The Red One — Jack London

Most readers would choose The Red One as London s finest short work of science fiction Reminiscent of Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness it tells of a lepidopterist named Bassett who hears a strange musical sound on the shore of one of the Solomon Islands To discover its source he travels into the jungle is severely wounded by headhunters grows delirious and nearly dies He is saved by a native girl and taken in by her tribe where he grows friendly with its medicine man and chief head curer Through Ngurn he learns that the tribe worships the source of the sound as The Red One sometimes called The God Voiced or The Star Born

The Red One is a short story by Jack London It was first published in the October 1918 issue of The Cosmopolitan two years after London s death The story was reprinted in the same year by MacMillan in a collection of London s stories of the same name The story is told from the perspective of a scientist called Bassett who is on an expedition in the jungle of Guadalcanal to collect butterflies The Red One of the title refers to a giant red sphere of apparently extraterrestrial origin that the headhunting natives worship as their god and to which they perform human sacrifices Bassett becomes obsessed with the Red One and in the end is sacrificed himself

The Red One is a short story by Jack London It was first published in the October 1918 issue of The Cosmopolitan two years after London s death The story was reprinted in the same year by MacMillan in a collection of London s stories of the same name The story is told from the perspective of a scientist called Bassett who is on an expedition in the jungle of Guadalcanal to collect butterflies The Red One of the title refers to a giant red sphere of apparently extraterrestrial origin that the headhunting natives worship as their god and to which they perform human sacrifices Bassett becomes obsessed with the Red One and in the end is sacrificed himself