Customer Reviews

Last Gasp/The

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4 star:		(3)
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My mother came home one day with a skanky old book (Hey come on, it WAS a first edition, 1983 people, the new cover looks much better) she had got from a garage sale for 50c, titled "The Last Gasp" That being said, when i eventually got around to reaing it, i couldn't tear myself away from it untill I had finished.

This book differs much from other titles in the Doomsday genre, being its not about the apocalypse or nuclear war, this book follows the actions of a marine biologist who realises that the dioxin levels in the earths oceans are reaching dangerous levels, leaching critical oxygens from the water, and the subsequent rise of of an insane individual inadvertantley speeds up the process; This then gives rise to a hellish new eco system and its heavilly mutated inhabitants, that thrives on the pollutants now rampant in the world.

The feel of this book feels very much like the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" granted, it would be great if a movie based on this came out, It shows a not to unlikely future of exreme pollution, and will certainly get you thinking,

I hope you enjoyed my first ever review, I felt a book of such character didnt deserve not to have a review put to it, so here it is.

BUY THIS BOOK!!

Shanno

I first read this book almost 20 years ago, and every time I think about it, I get the chills. So many of the issues Mr. Hoyle addressed (even though fictionalised) have come to pass. I have seen in my life time the world change -- climate wise, geographically, etc. This book made me aware of the environment, and brought home to me just how destructive and selfish mankind can be in its blind pursuit of progress and exploitation of natural resources. Any one who reads this will go to bed every night with a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach. Why? Because the fiction in the book is becoming fact in our lifetime today...

Like a lot of the reviewers here, I first read this book back in the 1980's. Like other reviewers, the book has stayed with me ever since then. (A scene where someone climbs into an old enclosed arcade game and gets a surprise still gives me the shivers!) However, when it comes to the scenario painted by the author there is nothing prophetic about this book.

The book's premise is based upon the then current worry about the ozone layer. The world is threatened when microscopic marine life is choked off by a pollutant fed pathogen. The upshot is less oxygen is produced, resulting in the a general depletion of the ozone layer protecting the world from solar radiation. Thus the mayhem is unleshed!

It is at this point you should be reading the book as a fun/chilling page turner, and not a scientific look at the future. For example, the book posits ozone depletion happening along the equator. We discovered in the years after the book came out that it is actually at the poles where ozone depletion would occur. Additionally the reaction of living organisms to radiation is portrayed more along the lines of "being bitten by an atomic spider turns you into a human/spider hybrid" comic book, rather than in a realistic fashion.

The most effective part of the book is when it shows how when people begin to claim they need to kill some people in order to "save the world" the end effect is counter productive. It is the political questions the book asks that are most important in the end.

My recomendation is to read this book because it is wildly entertaining, not because it offers a view of our future. It doesn't.

I first read this book YEARS ago, I couldn't have been more than 14, and passages of it have stayed with me throughout my entire adult life. The imagery is VERY strong, and while some of the dialogue writing is a bit Brit-Trying-To-Sound-American, the science is solid and the fiction is chilling.

DEFINITELY glad I tracked down this book and ordered it for an adult re-visit!

I love post-apocalyptic fiction and was excited to read this novel, mostly because of the reviews of others and the unique premise of the story. There were a few tedious sections, but overall, this was a fun read and I recommend it to fans of the genre. The story has flaws and the ending may be too hard for all but the most die hard of sci-fans to accept. Still, a lot of technical research went into this book and I appreciate the quality effort by the author.

"The Last Gasp" starts as a science fiction novel about a marine biologist who discovers that something has gone badly wrong with the earth's oceans. The result is an environmental catastrophe, and the science fiction becomes horror. And what horror! Trevor Hoyle summons up all kinds of memorable images, from a Florida where Disneyworld has become a refugee camp to a Las Vegas being overtaken by the deepest jungle to a Manhattan where the air is so filthy that people drop dead in the streets. While I don't think the scenario he spins is scientifically plausible, at least in the life span of the novel, the book feels very realistic. It made a profound impact on me when I first read it twenty-five years ago, and as someone who enjoys the grimmest of post-apocalyptic scenarios, I've gone back to it several times since, though I appreciate it more as horror than science fiction. It's genuinely frightening.

Trevor Hoyle is a very good author, and he's written a great novel here. After reading this, you'll probably worry less about global warming and more about the possibility of a permanent change in the composition of the earth's atmosphere. This is the best post-apocalyptic book about an environmental catastrophe that I've ever read.

I also read this about 20 years ago - while traveling, you would just pick up whatever English language books were available, so The Last Gasp landed on me. I still remember to this day the beginning, with scientists freaking out about the plankton in the water, and what that meant ... and I remember the ending, with Las Vegas grown over into some kind of jungle. I feel like I'm mixing it up with a Stephen King book, but I don't think so. Anyway, I'm not even into science fiction, but this book certainly had a lasting impression on me...

The author was very visionary considering that global warming wasn't even an issue at the time this book was published. Unlike Holywood (no that's not a typo), the author spreads the story out over enough time to make it realistic. And still manages to make the story interesting to the end. The only thing I would have done differently myself was the ending, but it does fit into the story line very neatly.

If anyone is curious about the various ways that climate change will affect our planet should read this book. I won't say it's all there, but what is there has been carefully researched.

A changed political climate has an effect on the plot today, but it's still an incredible read. A very strong sleeper among books. If it had been published a decade later, it would most likely have already made it to the screen.

I read this book in the 80s when it was published and it also gave me the chills. This book is very relevant to today as we experience more climatic changes and I thought of this book when I read a series in the Los Angeles Times last summer concerning our sick oceans. The link is posted below. I believe that anybody who has concerns about the environment should read this book, even though it is fictional.

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trevor hoyle has asked some very serious enviro questions which seem to be more in the line of prediction or long term forecasting. A really thought provoking bit of fiction with a bit of everything. From still relevant enviro issues and info tech society to socio economic questions that the whole of the global village will ultimately have to face. A truly great book.