Jack London

A Son of the Sun Jack London

Entertaining, atmospheric, and action-filled--yet difficult to obtain until now--the eight short stories in Jack London's A Son of the Sun center on the thrilling exploits of Captain David Grief in the dangerous and exotic South Seas. Captain Grief encounters the adventurers, scoundrels, pirates, and opportunists who followed the example of their colonial predecessors and exploited the islands and their resources early in the twentieth century. Inspired by London's own voyage through the South Seas on board his self-made yacht, the Snark, these stories paint a colorful--and at times horrifying--a picture of the remote South Pacific. Jack London does not disappoint. While his obvious admiration of calm, strong, self-collected men is omnipresent, he tells a good story and one with a punch to it. This is a collection of stories set in the South Seas, starring a millionaire merchant adventurer by the name of Captain David Grief. A paragraph from the Prologue contains an excellent description of the man: At least forty years of age, he looked no more than thirty. Yet beachcombers remembered his advent among the islands a score of years before. Unlike other white men in the tropics, he was there because he liked it. His protective skin pigmentation was excellent. He had been born to the sun. One he was in ten thousand in the matter of sun-resistance. The invisible and high-velocity light waves failed to bore into him. Other white men were pervious. The sun drove through their skins, ripping and smashing tissues and nerves, till they became sick in mind and body, tossed most of the Decalogue overboard, went to pieces, drank themselves into quick graves, or survived so savagely that war vessels were sometimes sent to curb their license