It's Only Temporary

A while back on Boing Boing I posted something about how much I enjoyed books and movies about the end of the world and the last person on earth. Eric Shapiro read that post and emailed me, asking if I'd like a review copy of his end-of-the-world novella, It's Only Temporray. I said sure and a couple of days later he dropped it in my mailbox. It turns out he is my neighbor!

The 100 page book is the first hand account of a young man named Sean's roadtrip during the final 10 hours of all life on earth. A giant meteor is due to decimate the planet, and Sean wants to spend his remaining time with his ex-girlfriend, Selma. Along the way, Sean -- who is half-zonked on pot and opium -- gets tangled up in a number of bizarre pre-apocalyptic sidetrip adventures. I don't want to give them away here, because it's much more fun to be surprised.

Shapiro is a fine writer. Writing a book about the end of the world is risky, because its easy to slip into sentimentality. Shapiro smartly avoids it. Instead, he presents a darkly humorous, insighftul, and curiously believable account of the last hours of human life on a doomed planet. Link