The Poison Belt (Professor Challenger #2) (1913)

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Professor Challenger, the aggressive, ego-driven bulldozer of The Lost World, comes back for another adventure, but this time he’s more of a protector than an explorer. 

He and his companions barricade themselves in a sealed room with oxygen canisters after discovering that the Earth is passing through a lethal zone of "poisonous ether" in space. 

They watch from their window as the entire world appears to fall into a death-like trance, forcing them to confront the potential end of the human race. 

Very little actually happens in this story, which was serialized in The Strand magazine in 1913.

 The protagonists are passive observers looking out a window while the world succumbs, and the drama comes less from action than from the possibility that this is the way the world ends. 

The highlight of the story is the protagonists’ sojourn out of the house to investigate the effects on the world. 

Arthur Conan Doyle has a neat idea but settles for a scenario wherein his characters can sit safely nearby and take notes while it plays out.

Arthur Conan Doyle

 Doyle's premise relies on a scientific theory that was on its way out at the time—ether, the invisible medium many physicists once believed carried light waves. Halley’s Comet had passed Earth three years earlier, and when astronomers detected cyanogen gas in its tail, elements of the press whipped up public fear that it would wipe out life; people even bought “comet pills” and gas masks.