson suggested that I read. This is one of Jack London's few science fiction books (although at 62 pages I think that it really is more of a short story). It was first published in 1912 London magazine and later as part of a book. It is the story of the world after almost all of its population has been killed by a devastating pandemic called the Scarlet Plague. The main character is an old man who is the last known person to have lived in the old world.
The author focuses on the general - moral, physical and sociological - decay of the world after the pandemic and is fascinated by how, in such a short period of time, civilization has been set back tens of thousands of years and has to rebuild itself to its previous majesty.
Even though it was written in 1912, London is stunningly prescient about what the future would look like. At the time of the pandemic which happened in about 2008 (note that today pandemic fears are all the rage) the world had eight billion people and there were motor cars everywhere according to London.
I highly recommend this book.
1 comment:
Cool. I had thought it was more of a novel. It is neat that he worked this genre so many years ago.
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