The 67th book in Borderlands Press long-running series of short (in size) and slim (number of pages) books is entitled A Little White Book of the Wild. This, of course, is nod to London’s perhaps most famous novel, The Call of the Wild. Aside from the title, the “white” in the Borderlands Press book also alludes to London’s adventures in the icy north of Alaska.
Edited by SF well-known writer, John DeChancie, this book collects five of London’s short stories, including one of most famous pieces, “To Build a Fire.” I read this story and The Call of the Wild many, many years ago. As to the other four stories between the covers of this book, I do not recall having read a single one of them. Also collected here is “A Thousand Deaths,” one of his earliest professional sales. This was a science fiction story sold to the pulp magazine, Black Cat. London (1876-1916) died young. His legacy is somewhat marred by accusations of not just racism, but also plagiarism and eugenics. He was a firm believer in socialism, writing the 1908 dystopian political novel, The Iron Heel. His feeling about socialism did wane near the end of his life. Perhaps current socialist poster-boy (er, poster-geriatric?), Bernie Sanders, drew his crusade against “oligarchy” from this novel? London also cared deeply about animals. All that aside, London will forever be associated with the Alaska gold rush.
At some point recently, Borderlands Press changed their usual print run from 500 to 350 copies of a book (there have been exceptions, but usually the number went above 500, not below). This, of course, means that anyone trying to collect the entire set of books will need to act quickly, or face the issue of buying from specialist book-dealers who buy multiple copies and then charge more than cover price.
As book #67 in the series, there are three more authors to round up this group of five. I wonder, of the writers in that era, who will be next…
