The Purple Cloud

by M. P. Shiel

Other authorsJohn Sutherland (Editor), John Sutherland (Introduction)

Paperback, 2012

Status

Available

Call number

823.8

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Penguin Classics (2012), Paperback, 352 pages

Description

Classic Literature. Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: Published in 1901, M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud is an early "last man" science fiction novel. Foretold by a priest as being against the will of God, Adam Jeffson's Arctic expedition unleashes a terrible fate on the world - a mysterious purple cloud that spreads far into the heavens and across the earth. Jeffson returns to the horror of finding the entire crew dead onboard his ship, and, as he gradually realizes, the entire population of the planet has been wiped out. Descending into a madness, he burns cities, declares himself a monarch with no subjects, attempts to create an enormous golden palace for God and for himself. But everything changes as he discovers he is not the only person left, stumbling upon a naked young woman without any knowledge of the world that once stood..… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Stevil2001

This was probably my favorite of the books I read for my graduate seminar on nineteenth-century sf, and it was certainly the most unexpected delight (behind The Mummy!, anyway). It's kinda like Mary Shelley's The Last Man, except that it begins where the earlier novel ends, and it's all the better

for it. What would you do if you were the last person left alive? Why, you'd probably conclude that the world was made for you-- why else would only you have survived?-- and so you'd tour the cities of Europe, burning each of them down when you were done. Because once you're done with them, certainly no one else is ever going to see them. The novel is filled with brilliant bits where we get to see the narrator trying to cope with being the last man-- and seeing the world those last panicky humans left behind. There's just a lot of nice little moments peppered throughout the novel, which feels so intense and so real. Shiel's ability to depict human isolation without ever getting dull is extraordinary. I really want to go on a lot, but it's one of those books that succeeds on the basis of small, unexpected moments. So go read it yourself. (Okay, that's not fair. It's also quite well written and is strongly characterized. There's a lot going for it, let's be honest.)

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LibraryThing member sf_addict

I had to finish this last night, was just too curious to see how it ended to leave it to today!
Well this is a 'last man alive' story but is also a story of paranoia and what changes come over a person when faced with the reality of loneliness.
I found the writing quite accessible for such an early

book (1901)-some of the usage was a bit odd compared to modern English and I had to make use of a dictionary a few times but on the whole it was easily digestible,somewhat reminding me of Jack London, and I quite enjoyed it!

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LibraryThing member unapersson

Quite possibly the first post apocalyptic novel and one that gives the whole subject quite a different spin. The lone survivor of an Arctic expedition to the pole returns to find everyone has been killed off by a noxious purple cloud. It's less provincial than most of the books that follow it, he

becomes a truly global citizen, but one slightly unhinged and determined to burn the world's big cities to the ground. After a few decades he begins to wonder if he's really completely alone. Reminiscent at times of William Hope Hodgson but without the cosmic horror, still quite readable despite the 1902 vintage, but a book which is a bit too meandering to be really satisfying, with not much to get your teeth into.

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LibraryThing member shelley.s

The purple cloud 2/5

This book could have been so good. The concept was great and i appreciate the time period that it was written in but geeze its boring at times. It took a month, yes a whole month to read this book, if it took out half of the the repetitive words it would have been half the

length! I know repetition is good for emphasis but this was over board. I found i was getting to a few really good pages then to be met by 20 odd boring ones which i couldnt of cared less about and it added nothing to the story, this author loves pointless padding! Its far to over descriptive in places and you find your self just willing the book to get shorter so its out of the way. The 2 star is mainly for the concept and i actually managed to finish it but i wouldn't recommend it as i would with other classics.

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LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

(An 80) (A 110) year-old 'last man on earth' fable. I had trouble with the vocabulary, allusions and references, as not only is it old but it's British, and it has pretensions of being literary philosophy rather than just a good thoughtful story. If you get a kick out of sentences that are almost a

page long maybe this would intrigue you. I just wished he'd get to the point - it took me much too long to read.

I do admit that it presented a different take on the protagonist's perspective - that it, this last man has a different attitude and strategy than others of whom I've read. So, I dunno, maybe 2.5 stars.

If you do read it, please tell me if the first section, the frame, serves any thematic perspective or is just pragmatic.

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LibraryThing member john257hopper

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.

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