One of the best last-man books, The Purple Cloud still surprises with its passionate despair and prescient scenes of mass extinction, motorcars, electrified billboards and telephone sex by undersea cable * Times Literary Supplement * The first great science fiction novel of the science fiction century -- John Clute Delivered with a skill and artistry falling little short of actual majesty -- H P Lovecraft Fantastic, weird, macabre...imaginative, fascinating, convincing, as some dreadful nightmare...a remarkable piece of work...head and shoulders above the average tale of fantastic adventure * New York Times Book Review *