Fantastic Tales (Bison Frontiers of Imagination) (Paperback)

by Jack London (Author), Dale L. Walker (Editor), Philip Jose Farmer (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Published in 1975, this collection gathers London's more unusual stories, which display his fantasy and sf side, including encounters with ghosts and extraterrestrials. In addition to the 15 stories, this edition sports a foreword by Philip Jos? Farmer, a chronology of London's life, and other goodies. A bargain for the price.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"London's `astounding tales' are more than merely entertaining. Some still possess the power to disturb us into thought. . . . Ranging in time from the distant days of pre-recorded history to the speculative lure of the far future, these `fantastic fictions' demonstrate London's imaginative and stylistic versatility. They also suggest that his contribution to the literature of fantasy has been seriously underestimated."-Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 223 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803279795
• ISBN-13: 978-0803279797
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #782,621 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Readable, entertaining, vintage sci-fi and fantasy, August 9, 2000

By	Daniel P. Smith "Daniel P. B. Smith" (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well, I bought it for "The Shadow and the Flash."

I read this story years ago and loved it. It's not well known and not frequently anthologized. I see that it was written in 1902 and that H. G. Well's "The Invisible Man" was written in 1897, and possibly Jack London sort of borrowed the theme as he was wont to do--the editor of this volume thinks so--but "The Shadow and the Flash" is nevertheless brilliantly original. It is about two competitive brothers, both serious amateur scientists of the kind you run across in Victorian fiction--who decide to tackle the problem of becoming invisible, in two different ways. You can almost make out a case for its' being "harder" SF than Wells, because he explains the physics of how they do it. The explanation is sort of cockamamie, but the story carries you along.

(The title comes from the fact that each method has a flaw. Neither produces total invisibility. One brother casts a shadow, the other produces prismatic rainbow flashes when he catches the light at the right angle).

The other fourteen stories are equally entertaining, and some are more than that. "A Thousand Deaths" was written very early in his career and is a haunting piece of fantasy. "The Unparalleled Invasion" has been anthologized frequently because of the prophetic way it anticipates bacteriological warfare.

Jack London was indelibly impressed with what he saw in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and some of this may have found its way into a number of stories about the breakdown of civilization after a disaster. "The Scarlet Plague" calls to mind the after-the-atom-bomb-has-fallen stories of a later day.

"The Red One," with which the book closes, possibly deserves the adjectives "great" and "classic." And if one suspects that Jack London had been reading H. G. Wells, after reading "The Red One" I certainly suspect that Stephen King has been reading Jack London.

The collection is well chosen. The editor's commentary is good. This is a very readable book. And it looks like it's put out by a brave little tiny publisher, and I always like to support brave little tiny publishers.

Oh, none of the stories are about dogs or snow.