The Iron Heel

By: Jack London

Narrated by: Darla Middlebrook, Mike Vendetti

Jack London, famed for his tales of adventure, was also a science fiction writer only rivaled in his time by the great H. G. Wells. The Iron Heel is a dystopia that would, in part, inspire George Orwell's masterwork, 1984. The Iron Heel tracks the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States of America - and the doomed attempt to counter it. It is a novel more relevant today than it was in its day. Hear the "tale of capitalist oppression" that George Orwell couldn't stop thinking about.

Public Domain (P)2013 Darla Middlebrook

Spectacular Steam Punk

I loved this book! Who would have guessed? Jack London writing dystopian science fiction on par with Jules Verne and H. G. Well. I loved the Battle of Chicago with its bomb-dropping balloons and gun battles between skyscrapers. The book is fresh like The Handmaid’s Tale. Entirely inventive. The dual narration works, too. I would recommend this gem.

Great story, terrible production and performance

The combination of poor production and terrible performance makes this interesting story barely listenable. sad

Odd speech

The speech patterns are odd and someone's iPhone "dings" in chapter 3.
The dual narrator is very off-putting and distracts from the story.

Brilliant argument against oligarchy, okay...

... at best, novel.

Calling this a novel of ideas might be a misnomer, because I'm not sure there's a novel here. The characters resemble mouthpieces for political views more than they do real people. I understand the value of this book. Were it not for The Iron Heel, perhaps 1984 wouldn't have been written. So it's worth a read/listen in regards to its influence on Orwell and others. Isolated, taken solely on its on merits, I can't say it was a satisfying read.

Socialist Dogma

Not Jack London's best. More Wishful-thinking than a novel. and Easily the worst reading performance ever.