Red Heat is a novel written by Victor Kelleher set somewhere in the post-greenhouse future. This novel is a version of the nineteenth century Heart of Darkness, first published in 1902 and then re-published by Joseph Conrad. There are many similarities within the plot of these two novels from travelling up a dangerous river to dealing with a power crazy man.
There are many similarities in the two books, one of which is that the heroines; Marlow, Heart of Darkness, and Nat, Red Heart, travel up the river for some sort of personal task. For Marlow it is having a job, curtsy of his aunty, to travel up the river and collect ivory, he also undertakes this job in desire for adventure. For Nat, he travels up the river to look for his uncle who owes his family money; if he does not get the money his family would lose their farm. Along the way, they both figure that it is a more dangerous than they first thought. Along the way, both of the heroines meets a crazy individual who goes on about the nemesis being great and a wonderful person, but as it shows the certain individual is crazy, and makes readers a bit wary about that person.
Some more evidence of the similarities is that when the heroines of the novels meet the villains, they are not what are expected. In the Heart of Darkness, when Marlow first sees Kurtz’s first station, there are human skulls put up on posts surrounding the place. Upon meeting him, it shows that Kurtz is a mess and plagued by both physical and mental illness. It is alike in Red Heart, when meeting Jack, it becomes apparent that he is very ill, does not have very long to live.
It also is apparent that both of the villains are power hungry, and use fear as a way to gain that power. Everyone met in each of the books, have some sort of respect for the villains because they are on some level afraid of one of these men. An example of the brutality in Red Heart is when Jack makes Nat shoot