The Purple Cloud Audiobook By M P Shiel, John Sutherland - editor cover art

The Purple Cloud

Penguin Classics

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The Purple Cloud

By: M P Shiel, John Sutherland - editor
Narrated by: Clifford Samuel
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Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Clifford Samuel. This definitive recording includes an introduction by John Sutherland.

The Purple Cloud tells the grandly bleak story of Adam Jeffson: the first man to reach the North Pole and the last man left alive on earth. A sweet-smelling, deadly cloud of poisonous gas has devastated the world, and as Jeffson travels the stricken globe in search of human life, he slowly succumbs to madness, and unleashes fire and destruction on his planet. Dark, desolate and fantastical, The Purple Cloud was a pioneer in the genre of apocalyptic novels, and the first great science fiction work of the twentieth century.

(P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Science Fiction Classics Fiction Adventure Hard Science Fiction

Critic reviews

Fantastic, weird, macabre...imaginative, fascinating, convincing, as some dreadful nightmare...a remarkable piece of work...head and shoulders above the average tale of fantastic adventure
Delivered with a skill and artistry falling little short of actual majesty (H P Lovecraft)
The first great science fiction novel of the science fiction century (John Clute)
One of the best last-man books, The Purple Cloud still surprises with its passionate despair and prescient scenes of mass extinction, motorcars, electrified billboards and telephone sex by undersea cable
All stars
Most relevant
A real piece of garbage. The prose is over wroght and too flowery for the subject matter. The framing device is laughable and completely abandoned after it's established. Many supernatural elements are hinted at... but never resolved. The plot just continutes to repeat and repeat and I kept waiting for that repetition to have some kind of pay off... but it never did. This book could EASILY have been 1/3 the length and been just as successful.

If I had a time machine, I would warn my past-self not to read this book.

One of the worst books I've Ever Read

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