The day the world ended
by Sax Rohmer
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1930. Rohmer, born Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, who wrote also as Michael Furey, was a prolific English mystery writer, best known for the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu and his opponents Denis Nayland Smith, Dr. Petrie, named after the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, and the beautiful Karamaneh, the source of Petrie's daydreams. Gaston Max, Sax Rohmer's rather dapper French detective, and the greatest criminal investigator in Europe, makes his third appearance in The Day the World Ended. This show more story is closer to mainstream science fiction than any other Sax Rohmer work. It begins as a seemingly supernatural tale of vampires and strange men dressed in armor roaming castle walls. Max makes a late appearance: only to reveal that he has been present all along-in disguise. The seemingly supernatural is then revealed as the work of a strange scientist who is attempting to use his scientific achievements (including a death ray) to conquer the world. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
An English journalist! In the Black Forest! Searching for vampires! With death rays! And lots of short sentences! And exclamation points! (The world didn't end, but the furious pace of the punctuation was a bit draining.)
I've enjoyed other Rohmer novels, but this one's a bit of a mess. The unlikely coincidences are just a little too unlikely, the narrator's constantly changing conclusions are just a bit too out of the blue, the prose is just slightly under-edited -- a fun romp, but not one I'll necessarily repeat.
I've enjoyed other Rohmer novels, but this one's a bit of a mess. The unlikely coincidences are just a little too unlikely, the narrator's constantly changing conclusions are just a bit too out of the blue, the prose is just slightly under-edited -- a fun romp, but not one I'll necessarily repeat.
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189+ Works 6,139 Members
Sax Rohmer was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he adopted the name Sarsfield, the name of a famous Irish general admired by Rohmer's mother. He married Rose Elizabeth Knox in 1909 and, at his wife's insistence, began using the name Sax Rohmer for his fiction, eventually employing the pseudonym as his actual name. Rohmer was show more basically a self-taught scholar. He started writing as a journalist; his beat was the Limehouse underworld in London. Rohmer had a difficult time breaking into the professional fiction markets, but once he did, he became a household name for exotic adventure both in England and in America. Although his writing brought Rohmer success and money, he was never much of a businessman, and most of his wealth was squandered because of his extravagance and through financial mismanagement. Rohmer eventually moved to New York City. One of Rohmer's great intellectual interests was the occult and supernatural, and these elements frequently appeared as motifs in his fiction. His most famous creation was the evil oriental mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu, first presented in the novel The Mystery of Fu Manchu in 1913 (later retitled The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu for its American publication, also in 1913). Most espionage or adventure fiction exploits the social paranoias of its time, and Rohmer himself effectively tapped the Westerner's fear of the stereotyped "yellow peril" threat---the negatively perceived belief that Orientals will conquer the world. The Fu Manchu adventures were patterned, in part, after Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Rohmer's protagonists in these adventures, Sir Denis Nayland Smith and his companion Dr. Petrie, look very much like Doyle's Holmes and Watson, but, whereas Doyle centered his narratives on the heroes and specifically on the elaborate process of detection, Rohmer focused his attention on the villain and on slam-bang action. Fu Manchu was a master of both Western science and Eastern mysticism, and his efforts at world domination caused no end of problems for Smith and Petrie. In Fu Manchu, Rohmer had created the most famous villain in popular fiction (although Rohmer maintained that Fu Manchu was based on an actual Limehouse criminal). Despite Rohmer's use of outrageous racial stereotyping, many of his novels hold up well today and provide superior examples of how to create narrative pacing and suspense. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The day the world ended
- Original publication date
- 1930
- People/Characters
- Gaston Max
- Important places
- Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- First words
- "Brian Woodville!" I sat up in bed with a start.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But the world was saved.
- Disambiguation notice
- Originally serialized in Collier's Magazine, May 4-July 20, 1929.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 79
- Popularity
- 398,361
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.81)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 11
