The Last Man on Earth Club [Kindle Edition]

One word for this book... "brilliant". Okay. there's a few others I could use but I don't want to labor the point. Although I read a lot of books across a wide range of genres, a story about people going through therapy is not a subject matter that would normally appeal, yet from the moment I started reading this book I wasn't able to put to down. It goes some way to answering the question we all ask ourselves at the end of the disaster movie... "so what did happen to the last man on Earth?"

I was intrigued by the title at first which for some reason made me think 50's pulp sci-fi (no idea why, it just did) then the blurb struck me as a rather unique concept and one that I certainly hadn't encountered before, it whetted my curiosity just enough to buy it. I must admit, at this point I still didn't think it was going to be my kind of thing and as apparently it's a first novel by a new author I did have some reservations.

To find that not only is it well written and articulate came as a pleasant surprise but the way the author "drip-feeds" each characters story to the reader is brilliantly and tortuously done. The characters are unique to the story yet all have something "familiar" about them if you've read or watched enough "end-of-the-world" scenarios. I was wracking my brains trying to spot the inspiration for each one and I think I got a couple.

There are some nice little quirks in the science too (easier to explore parallel dimensions than to travel to the stars) and a nice little insight into the politics of the parallel universe in which these survivors find themselves. Being able to hop dimensions at will doesn't apparently get you around basic economics or instantly make you a race of enlightened beings acting out of pure altruism. I'd really like to tell you more but that would only spoil it for you and this really is a journey you need to go on yourself rather than have someone tell you about it.

All in all, great concept, well put together and although not a "thriller" in the generally accepted context, curiously it keeps you on the edge of your seat always wanting to know more.

One of those surprising little gems you find while sifting through all the crap that's out there. Looking forward to Mr. Hardy's next contribution, hopefully set in the same universe (universes?) as I'd really like to know more.

This is not a comedy. It's a story about apocalypse survivors who are rescued from their parallel Earth's and brought to a safe uninhabited version of Earth where they might heal. They are placed in a facility where they work through therapy, group activities, that sort of thing. The survivors' stories unfold through their interactions with each other, punctuated by some flashbacks and factual documents such as case reports, planetary surveys and so forth. A big fan of sci-fi, I was a bit worried the story would be repetitive or mushy, but neither turned out to be the case. Instead I found myself thinking about the characters which are well-drawn (though predictably all from very different backgrounds). Indeed, towards the middle I was worried the individual stories were simply running their course, when the story took an unexpected turn with planetary politics and other interesting consequences of the many Earth's idea. Sharp, funny in places, a good read. If happy reading and/or endings are your thing, this might not be for you.

Inter-stellar travel is a bust. The stars are just too far away. How much easier to slip sideways and visit other Earths, infinitely duplicated through a chain of alternate universes.

This is the premise behind Paul Hardy's highly original novel The Last Man on Earth Club. Exploration teams fan out from the world they call The Hub to visit its doppelgängers. All too often they find disaster: war, genocide and natural cataclysm. The Hub becomes a magnet for refugees and survivors. Among them are six unique individuals, the last members of their respective races. They are gathered together to undergo therapy.

One of the things that makes this book so readable is its clinical approach. It begins as a collection of documents: reports from contact teams and transcripts of individual and group therapy sessions in which the six - all in their different ways severely damaged - introduce themselves and their home worlds. Gradually these merge into a first person account by the therapist (herself a refugee from an Earth that sounds uncomfortably like our own). There are plenty of dramatic twists and revelations, but the measured tone of her voice holds all the threads together.

Hardy has obviously researched his subject (in a note at the end of the book he recommends several works on post-traumatic stress disorder and "post-disaster psychological aftercare") but he carries his studies lightly and there is no sense of undigested theory. On the contrary, the characters are marvellously strong and varied, as are the layers of guilt they conceal.

He has put together a cocktail of sf scenarios which genre fans will love: nuclear devastation, environmental collapse, AI wars, genetic manipulation, plagues of zombies, the lot. All are dramatised in detail through the survivors' eyes and all except one are gripping and convincing. The lapse is a ludicrous Marvel Comics world of incompetent superheroes which the author himself doesn't seem to take quite seriously. A pity - on several occasions it threatens to throw the book off course.

This is not a feelgood story. It has uncomfortable echoes in recent history: the Nazi holocaust; the treatment of native peoples in Australia and elsewhere; earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan. The survivors don't like one another much. They don't like themselves. By the end of the book they still have a long way to travel, but we feel they have taken the first steps along the road.