Customer Reviews

Last Man on Earth

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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I read and re-read this book in high school, and then loaned it to a chemistry teacher I liked. I never got it back, and have regretted it ever since, though it was around 1984. While I am sure my tastes have changed somewhat in the intervening 16 years, I remember that the stories were very novel and inspiring, from "hard sci-fi" type stories of someone left on earth after everyone else had evacuated it, to stories with metaphysical implications about the nature of reality. It must have fulfilled some teen fantasy for me about being left alone to do as I liked with the entire world as my plaything, a fantasy I rehashed for many years after I read the book. If you find this book in some used book store somewhere, buy it!! (And don't loan it out.)

I loved this book as a teenager, read it front to back. Along with Ray Bradbury, Douglas Adams and the "Writers of the Future" collections, this book is what sold me on sci-fi and got me addicted to it for a lifetime. I plan on buying it for sentimental reasons, but it's a good collection for anyone. My favorites are probably "Flight To Forever" (a real epic, for a short story), "The Coming of the Ice" and "Knock"

Table of Contents (according to another site):
-The Underdweller by William F. Nolan
-Flight to Forever by Poul Anderson
-Trouble With Ants by Clifford D. Simak
-The Coming of the Ice by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
-The Most Sentimental Man by Evelyn E. Smith
-Eddie For Short by Wallace West
-Knock by Frederic Brown
-Original Sin by S. Fowler Wright
-A Man Spekith by Richard Wilson
-In the World's Dusk by Edmond Hamilton
-Kindness by Lester Del Rey
-Lucifer by Roger Zelazny
-Resurrection by A. E. Van Vogt
-The Second-Class Citizen by Damon Knight
-Day of Judgement by Edmond Hamilton
-Continuous Performance by Gordon Eklund
-The New Reality by Charles L. Harness

I have read this book no less than 5 times and each time I read the stories, it was like reading them for the first time. This book is awe inspiring and an awesome read. Anyone interested in the this genre of reading material will not be let down. I recommend it strongly. I might even re purchase it just to have a new copy of it.