This wasn't quite what I expected going in, but then, you have to remember that Shelley wasn't operating with pre-existing genre conventions like we have now. It's a three-volume novel about an apocalyptic plague, but the plague isn't even mentioned until Volume 2. Basically, it's formatted as the last living man (as far as he can tell, anyway) writing out the story of his life, so the first volume is basically everything that happened from his birth until slightly before the Plague started.

It is very interesting to see someone born in the 18th century writing about the 2090s (and also to think that it's still the future to us, though if I'm very lucky and accomplish my goal of living a century, I will get to see that decade!). Despite the time period still being most of a lifetime away, we are much closer to it than she was, yet this book feels much more akin to her time period than ours, to the point where it's easy to forget it was meant to be in the future at all. I think she was more interested in thinking about political changes than technological ones, though they did have a winged air balloon at one point that I suspect she made up.

In all, this is a good read for Shelley fans, though it is a bit slower/more drawn out than Frankenstein. Go into it expecting literary fiction moreso than anything closely resembling the futuristic science fiction of today.