This is one of the Gregg Press titles of the 1970's bound in serious-looking library gold on red on green, no dust jacket. This made sense for a title like The SF of Jack London, less so for Hamiton's The Horror on the Asteroid. But for all that Jack London was a famous writer, this is a mixed bag of stories. It doesn't include his SF-ish novels such as Before Adam.

About half of the entries are socialist essays in semi-story form: "The Minions of Midas" and "Goliah" both involve a mysterious (but human) agency applying unstoppable means to bring down capitalistic society. "The Strength of the Strong" is a just-so story of cavemen inventing capitalism and hoping to move on to a better socialist society. In "The Dream of Debs" organized labor goes on a total work strike and brings American civilization to its knees. "A Curious Fragment" is a tale of future oppressive slavery by vicious capitalists, in the Uncle Tom's Cabin vein. Then there's incredibly racist yellow peril "The Unparalleled Invasion" where China, after being tutored by Japan, takes over the world by a population explosion. These stories may be of historical interest, but they fail as stories, being driven neither by character, nor by any mechanisms of plots. They are ideas, spun out at length.

"A Relic of the Pliocene" is a tall tale and what you might expect from the author of "The Call of the Wild" and "To Build a Fire". "When the World was Young" is a werewolf variation, where a man lives his life alternating between modern civilized man by day and a 1000-year throwback savage by night.

The two most readable entries are "The Scarlet Plague" where a 99.99% fatal disease, with a 5-day incubation period, basically resets civilization to square one, told by one of the survivors to his grandchildren who could care less, and "The Red One" that at first just seems to be about a very racist sexist scientist, dying of disease in the jungles of Guadalcanal, but turns out to be the most science-fictional story of the collection. It's also the only story that has some actual personalities, reprehensible though the protagonist may be.

If you read this, and don't feel you need to, save the Introduction by Richard Gid Powers for last. It provides some good context for the stories, but let the stories speak for themselves first. ( )

Not London's best stuff, but some stories are interesting ( )