Buy The Last Man (Penny Books)

I guess I can understand how a rare few might like this book, but all these reviews are glowing. I loved Frankenstein. Shelley's over-the-top romantic style meshed well with the weight of her subject matter and the driving force of her narrative. She told that story efficiently. The Last Man is completely different. It's way too long. The prelude to the beginning of the plague takes up more than half the book. Though it takes place hundreds of years ahead of Shelley's time there is no speculation (other than the abdication of the British throne) about future societies, culture, or technology. The plague itself is poorly described and there are no attempts to explain why suddenly there is plague which is 99.99999999% fatal. Even in Shelley's time, a century before germ theory was beginning to be understood, public health and sanitation were advanced enough so pandemics were not nearly as bad as they had been just 400 to 500 hundred years previous, when the black death wiped out half of Europe.
On top of this Shelley's writing is flowery, excessive and romanticised to the point of ridiculousness. She manages somehow to be melodramatic and excruciatingly boring at the same time.
Verney's complete isolation at end of the book lasted for about 15 pages. This was the closest thing in the book to interesting. The fascination in the post-apocalyptic is the idea of the experience of the lone survivor or small group remaining alive, concept presented beautifully in books such as I am Legend, Earth Abides, On the Beach, and, of course, The Road.
Mary Shelley deserves credit for writing one of the first or perhaps even inventing the post-apocalyptic novel, which is not simply version of the Biblical Revelations. This book may have been terrifying in it's day, but now it pales in comparison to the many other volumes in it's genre.
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