The Last Conversation: Forward collection
$0.99
Price: $0.99
(as of Nov 20, 2024 10:23:49 UTC – Details)
Audible narration by Steven Strait (The Expanse)
What’s more frightening: Not knowing who you are? Or finding out? A Bram Stoker Award-winning author explores the answer in a chilling story about identity and human consciousness.
Imagine you’ve woken up in an unfamiliar room with no memory of who you are, how you got there, or where you were before. All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you – physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?
Paul Tremblay’s The Last Conversation is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
Customers say
Customers find the story engaging, mind-bending, and interesting. They describe the book as worth reading, stimulating, satisfying, and entertaining. Readers praise the writing quality as well-written, in second person, and helpful. They also mention the book is short. Opinions are mixed on the creepiness, with some finding it beautiful while others say it gets creepier by the minute.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
13 reviews for The Last Conversation: Forward collection
Add a review
You must be logged in to post a review.
LynnS77 –
Creepier by the Minute
This was a really scary story, but you go back and forth as to whether or not you should be scared. You wake up in a room in complete darkness unable to do anything, and then this voice who claims to be there to help you tells you to do things that hurts. You arenât sure the voice is really trying to help at all as it helps you to remember things that you arenât sure happened. Then it gets really creepyâ¦
Bonnie –
Curiosity
Curiosity is what kept me going from the beginning. But all of my questions were not answered. Keep em guessing is what I read.
Richard M. Cook –
Decent Fast-Paced Short Story but Not Very Imaginative
⢠As a mashup of âFlowers for Algernonâ Meets âContagionâ, this short story is not terribly imaginative nor is it enjoyable for its descriptive scenery (this is very little of that) or indelible characters (there arenât any). I saw the ending coming by the halfway mark.⢠Itâs rare to read a story that is (mostly) written in second person. Thatâs hard to do and make it interesting, but Mr. Tremblay pulled that off well. The mystery of waking up in an unfamiliar room *could* be frightening, I suppose, but I didnât feel the main characterâs fear, though I did fear *for* him. I liked the protagonistâs introspection and suspicions & confusion about whatâs really going on. However, I would not classify this story as of the horror genre (Tremblayâs forte), but more along the lines of science fiction. I am looking forward to reading more of Mr. Tremblayâs work, as Iâve heard good things about his âThe Cabin at the End of the Worldâ novel.⢠The pace of the story was very clipped, very fast, to give the reader (I suppose) a feeling of vertigo and isolation that a captive or abandoned person might feel. I liked that, but that choice by the author sacrificed character development for the plot. The short chapters (titled as days passing) certainly moved the story along quickly, but I wouldâve preferred more relationship-building and more of the psychological effects on the characters. If youâre going to write a mashup of two other famous sci-fi stories, you (as an author) should put a stronger spin on the plot or create more compelling characters, IMO.
Ethon O’Brien –
That ending…
For some reason I’m always skeptical about a second person perspective, despite having read very few. The few I’ve read weren’t terrible, but it feels like it has the potential to be so. This author nailed it better than I’ve ever seen.This story was a roller coaster, even though most of it takes place in a single room. It was impossible to guess what was actually going on and constantly kept me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t see that ending coming in the slightest. A truly amazing short storyb that stood out among the rest of the collection.
Kindle Customer –
Cool
A nice mix of Sci-fi, horror, and obsession, well done, I believe I shall check out some of Tremblay’s horror works. This has some good ick. Check it out.
theresah –
Pandemic
The Last Conversationby Paul TremblayThe fearful response to the Covid pandemic. What would happen with a fatal pandemic? Who would survive and how they survive is the question. With the technology we have come to see in the future of replication can you change your last conversation?
William S. Morris –
At least it’s a story
I’ve read books 3,5,&6. I won’t try the rest. Of these three, this one was definitely the best. It also suffered the problem of run on conversations that confused the reader as to who was talking. We wake up with a confusion as to what we are recovering from since we’re obviously recovering from something. We learn of a pandemic. Is it the pandemic affecting us? The story continues. As the story continues, we learn various things until we learn who we are, what we’re recovering from, and why. Okay, the story is a morality play, and it leaves one something to think about. At fulfilling that purpose, I’ll give the author credit. Otherwise, the story was a downer.
Mindo’ermatter –
Waking Up to Whole New Yet Impossible World!
This postmodernist short story by Paul Tremblay is a futuristic and mind-bending but fictional tale that intersects life, reality, and imagination into an ambiguous plotline that questions the blurring lines between technology’s good and bad outcomes. As the fifth installment in the “Future collection,” this disturbing story challenges the core of what makes each of us unique.Told primarily with a second-person point of view, the reader is immediately thrust into the storytelling drama that begins with uncertainty as the nameless character emerges from a prolonged state of unconsciousness amid a devastating world pandemic. Then everything you know goes out the window as a two-person dialogue between patient and caregiver creates some unusual plot twists and surprises.This imaginative and well-written novellete will make you rethink many ideas and positions you’ve likely entertained or explored previously. The author creates a fast and highly provocative reading experience to enjoy as a quick break from chaos or monotony for a satisfying reading experience.Well done too is the helpful Audible narration that bring additional life to this focused and entertaining short read.
Gustavo –
O autor faz um ótimo trabalho, neste conto, em colocar o leitor como o personagem principal. No estilo de narrativa do tipo “E se fosse eu?” Leitura rápida, extremamente interessante e que deixa muitos questionamentos interiores. Muito bom.
Israel Laureano –
Uno de los libros más raros que haya leÃdo, con excepción de la fama del autor, Paul Tremblay, no encuentro alguna otra razón por la que se le incluyó en la colección “Forward”. Paul Tremblay es un autor premiado y con varias novelas góticas de fantasÃa y horror a cuestas.Pero en esta novela corta se me hace que perdió el rumbo: la trama se basa en un hombre que despierta en un laboratorio y no recuerda nada. La doctora encargada del laboratorio se encarga de su rehabilitación, hasta que el hombre se encuentra lo suficientemente lúcido y fuerte para salir. El hombre se empieza a enfermar y por medio de los diálogos entre el hombre y la doctora no enteramos de que es un virus que ha eliminado a casi toda la humanidad. Ella quiere que él regrese al laboratorio para curarlo y rehabilitarlo otra vez, pero él no quiere… ¡y ya!, se acaba la novela.Utara, qué decepción. Quizá la trama tan simplona se debió a que la novela se publicó en 2019, y la idea de un virus apocalÃptico le pareció bastante sorprenden y horrible al autor. Quizá fue una fecha de entrega demasiado apretada que hizo que entregara lo primero que se le ocurrió.Pero no es ni ciencia ficción, ni fantasÃa, ni terror, bueno, ni futurismo (la idea de una pandemia mortal ya ha sido novelizada varias veces y se ha tomado en serio en las últimas décadas).
littleHunter –
In my humble opinion this here is by far the best I read from this collection of stories. I really liked the suspense. The slowness and not knowing until late what turn it might take in the end.A nice short story.
Reader –
I believe I liked it because of its potential as an instructive piece, as something that can be a help if/when I write something like this. There isn’t anything terribly new here, though — it’s the maladjusted-power-conducts-a-sinister-experiment-on-a-person-on-loop story. But the execution is neat and carries you along through one instance of the loop.
Book Lover –
This sci-fi novella begins with a man waking in a dark room, aching in every joint, not knowing what has happened to him, who he is , or where he is. He feels like he has been sleeping for a very long time, when a disembodied voice tells him “You have been asleep for a very long time”. He is told he is in isolation because of a world wide pandemic. He is given tasks to build his physical and mental strength, shown videos of himself as a child. But when he asks questions, they are never answered. This little book had me writing possible endings for the last half of the book and none of them were correct.