"Entertainment Weekly" in their review said that "uneven pacing and tone mar an intriguing cautionary tale. This collaboration, completed before Clarke's death last March, would've made a better solo project for either author." "The Washington Post" said that ""The Last Theorem" reads like a dog-eared album of favorite themes from yesteryear", referring to Clarke and Pohl topics from the authors' earlier works. Thomas M. Wagner at "SF Reviews" wrote that ""The Last Theorem" is a book I really resent not liking, because there's so much about it that deserves to be liked." He said that the first two-thirds is "so good ... it almost, but doesn't quite, make up for the nonsense that overtakes the whole affair at the climax." Wagner felt that the meeting of "two disparate storytelling sensibilities" was "far less harmonious and compatible" than Clarke and Pohl may have imagined. Wagner summed up by saying that ""The Last Theorem" is not simply an uneven novel. It's a deeply disjointed one, a book that introduces a host of wonderful ideas and sympathetic, believable characters, only to decide it doesn't trust them to carry off the story in the end, ultimately falling back – disastrously – on dated and dubious formula."