The Scarlet Plague (Modern Voices)

Paperback, 112 pages

English language

Published July 1, 2008 by Hesperus Press.

ISBN:
978-1-84391-175-3
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OCLC Number:
182731252

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4 stars (9 reviews)

It is the year 2072, sixty years on from the scarlet plague that decimated the earth's population. As one of the few who knew life before the plague, James Howard Smith tries to impart what he knows to his grandsons while he still can. Jack London's visionary post-apocalyptic novel The Scarlet Plague was written in 1912.

53 editions

Review of 'The Scarlet Plague' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

So somehow I had no idea Jack London had written a dystopian story.

I suppose it is more "post-apocalyptic" than "dystopian," strictly, but the line has always been a bit fluid to me.

The "scarlet plague" itself is actually scarier than most of the imagined diseases that destroy mankind, mostly because of how quickly it kills. Watching it destroy civilization was kind of terrifying, and the aftermath of things was not pretty. The speed with which the modern world became completely unimaginable to the next generation made sense, but was awful to watch.

I also kind of hated most of the younger generation, because they were horrible little monsters, but that's neither here nor there.

The whole story does feel very Jack London simply because we are looking at a "man versus nature, nature wins" scenario, but the wider focus (and, let me be honest, the whole "end of the …

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Subjects

  • Science Fiction
  • Fiction
  • Fiction - Science Fiction
  • Science Fiction - General
  • Fiction / Science Fiction / General

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