Oh, Sir Arthur...you sage, you luminary, you genius!! What a memorable, momentous achievement, my good chap! Simply stupendous!! It's just A singularly superb accomplishment!! Oh, forgive my loquaciousness, I don't mean to prattle on so (you certainly never would), but I just find it so spirited and impressive. Hmm...pardon? To what am I referring...oh, excuse me. Let me explain. First, you create one of the most iconic literary characters in all of history and easily the most celebrated detective of all time...namely Batman Sherlock Holmes. You then create dozens of stories featuring The World’s Greatest Detective that enjoy such incredible popularity that the masses salivates at the mere hint a new story is going to be released. So what do you, the great Sir Arthur, do? You use that enormous popularity as a spring board to finally publish that novel that’s been kicking around in your brain for years. You know the one called The Lost World starring that other intrepid genius, Professor Challenger. The character you created after that petulant scoundrel H.G. Wells called you a “one hit wonder” and wagered that you couldn’t produce another sustainable literary character to save your life. Well, you certainly showed that smack-talking assclown, did you not? Hell, you already had a built-in audience for the novel, especially since the publisher duplicitously cleverly decided to downplay the fact that Sherlock Holmes was not the star of the novel. And lo and behold, the book turned out to be fairly popular and the people genuinely seemed to like Professor Challenger, seeing him as kind of a rugged, abrasive mirror to the Great Detective.Of course, The Lost World was certainly not as popular (or as profitable) as Sherlock Holmes. So being the astute businessman that you are, you naturally decided to focus the brunt of your creative energy into producing the next Holmes masterpiece. HOWEVER, that certainly didn't mean, in the interim, that the money had to stop rolling in now did it. Of course not. You’re Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for crying out loud! You could wipe your ass and put your name on it and it would be a bestseller. What to do, what to do....WAIT, you said...how about a sequel to The Lost World? Of course, no sequel was ever intended and you didn't have the foggiest whiff of a clue of an idea what the plot for such a story would be. BAH!! Details, merely details. A lesser person might have given up, but not you sir. YOU are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So you let your mind go blank and clamped onto the first thought that popped into your noggin. Suddenly, it hit you. What was it that the homeless opium addict was ranting about the other night when he passed you on the street? You think back...right before you pushed him down into the gutter and beat him with your cane for asking you for some change. It was something about the air being poisoned and Judgment Day and the world’s pending destruction.....and you think PERFECT!! All I have to do is play with that and throw Professor Challenger into the mix and it practically writes itself. Or course, a lesser writer might have delayed putting ink to paper until they had researched the science thoroughly in order to make the plot as accurate as possible. I can see you now Sir Arthur, staring at such a cad with a long, perplexed look before finally shaking your head in bewilderment at the naivete of some people. Without further delay, you sit down, begin to write…..AND THE POISON BELT IS BORN!!!! .... Okay, while the above was just me being playful, it was inspired by the kind of thoughts that kept occurring to me while I was reading this. Don't get me wrong, the story is not BAD and I have no complaints about Doyle's prose as he was a good writer. I just didn’t find the plot or the characters (except for Professor Challenger) very interesting or compelling. He just seemed to have phoned this one in. The story basically involves a poisonous belt of “aether” (the substance that a century ago was believed to have occupied all of space and acted as a physical medium for other substances) passing over the Earth from space and apparently killing everyone except for Professor Challenger and his three cohorts from The Lost World who are protected as a result of Challenger’s foresight and preparations. The four people are stuck inside a room while the event occurs and eventually come out into the world to see the effects of the tragedy. THAT...IS...BASICALLY...IT!!!Overall, I just wasn’t that interested in the story and so give it a passing great for quality of prose and an interesting main character but can’t go so far as to say I like it. It was just okay. 2.0 to 2.5 stars.
The Poison Belt (1913) is the second adventure by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which features Professor George Challenger...or as the subtitle says Being An Account of Another Amazing Adventure of Professor Challenger. After returning from the dangers of Lost World, Professor Challenger becomes aware of changes in the spectrum that signal an even greater danger approaching Earth from the realm of space. He is convinced that the Earth will be shrouded in a poisonous cloud belt floating in the ether between the planets. There have already been reports of madness and death in the coastal and low-lying areas of the world. The cities are taken over by riots and society crumbles just before all life on earth ceases. All life that is except for Professor Challenger, his wife, and the three friends who accompanied him to the Lost World. Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and the young reporter Edward Malone all receive urgent telegrams from Challenger requesting their presence at his country home and insisting that they bring along tubes of oxygen. Challenger has arranged for them to watch the end of the world from the confines of a sealed room--with only their meager supply of oxygen to forestall their own death. They are amazed and dismayed to find that the oxygen not only forestalls death, but allows them to survive until the poisonous ether has passed on from Earth's atmosphere. They venture out to survey the terrible results....only to find one more surprise in store.My take: Sure. We all know now that there is no such thing as ether between the planets. It's all a vacuum. But Doyle was working with what he had and what the science of the day firmly believed. All it takes is a suspension of belief and a step back in time and the story becomes most plausible, indeed. While there are elements of science fiction and speculative fiction to Doyle's story, it is even more evidently a morality play. It teaches us to consider what it really important in our lives and to take more notice of the small, everyday pleasures that we often miss in our hurry to get ahead and get things done. What would we miss most if all of our fellow man and living creatures were suddenly silent? Three stars--as a strict science/speculative fiction it provides an interesting premise, but not a whole lot of action, but as a morality play it is a solid story indeed.First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
What do You think about The Poison Belt (2001)?
Doyle used the same characters in this story as in his Lost World. The Professor Challenger discovered the a poisonous belt of ether. Kind of like an asteroid belt. The earth was going to pass through it and it was going to cleanse the of every living animal (the plants would survive). The amoebas survived too. It started at the south pole and moved north. The telegraphs went dead and then the phone lines. Our story teller, Edward Malone, sat with his three friends and Challenger's wife in a sealed room with extra oxygen watching the world die. Even the birds were little balls of feathers with their legs sticking straight up. Malone notices the clear blue sky with a few whiffs of clouds and exclaims, "If the human race was to die today- at least it was upon a glorious death bed." Doyle must be a Klingon at heart. Doyle also describes the nations struggle. Africa went quietly, Spain had a battle between the Vatican and Clergy and in "North America, the southern states after some racial rioting went quiet." Even in 1913 the US was famous for their racial strife. The world was racially diverse, but only the southern states had major problems. The ending was obvious to me because Ether only makes a person sleep. Ether was widely used as a Anesthetic since 1840's, so most people must have guessed the ending. I'm not sure how Doyle thought this Ether could be traveling through space? or how it saturated the atmosphere and then dissipated in 27 hours? It was an interesting read and quite comical at times.
—Kathy Davidson
Some say the world will end in fire, some say in etheric poison. Wait. Nobody says that, probably because the ether referred to by Doyle doesn't exist. That's okay -- I can forgive bad science. What I won't forgive is the mediocre writing. The Poison Belt is a short book, but I'm convinced Arthur Conan Doyle could have made much better use of the space. I know there was room in there for real characterization. Instead, the most interesting chap was Professor Challenger, and he's named Professor Challenger. Actually, that moniker is the one likeable thing about the arrogant fellow. It's a book about an event though, not a touchy-feely exploration of some human lives. I guess I just prefer when it's the other way around, when the plot is a vehicle for character.I'm also sure Doyle also could have squeezed in some scenes where his characters did a bit more than sit around and wait for the world to end. Don't get me wrong, I actually like spectating, and the events described are pretty interesting. It's just that when the ether hit the fan, Challenger and friends lounged around a drawing room. Don't expect some made dash to save the house staff, let alone the human race.All that said, I did enjoy the prose and there's quite a bit of humor. If you're a fan of Doyle or of Challenger, the book is so short that you may as well read it and enjoy what you will.
—C.S. Houghton
Замечательная книга. Совсем не то, что ожидаешь от произведений Артура Конана Дойля с привычными читателю детективными историями. Потрясающий фантастический апокалипсический сюжет со счастливым финалом. Конец света с удивительной фантазией и находчивостью. Наверно, один из самых оригинальных концов света: отравленный эфир в воздухе - и всего лишь несколько "выживших", закрывшихся в одной комнате с баллонами с кислородом.А что бы сделали Вы, когда у Вас кончается кислород? А что бы Вы сделали на утро после массового отравления? А как бы Вы искали возможных выживших в мертвом Лондоне?Увлекательная история, которая займет достойное место на полке моего книжного шкафа.
—Natalia
