XPost: rec.arts.books, alt.books.jack-london   
   From: wetraprock@hotmail.com   
      
   The stories in Red Hot Dollar And Other Stories From The Black Cat is   
   pretty lousy.  I'm guessing there's much better stories from The Black   
   Cat magazine than what was collected in that book.  The only good things   
   about it is the little cat face on the cover and the surreal story,   
   called something like Strange Invention, or something like that, about a   
   restaurant owner that fights back against casual theft of luxury   
   bathroom soap with a hidden camera, then searches the diner, using force   
   if necessary, then places a ban on the customer.  The loss of customers   
   brings him nearly to bankruptcy until he is paid an enormous sum by the   
   soap cartel to destroy his invention as the Soap Trust depends on casual   
   theft of it's product to pump up demand for it's product as those who   
   steal expensive soap do not actually buy soap they don't steal.   
      
   Now a good book is 25th Man, by Ed Morrell, non-fiction, way out of   
   print, (1924 New Era Publishing).  It's starts as a prison drama,   
   becomes a western for about the middle half of the book, and then   
   becomes a gruesome prison drama and ends with a tract proposing a   
   certain prison reform called New Era Penology, proposing a system that   
   sounds a lot like what the Soviets were proposing at the time.  In the   
   author's introduction, he regards psychic abilities as "proven" true.   
      
   Indispensable for fans of Star Rover, but beware that London toned down   
   the details a lot for his book.  Daryl Standing is no Ed Morrell, but   
   there really was a Jake Oppenheimer in the dungeon with Morrell.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)