Moloch contains Jack London's The Iron Heel, H.G. Wells' The Sleeper Awakes, and Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the World, three dystopian novels that were published within ten years of each other and ushered in the genre.

Before Huxley, before Orwell, and long before Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, and The Hunger Games, a trio of authors wrote what today are considered the first dystopian novels. Jack London's The Iron Heel has been hailed by some critics as the greatest of all dystopian novels. Published in 1908, the novel is a prophetic warning of the dangers of capitalist excess. Read together, the three novels provide an interesting testament to how three novelists writing during the same time period had a foreboding of bad things to come and how they envisioned the horrors playing out. Considering the evils of fascism, communism, and corporatism that followed, all three novels were on target in one way or another. Like Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451, the novels provide entertaining, provocative reading. Even contemporary fans of The Hunger Games should find much to like in these early precursors of the genre. This collection is introduced and edited by Luke Hartwell, author of Atom Heart John Beloved.

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