The Iron Heel
Jack London
Hardcover
(Wildside Press, Sept. 26, 2003)
While he is best known for his stories of adventure in the outdoors, such as "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild," London also wrote a significant body of science fiction, including the caveman novel, "Before Adam" (1906), the post-holocaust novel, "The Scarlet Plague" (1912), and "The Star Rover," a book about a convict under torture who can project his mind to far times and places, which profoundly influenced Robert E. Howard. "The Iron Heel" (1907) is a major work of dystopian fiction, the product of London's Socialism, about a fascist-capitalist tyranny in the United States in the 20th century and its struggle with the enslaved proletariat. As such it is an important ancestor to Zamyatin's "We" and Orwell's 1984."