"The Last Trump" is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

by American writer

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...

. It was first published in the June 1955 issue of ''

Fantastic Universe ''Fantastic Universe'' was a U.S. science fiction magazine which began publishing in the 1950s. It ran for 69 issues, from June 1953 to March 1960, under two different publishers. It was part of the explosion of science fiction magazine publishi ...

'' and reprinted in the 1957 collection ''

Earth Is Room Enough ''Earth Is Room Enough'' is a collection of fifteen short science fiction and fantasy stories and two pieces of comic verse by American writer Isaac Asimov, published in 1957. In his autobiography '' In Joy Still Felt'', Asimov wrote, "I was st ...

''. Although humorous, it deals '' inter alia'' with a serious subject, calendar reform. The title is a reference to

1 Corinthians 15 The First Epistle to the Corinthians () is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-author, Sosthenes, and is addressed to the Christian church in Co ...

:52.

Plot summary

By order of the Council of Ascendants and approved of by the Chief, it is decided that the

Day of Resurrection In Islam, "the promise and threat" () of Judgement Day ( or ), is when "all bodies will be resurrected" from the dead, and "all people" are "called to account" for their deeds and their faith during their life on Earth. It has been called "the do ...

is due on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, despite the protestations of Etheriel, a junior

Seraph A seraph ( ; pl.: ) is a celestial or heavenly being originating in Ancient Judaism. The term plays a role in subsequent Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Tradition places seraphim in the highest rank in Christian angelology and in the fif ...

with responsibility for the world. Whilst he seeks an audience with the Chief to plead for a stay of execution for "his" planet, the Last Trump is sounded, and as of January 1, 1957, time comes to a stop on Earth. A mysterious figure known only as R. E. Mann (a pun on

Ahriman Angra Mainyu (; ) is the Avestan name of Zoroastrianism's hypostasis of the "destructive/evil spirit" and the main adversary in Zoroastrianism either of the Spenta Mainyu, the "holy/creative spirits/mentality", or directly of Ahura Mazda, th ...

, the Persian name for

Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...

)—later revealed as the devil—makes his way across the world, seeing what has happened in the Hereafter and pleased with it. All the dead are coming back to life, naked and uncaring. He meets a former professor of history who observes that the people have indeed been judged and are not in heaven but hell. He also meets a manufacturer of breakfast cereal, who angrily threatens to sue, since no one will need his product any more. Etheriel has his meeting with the Chief and argues that the date January 1, 1957, unqualified, is meaningless, and that therefore a single Day of Resurrection is also impossible. The Chief agrees and declares that the end will come only when all the peoples of the Earth agree on a common date (which, given the wide variety of cultures on Earth, is extremely unlikely to ever occur). The world is instantly restored to normality. R. E. Mann, frustrated in his endeavours, plans to promote the adoption of a new calendar system, based on the Atomic Era, to begin on December 2, 1944.

Critical response

Peter S. Rieth describes the story as "a rather sorrowful account of the resurrection of the dead and one angel's valiant attempt to stop the end of the world", and says that "Asimov litters his story with a large quantity of simple, day-to-day practical examples of how our wildest hope (resurrection and eternal life) may in practice become a waking nightmare."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Trump, The Short stories by Isaac Asimov 1955 short stories Fiction set in 1957 Science fiction short stories Works originally published in Fantastic Universe Last Judgment Fiction about God