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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Red One

The Red One

London, Jack

Paperback

Fiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 1541182367
ISBN13: 9781541182363
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: Dec 18 2016
Pages: 134
Weight: 0.42
Height: 0.29 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Red One is a short story by Jack London. It was first published in the October 1918 issue of The Cosmopolitan, two years after London's death. The story was reprinted in the same year by MacMillan, in a collection of London's stories of the same name.The story is told from the perspective of a scientist called Bassett, who is on an expedition in the jungle of Guadalcanal to collect butterflies. The Red One of the title refers to a giant red sphere, of apparently extraterrestrial origin, that the headhunting natives worship as their god and to which they perform human sacrifices. Bassett becomes obsessed with the Red One and in the end is sacrificed himself.The story's theme was suggested to London by his friend George Sterling: a message is sent from an alien civilization but is lost in the wilderness. There are parallels to Joseph Conrad's short novel Heart of Darkness.[citation needed]Critics have noted the possible influence of Carl Jung on the story, as London became aware of Jung's ideas at around the time of writing The Red One in 1916.The story makes an enigmatic reference to helmeted figures, perhaps the Red One's alien crew. Here, London may have anticipated the ancient astronauts of science fiction and pseudoscience.

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