The Star Rover

About this book

Strapped into a prison straitjacket, Darrell Standing discovers a means of travelling beyond the cell that holds him. As his body lies helpless, his mind enters lives separated by centuries, crossing oceans, kingdoms and moments of extraordinary danger.

Jack London's novel follows a condemned prisoner whose recollections of earlier existences become his defence against confinement. The episodes range across different historical worlds, yet each returns to the same question of what survives bodily suffering. Standing's struggle against the prison authorities gives the book its bitterness, while the past-life visions give it astonishing freedom of movement.