The Strength of the Strong

Jack London

Collection Library - Science Fiction and Fantasy Project Gutenberg _isfdb

Publisher: Mills & Boon

Published: Jan 2, 1917

Page Count: 134

Description:

1357. THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG. +Macmillan; New
York, 1914. Mills and Boon; London, 1917.
Short stories, including [a] The Dream of Debbs.
(International Socialist Review, January 1909) San
Francisco, undated near future. * The long-feared
general strike finally takes place. The narrative
follows the experiences of a parasitic playboy who
awakens one morning to find that there are no newspapers,
no services, and no comforts of life. * He
and his wealthy associates set out in motor cars to
raid shops and stores for supplies, but this procedure
is not too successful. After the strike has
continued for a time, gangs of starving men and hooligans
loot and destroy, human life becoming of little
value. When the strike finally ends, the playboy
resumes his former life, having learned nothing.
* The story is told in an attempt at irony that does
not come across very well, [b] The Unparalleled Invasion.
(McClure's Magazine, July 1910) Racism and
future war. After the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese
assumed control of China and in a decade or so
transformed the land with their technical and managerial
skills. But then the Chinese expelled them,
and in the Japano-Chinese War of 1922 crushed Japan
militarily, taking over Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria.
China is now a threatening world power, but
her greatest weapon is not ordnance, but her enormous
population: The Chinese now outnumber the rest
of the world. * The Chinese overrun French Indo-China,
Burma, and Central Asia. The other nations can
do nothing about this, for the Chinese ignore naval
bombardment of their coasts, and Chinese manpower
simply swallows up enemy armies. * Jacobus Laningdale
presents his scheme for removing the Yellow
Peril. It is accepted. In 1976 an airship of revolutionary
design drops germ-filled glass containers
into Peking and other cities, and in a short
time the Chinese empire is riddled with plagues. A
cordon of armies surrounds China, preventing any exodus,
and most of the Chinese perish miserably. In
the following year Western armies invade China and
slaughter the few survivors. The Yellow Peril is
over, and by 1980 most of former China is resettled
with Caucasians. # In some odd way London was able
to combine a feeling for the brotherhood of man with
the most vicious racism. * [c] The Enemy of All the
World. (Red Book, October 1908) Explosive social
protest, 1933-1941. San Francisco and elsewhere. *
Emil Gluck, an esteemed young instructor at the University
of California, unwisely makes a public
statement advocating trial marriage. He is pilloried
by the press, forced to resign, framed for murder,
and sentenced to life imprisonment. Released
some years later, he disappears, an embittered man.
* Not long after his release, the editor who abused
him is found dead, killed by the explosion of pistol
cartridges in his possession. Others die in the
same way. Forts are mysteriously blown up, and naval
ammunition dumps are destroyed. In the brief
German-American War of 1939, however, a fleet of
seven German warships is inexplicably annihilated in
New York harbor. # The destruction continues until
detective Silas Bannerman in a flash of intuition
wonders whether the once notorious Gluck could be
involved. Gluck is picked up, tried, and executed,
since he does not bother to deny his guilt. The
explanation: After being fired from Berkeley, Gluck
worked as an electroplater. He brilliantly combined
the transfer of ions in electrolysis with radio
waves, transmitting spark and flame wherever he
wanted. * Really a capsulated novel.