The Star Rover

[Luthor]

Not a how to guide but I couldn't think of a better place to put it

Written by Jack London,  hard drinking, Klondike gold rush wild man and celebrity author of 'White fang' and 'Call of the Wild'  the Star Rover is an astral projection prison story based on London's friend Ed Morrell who spent 14 years in Californian prisona, 4 of those in solitary.

The Star gazer is about a university professor serving life imprisonment in San Quentin State Prison for murder. Prison officials try to break his spirit by means of a brutal torture device called "the jacket," a canvas jacket which can be tightly laced so as to compress the whole body, causing sickening pain.  On the verge of mental and physical collapse standing is Standing is taught by another inmate the secret to withstanding the torture by entering a kind of trance state, where his consciousness is free to roam free of the body. Standing  walks among the stars and experiences portions of past lives. He visits re-incarnations including French aristocracy and an Englishman in medieval Korea.

They made a dodgy 2005 movie called 'The Jacket' based on this with Adrian Brody & Keira Knightly but the novel shows a take on AP from a time before the internet. It reads like a collection of loosely connected short stories, think 'The Cloud Atlas' meets Astral Projection with London's re-occurring themes of struggle, defiance and strength of spirit mixed in.

 

[dotster]

Sounds like a good read! Thanks for posting.

[EscapeVelocity]

This sounds like an interesting read, thanks for pointing it out.

Having read Call of the Wild and White Fang as a teen, I loved those! I had heard about Rover but never pursued it; I will now!

Jack London- great writer!

[IAmWill]

cool read! thanks for infos!