The Poison Belt
Arthur Conan Doyle 1913
In this science fiction novella, Professor Challenger gathers his friends as Earth enters a deadly region of space. They shelter in a sealed room with oxygen cylinders while the world outside falls silent.
105 pages 2h 2m reading time
- The second adventure of Professor Challenger, the bold scientist first made famous in The Lost World.
- Imagines the end of all human life coming suddenly from space, seen through the eyes of a small group who may be the last people alive.
- Asks how ordinary people should face death, as the friends talk calmly about fear, faith, and what a life means while they wait.
- Stands as one of the early science fiction stories about a disaster that strikes the whole planet at once, a kind of story that later became a major part of the genre.
Followed a real comet scare
It came out three years after 1910, when Earth passed through Halley's Comet's tail and some people feared poison gas.
Built on old science
The deadly zone floats in the "ether," an invisible substance scientists once believed filled all of space.
First told in parts
It appeared in The Strand Magazine in five monthly parts, the same magazine that published Sherlock Holmes.
Drawn by Harry Rountree
Its magazine pictures were by Harry Rountree, an artist well known for his lively drawings of animals.