I have been reading Clarke for 45 years, and until this book, always enjoyed his work.

It gets off to a promising start, and then just sort of wanders around. Though while wandering, Clarke presents his idea of a Congress composed of individuals randomly selected by computer from the population, and the UN taking a hyper-aggressively proactive approach towards world peace by dropping non-lethal EMP bombs on rogue countries.

All in all, not really recommended as a good sci fi read.

Seemed like two separate but equally slow stories that never tied together. I think it had a lot of potential, though. Too bad.

Clarke has been a favorite for many years. His passing was a loss to fans around the world. While the concept for his last book held out great promise it failed to deliver the depth of his previous library of work. The story line wandered and lacked the coordination readers had come to expect. While reading it seemed as if sections were missing. I assume that Pohl attempted to stay close to the story line is the few thin notes Clarke left. The infirmities of age show in this not quite finished last effort.

"The Last Theorem" makes a lovely swansong for Arthur C. Clarke, who was one of the greatest masters of science fiction. Much of Clarke's work over the last quarter-century has been in collaboration with others, notably Gentry Lee and Stephen Baxter; this last effort is a collaboration with Frederik Pohl, himself a major science fiction author. I do not know this for sure, but it is my impression that in these collaborations the ideas were essentially Clarke's, while the collaborators did the hard work of writing. Of course, this is understandable, considering Clarke's advancing age and declining health. In any case, the style of "The Last Theorem" recalls Pohl's characteristic detached irony more than Clarke's idealism.
The book's basic premise, the inadvertent sending of significant information into interstellar space, is fascinating. Otherwise the book provides new riffs on typical Clarke themes: the history and culture of Sri Lanka, space elevators, scuba diving, and solar sailing. These are familiar, but I don't mind revisitng them. The characters are interesting and well-rounded, the aliens are well thought out, and I enjoyed the mathematical games. And, as usual with Clarke, it's nice to feel confident that all will come out well, even if not in the way one expects.
Though not on Clarke's (or Pohl's) very highest level, this is an enjoyable and thought-provoking novel.

I got this book because it was the last one written by Arthur C. Clarke. It may not have been the most creative work, but it was good to see that Clarke had hope for the human race. There was more fiction than science here, but there were some interesting-if unoriginal-insights.

I don't really understand why this book was published. There is nothing really new or exciting here. It seems to be a collection of ideas just thrown together in the hope that they work. Sri Lanka? Check. Space aliens? Check. Fermat's famous problem? Check. Space elevators? Check. America bashing? Check. This is supposed to be the story of one man; unfortunately it's not very satisfying....

Although there were several interesting side-stories and other aspects of the book, frankly it is not as sophisticated or complex a story as the novels one expects from either Pohl or Clarke, but especially together! It really gave the impression of two or three separate, small stories that were slapped together is the hopes of something bigger. In that regard, it didn't work. Worth reading, but don't expect too much satisfaction from the effort.

Although this book is certainly not Clarke's best - it doesn't compare with Against the Fall of Night or 2001: A Space Odyssey - nor Frederick Pohl's best collaboration - Pohl never colaborated better than with Cyril Kornbluth - it is a very enjoyable book, with two of science fiction's greats joining together for their first and last book. If you have enjoyed books by either writer, don't miss it. Even the mathematics is interesting!

In the past, I've enjoyed novels by both Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl. Unfortunately, The Last Theorem was a terrible novel. By the title, you might think that some small part of the story had to do with solving Fermat's Last Theorem. Well, the solving does happen, but I would not say it was any part of a "story". In fact, I didn't notice much of a story at all, at any point. The entire book seemed to merely be a listing of things that happened to the main character, Ranjit Subramanian. Events that happened at the beginning of the story seemed to be totally unrelated to the events at the end of the book. Despite all the events covered by the book, nothing ever HAPPENS. I never knew why the authors related particular anecdotes, and important developmental information was consistently left out, relating instead simply the facts that occurred. It reads very much like a dry history book. Don't waste your time.

I usually donot buy books by author alone. I mistakenly did that with this book. I thought with the two authors it would be science fiction. Instead I got a travelogue of Sri Lanka and a science fiction side story.
Although not familiar with Frederik Pohl that much I was expecting much more from Clarke. A travelogue is nice but don't package it as science fiction.

The Last Theoremis written by two masters of science fiction, for one of them the definite last book. Each one parts are clearly distinguishable, but entertaining as well. A bit too honey-laced at the end, sometimes a not too logical twist of the plot, nevertheless a book that gave me two days of clever entertainment.

I rather expected some fun with Fermat's theorem, which is kind of interesting, and some of the usual Clarke slightly off the wall stuff (like "City And The Stars")....

Instead a travelogue of Sri Lanka, and a whole bunch of stuff that never quite came together....

Good enough if you like Clarke, but not up to standard....

I suppose it's some kind of "must have" for Clarke fans, but I would have been happier to have spent less....

Regards....

Sir Arthur C. Clarke went out with a bang through the work drafted for "The Last Theorem." How wonderful to have a (formerly unprecedented) collaboration with Frederik Pohl, not only to ensure the work was completed, but the effect of these two masters' of science fiction is of a quality that will inspire and entertain while it brings in enough science and math to stimulate any curious mind.

Interwoven around the Indian family of Ranjit and Myra, echoes of "Space Odessy" novels abound with exploration into new areas of space travel (the space elevator is elaborated upon, for example). The couple's daughter mirrors the way Dave was a conduit for alien communication. Counterbalancing sports with political scenarios - yet having both working on ways to get the human race to look beyond their countries' boundaries - was presented well.

For me, presenting numerous hopeful (future and present) possibilities while teaching the importance of math, communication, and the perseverance of the human spirit is carried delightfully well through this story. I enjoyed learning about Sri Lanka, Clarke's homebase, through his eyes and words. Knowing that this is his final composition, and that it was completed by his long-time friend and colleague, makes it even more special. We are taken from Fermat's Last Theorem to the beginning of a new era.

Great book, compelling story. I plowed through the pages quickly and if you've read anything by either of the authors you will to. It seems to me that this book refined some ideas that were touched on by previous books that these authors had written seperately. My respects to the late great Arthur C. Clarke.

Arthur C Clarke was never my favorite science fiction author but he did write some outstanding books. The best, in my opinion, is still "Childhood's End" from the early fifties although many of the others certainly had their moments. Most people remember him for "2001 a Space Odyssey" which was more of a Stanley Kubrick creation although based on a Clarke short story. Clarke's gift was in his use of technology. The solar system seemed a lot closer after reading one of his books.

The Last Theorem is a rather strange work and seems unlike other Clarke novels. Whether this is due to the collaboration with Frederik Pohl I don't know. The book is essentially the life story of Ranjit Subramanian, a Sri Lankan mathematician who becomes obsessed with finding a simple proof of Fermat's last theorem. As many people would know, this theorem has been proved in the last few years but the proof is hardly simple, running to some 250 pages. Ranjit eventually achieves his goal and his new found fame opens the door to other adventures including involvement with clandestine military forces who use new technology to overthrow troublesome countries. In parallel with this, the "Grand Galactics", the alien overlords of the whole galaxy become aware of the use of nuclear weapons on the earth and decide that the earth should be destroyed.

The strange thing about this rambling saga is that it actually has very little to do with Fermat's last theorem. It seems to be more of a homage to Clarke's adopted home of Sri Lanka and often reads like a soap opera rather than a science fiction novel. Occasional glimpses of Clarke's earlier works are given such as with the construction of a space elevator on Sri Lanka but overall I didn't find it a good read. Just prior to starting this book I had read the final book in the Time's Odyssey series in which Clarke collaborated with Stephen Baxter. It was far better in my opinion.

I was thinking of rating this three stars but I just didn't enjoy it enough for that. 2 1/2 stars would probably be an accurate reflection of my views but the ratings system only allows me to give it two.

Like so many others, I was sad to learn of Arthur C. Clarke's passing earlier this summer. I started reading his books in junior high school, almost 30 years ago now. I wish I could say that his more recent efforts (the second and third entries in the "Time's Eye" series, and this one) lived up to his earlier outings, but such is not the case. As others have noted, this book contains many of the same themes as prior works, woven together just slightly differently. Ultimately, the story never really grabbed me the way Rendezvous with Rama, City and the Stars, Songs of Distant Earth, and so many other stories did -- perhaps because I'd seen parts of it all before, from the same man.

That said though, Clarke was always an optimist about the future of the human race, and this story most certainly ends on an optimistic note about humanity, thus perhaps providing a fitting coda to his life. Rest in peace, Mr. Clarke. You and your outlook will be missed.

On the morning of Sir Arthur's death, I pre-ordered this, his last novel. And that after having panned his last three, which were co-written with Stephen Baxter.

First, an observation. I think Sir Arthur may be more "religious" than he claimed to be. Even in ""2001: A Space Odyssey" which clearly put Clarke on the map, he referred to a creature, transcending the material world, close to "God." In this one, the authors create the "Grand Galactics," known collectively as "Bill." There is something distinctive, bordering on the "divine" about them/it.

The story itself is a biography of a young man in Sri Lanka, where Clarke lived for many years. In the book's beginning, the boy, Ranjit Subramanian, has an "affair" of sorts with a good friend. That friend pops up throughout the rest of the man's life, but sporadically, without much rhyme or reason.

In the meantime, the Grand Galactics witness Hiroshima and Nagasaki from afar. Their subordinate creatures of which there are many, the One Point Fives and the Nine Limbeds, for example, are authorized to destroy earth which has become a threat to life elsewhere. It's a theme not unlike "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and inferably "divine."

While this is happening, and while Subramanian is getting a little older, he's imprisoned for a couple of years. That was my first major problem with the text. That imprisonment served no purpose other than to indicate that other technical changes were taking place around the earth. And nothing later came of the imprisonment, no revenge on those who'd imprisoned him, no enlightenment as a result of it, or anything like that. What was the point?

Anyway, during the period, a nuclear weapon is developed which, like Clarke's (and Kube-McDowell's) book "The Trigger," renders its victims' weapons impotent. And that eventually provided a reason for the Grand Galactics' reconsideration of the earth's fate.

Then there was a space transportation means developed, taken from Clarke's novel "The Fountains of Paradise." In neither this book nor that one was I able to picture that means very clearly, but that may be my weakness rather than that of the books. Ranjit's daughter uses that means in a "solar sailing" race from which the message of the Grand Galactics and their subordinates' message comes to us earthlings--in ways that I dare not give away to the potential reader.

The whole story was rather slow in here. We saw Ranjit's kids develop; they had their own gifts and weaknesses. It was interesting, but didn't make me long for the next chapter.

All of these creatures by the way make themselves known by the end of the novel. Even the text refers to how boring the creatures' dissertations and inquiries could be!

And the end of the book I'm still trying to figure out. Ranjit's beloved spouse dies in a diving accident, her consciousness is inserted into a machine, somewhat like the theme of Clarke's (and McQuay's) novel "Richter 10." One passes thousands of years into the future as this consciousness survives and...what? Who is that guy behind the curtain?

I guess the most interesting theme of the text is that of the "theorem." in fact, it interested me enough to study a little about Fermat and that theorem. I'm still trying to figure out its utility, but at least I looked it up. Then there was the incorporation of contemporary themes into the text, especially US hegemony and militarism. But the authors didn't do much with those themes. I appreciate that they were there as that what makes a "story" good. But something more might have been done with them.

I guess I felt let down at the end of the book as I had more questions than answers. Again, there were themes that didn't serve any discernable purpose, others that didn't go where they might have.

If you're a Clarke collector, as I am, you might want it. If you want an uplifting story, any mathematical or scientific insights, you're going to be let down.

Fantastic concept which unfortunately does not get enough pages to explain itself and leaves the reader wanting much more.

In "The Last Theorem" we are treated to a homily regarding transcendence of humanity. Arthur Clarke and Frederik Pohl cleverly elucidate their "last theorem" for the societal, spiritual, and scientific enlightenment of mankind. It involves the calculus of justice, the algebra of cooperation and the fundamental equation that science = future.

Ranjit is our reluctant Candide, of sorts, whose adventures and travails explore the state of the world. It is through his exploits, and those of his family and friends, that we witness the events that finds mankind on the precipice of destruction or salvation. The Grand Galactics and their surrogates are on their way from the stars to destroy the Earth.

Clarke and Pohl present little "prescience" fiction that punctuates their prior works. Rather, their most powerful technique in this compassionate and entertaining novel is the 360-degree mirror they hold up for society to evaluate itself. Is this truly the "best of all possible worlds" - or can it be better?

I've been a huge Clarke and Pohl fan, so there was no way I was not going to get this book. I would give it a B minus. The only real negative I feel I need to commment on is the ridiculous Lt. Col. Bledsoe character, who seemed like a cartoonish stereotype from Dr. Strangelove. A military man, in our near future or present, calling the Russians "Russkies" and the Chinese "Chinks" ? Maybe the authors don't care for the U.S. Military, but this is a dopey way to express it. Still, overall I enjoyed the book.

Act I:
Ranjit Subramanianis is obsessed with proving Fermat's last Theorem.
Aliens decide to kill all humans.

Act II:
Ranjit Subramanian solve's Fermat's Last Theorem.
Fifteen years pass by.

Act III:
Aliens decide not to kill all humans.
This decision has nothing to do with Ranjit Subramanian or Fermat's last theorem.

Moral of the Story:
You can count to 1023 using only your fingers.

Recommendation:
Don't buy this book. The final climax of the story was resolved so quickly, with so little explanation, and by even less action on the part of the main character that I was left wondering why this character was even in this novel, and why did I have to read fifteen years worth of trivia about his life. The initial premise was interesting, and the writing was excellent, but after a while it becomes little more than a vehicle for Clarke to discuss his own pet ideas, most of which ideas have already been discussed in previous books.

The story was good and kept me interested until the end. There were minor errors in the mathematics presented there, but the science did not have the depth that I usually associate with Arthur C. Clarke--in fact, I suspect he had little input into this book. There was only one actual scientific blunder that I noticed--a 1 degree microwave beam aimed at the moon but reaching Alpha Centauri, the former never being within quite a few degrees of the latter. Still, I don't see Clarke, or anybody who has done a modest amount of amateur astronomy, making that particular mistake.

I said in the title it's 20% political diatribe. One could chalk that up to merely opinion, but toward the end, that 20% shows a naivety rivaling that seen in a beauty contest. Would you believe a race of super-advanced aliens who could destroy the Earth in a heartbeat don't know about economics and scarce resources, and what injecting trillions of dollars into an economy overnight would do to the economy?

I wish I could say that this last book by one of the greats of the field is a masterpiece, but unfortunately it's not. Instead, this book covers many of the same ideas that Clarke has worked with before: space elevators, solar sailing, omnipotent aliens, AI and computerized immortality, achievement of world peace, and set mainly in Clarke's beloved adopted homeland of Sri Lanka. There is little that is new here.

Like most of the late period Clarke books, this one has a co-author, in this case a writer who has been around almost as long as Clarke, and his influence shows in this book, I think, in deeper, more fleshed-out characterization than most of Clarke's works have, which is a definite positive. There have been few depictions of real mathematicians in sf, and the portrait painted here of a man fascinated (some would say obsessed, a trait common to those bitten by this particular mathematical bug) by Fermat's Last Theorem is well done. Those in the immediate vicinity of this protagonist are also drawn with more than light pencil sketches, as we see his family, school friends, instructors, and eventually his wife both form part of what he is and sharply influence what he does with his life. As part of this depiction, there are descriptions of certain fairly simple mathematical puzzles and games from pentominoes to the combinatorial numbers relationship with the binary number base, things most people who are interested in math at all will have at least heard of, and these provide some concrete and understandable looks at the world of number theory.

However, the alien angle is very poorly done. Not only are these beings (multiple races) inadequately described in terms of their motivations, biology, and culture (I could never visualize them as real beings), the sections of the book that detail their actions is written in almost self-mocking language at sharp variance with the tone of the rest of the book. This is not too much of problem for the about the first three-quarters of the book, as this material is limited to a few paragraphs here and there, and doesn't interrupt the main story flow, but near the end when the alien's actions become a major portion of the plot, it seriously detracted from my enjoyment of the story. Worse, the alien actions provide a far too easy `out' from the problem of achieving world peace without devolving into a police state or a dictatorship that had been so nicely set up earlier.

There is an entire subplot dealing with the protagonist's son who shows up with a certain type of brain disability that looked like it should go somewhere significant, but there was nothing ever really made of it.

The ending of this book feels very rushed and compressed, with many events glossed over or only hinted at. I think if this section had been written at the same detail level as the rest of the book, it would have made for a far stronger work.

Overall, this book provides a nice return to the ideas and themes that made Clarke famous, with more real characters than is typical for him, but its faults eventually overcame its good qualities, leaving me quite disappointed.

Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Notably, I have read a good bit of Pohl's published SF. This book reads a bit like him rather than clarke at times. I would be curious to know who was the primary writer, etc.

My review does contain spoilers. Consider whether to continue reading, as plot threads will be deflated.

I found the first half of the book well-paced, with the Aliens being 1-paragraph backdrops/subplot elements of the early progression of the protagonist's life, up until his kidnapping/incarceration. At that point, some plot elements seemed a bit contrived (the manner of his rescue could only be described as improbable), and furthermore the pacing of the development of the plotlines, with the protagonist's family life being a central feature, seemed to become very slow. I skipped many pages in the last third of the book to simply get to the next major plot event.

I think this book would have been better with a re-tooling of the pacing in the last half. The actual main plot-lines and ideas are fascinating, though the telescoped epilogue was confusing in terms of how the great galactics were supplanted.