like the tentacles of an octopus the tracks of the railroad reached out across california as if to grasp everything of value in the state based on an actual bloody dispute between wheat farmers and the southern pacific railroad in 1880 the octopus is a stunning novel of the waning days of the frontier west to the toughminded and selfreliant farmers the monopolistic landgrabbing railroad represented everything they despised consolidation organization conformity but norris idealizes no one in this epic depiction of the volatile situation for the farmers themselves ruthlessly exploited the land and in their hunger for larger holdings they resorted to the same tactics used by the railroad subversion coercion and outright violence in his introduction kevin starr discusses norriss debt to zola for the novels extraordinary sweep scale and abundance of characters and details