Amazon.com description: Product Description: Much more than a simple horror story. Richard Connell wants us to question the very idea of civilization and what it means to be a civilized human. General Zaroff may have sophisticated conversations, wear formal London-tailored evening clothes, and speak three languages—but he also hunts down other human beings like animals. And that's partly because he doesn’t see any difference between humans and animals. (Well, that, and he's a nutso psychopath.) He claims that he doesn't hunt other civilized beings: he hunts the “cast-offs” of the world, as he calls them, “sailors from tramp ships--lassars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels--a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them."