Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. His works also include fantasy and science fiction, as well as plays, romances, non-fiction and historical novels. "The Poison Belt" was the second story, a novella that Doyle wrote about Professor Challenger. He and his team should face the very end of the world as Earth slowly moves through a belt of poisonous ether.