The three stories featured here are not only set during the Klondike Gold Rush, but are a good representation of the evolution of Jack London as a writer. An Odyssey of the North... shows London in his early years as a writer and the story follows the tradition of Conrad's Lord Jim and Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King; while Jack London becomes a master story-teller in To Build a Fire and Love of Life. An Odyssey of the North tells the tale of a Native retrieving his wife back from being stolen. The story is a perfect match to the saying: You can't buy Love. Describing the Conan-like Alex Gunderson London say's: ...a man such as the gods have almost forgotten how to fashion ... and goes on to describe Gunderson as being crafted when the world was young and gods walked the earth, referencing mythology; however An Odyssey of the North is more than an adventure story. When London reveals the Naass mystery, the expected 'humanity and nature' is replaced by 'human flaws'. In To Build A Fire Jack London shows us the hard-living and hard-dying woodsmen and gold miners of the Far North. London's Klondike is a world of inhuman cold, of blinding snow, and only the strong and cunning survive.
Love of Life is a gripping tale, simply written and immediately understandable; two gold prospectors are suffering from starvation as they trudge wearily across the frozen tundra of Canada. Unfortunately, one man is betrayed, left to starvation and exposure; abandoned in the wild like The Revenant, without bullets, he marches towards an uncertain fate.
