This is a post apocalyptic novel published in 1900 but feels quite modern in a lot of aspects. Adam Jeffson is the sole survivor of an early expedition to the North Pole. As he returns from the polar extremities he encounters large numbers of dead fish and animals, followed by shiploads of dead mariners, and a smell of peaches and almonds. He gradually realises that almost every living animal is dead, both on sea, in (or from the) air, and on land ("I could have come to land a long time before I did: but I would not: I was so afraid. For I was used to the silence of the ice: and I was used to the silence of the sea: but, God knows it, I was afraid of the silence of the land"). When he reaches London and is able to check newspapers, he realises that all living things have been wiped out by a purple cloud arising east of New Zealand and then proceeding at a pace of about 100 miles a day westwards. Panic ensued as people stampeded westwards to try to escape.

This is a horrific and chilling explanation, but after this the novel somewhat lost its way for me. Basically for months and then years he wanders around the world looking for survivors and there are endless descriptions of piles of bodies in streets, buildings, down mines (to try to escape the poison cloud) and so on - "the arrangement of One planet, One inhabitant, already seems to me, not merely a natural and proper, but the only natural and proper, condition; so much so, that any other arrangement has now, to my mind, a certain improbable, wild, and far-fetched unreality, like the Utopian schemes of dreamers and faddists....It seems to me not less than a million million aeons since other beings, more or less resembling me, walked impudently in the open sunlight on this planet, which is rightly mine". These thoughts are symptoms of a growing dislocation and megalomania. He starts to use his engineering skills to, highly implausibly, burn and destroy whole cities, and build himself an opulent palace in Greece. Eventually he finds one other survivor, but cannot decide on his attitude towards her and treats her horribly, though in time this changes. It is implied at the end that they are basically a new Adam and Eve.

This novel had many strengths as an early post-apocalyptic story, but the wanderings around the world were just too long and drawn out and affected the pace of the narrative, and the final encounter with the other survivor does not come across as realistic. ( )

Adam Jeffson es el primer hombre en llegar al Polo Norte. Para conseguirlo ha mentido, ha sido cómplice de un envenenamiento y ha matado a sangre fría. Pero, sobre todo, ha desobedecido un mandato divino: el Polo Norte es un páramo vedado a la especie humana. Cuando, exultante, inicia el camino de retorno, descubre que su ruta está marcada por un macabro rastro de cadáveres. Una muerte fulminante y silenciosa parece haber sorprendido a la humanidad bajo la forma de una nube púrpura. Adam se convierte así en el último hombre vivo, y quizá en el amo del mundo.

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"...savagery civilised in its top-story only: for civilization was apparently from the head downwards, and never once grew below the neck..."
So the author is a monster but on the upside so are his characters (and he's been dead for 70 years, bonus).

Apocalyptic fiction. The psychology of it reminded me a lot of Robinson Crusoe. Oh yeah in case you havn't read that, Crusoe is pretty deranged... but the poster child for sanity compared to this protagonist. Who i would describe as a paranoid schizophrenic pyromaniac with delusions of grandeur :) .

I've read two other works by this author but don't recall either of them being this hard to parse. Some quite difficult to decipher sentences at times, heres an example, if you hate comma's look away now ;) :
"I leaned and loitered a long time on the bridge, gazing up to the craggy height, which is heavy with a waving wood, and crowned by the Castle-tower, the Tees sweeping round the mountain-base, smooth here and sunlit, but a mile down, where i wished to go, but would not, brawling bedraggled and lacerated, like a sweet strumpet, all shallow among rocks under reaches of shadow - the shadow of Rokeby Woods."
What does the last part of that even mean, did that cliff murder a hooker? :lol .

Its about 15-20% longer than it needs to be. There are also some very dry spots usually when the author is describing things and the ending while probably very meaningful on a personal level does feel fairly pointless in the grand scheme of things. So some may feel it to be anti-climactic.

Its also very religious which i say as a neutral statement, its this really odd mix of old victorian ideas and newer 20th century science. Overall a bizarre and highly interesting bit of fiction with a unique anti-hero.
Plus an interesting representative of the clash of new and old ideas from the turn of the century when it was written.

Also if it makes you feel better about reading something by this author, at least he served time, thats more than has happened to most of our monsters contemporary or historical. ( )

Novela de ficción que narra como un hombre llega al polo norte ( )