Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950)
Author of Star Maker
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Series
Works by Olaf Stapledon
Talking Across the World: The Love Letters of Olaf Stapledon and Agnes Miller, 1913-1919 (1987) 13 copies
Collected Stories 4 copies
A World Of Sound 3 copies
Arms Out Of Hand 3 copies
A Modern Magician 3 copies
East Is West 3 copies
Saints and revolutionaries 2 copies
Interplanetary Man 2 copies
The Man Who Became A tree 2 copies
Criador de Estrelas 1 copy
Últimos e Primeiros Homens 1 copy
STA Juan Raro 1 copy
Alevler 1 copy
Beyond the "isms" 1 copy
The Collected Works of Olaf Stapledon: Science Fiction Novels, Fantasy Short Stories and Philosophical Works (2021) 1 copy
Critaturas de fuego 1 copy
X Rare stories 1 copy
X Biography 1 copy
THE ROAD TO THE AIDE POST 1 copy
William Olaf Stapledon 1 copy
Associated Works
This Way to the End Times: Classic Tales of the Apocalypse (2016) — Contributor — 51 copies, 2 reviews
Titan, Teil 21: Klassische Science Fiction- Erzählungen (1976) — Contributor, some editions — 10 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Stapledon, William Olaf
- Birthdate
- 1886-05-10
- Date of death
- 1950-09-06
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Oxford (Balliol College)
University of Liverpool (Phd)
Abbotsholme School (Rocester, Staffordshire, England, UK) - Occupations
- novelist
teacher
lecturer
ethicist
philosopher
ambulance driver (WWI) (show all 7)
peace activist - Organizations
- University of Liverpool
- Awards and honors
- Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award (2001)
Croix de Guerre (WWI)
Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (2014) - Relationships
- Stapledon, Sir Reginald George (uncle)
- Short biography
- Olaf Stapledon, englischer Philosoph und Schriftsteller, wuchs in Ägypten auf und studierte in Oxford. Neben seiner Tätigkeit in einer Reederei hielt er an der Universität Liverpool Gastvorlesungen über englische Literatur und über Geschichte der Industrialisierung. Nach seiner Promotion zum Doktor der Philosophie wandte er sich der Erforschung der philosophischen Richtungen im 20. Jahrhundert zu. Von 1930 an schrieb er Science Fiction. In der Tradition von H. G. Wells stehend, schuf er mit seinen Romanen gigantische Extrapolationen der menschlichen Entwicklung und der Entfaltung des Lebens im Kosmos. (Rückentext »Der Sternenschöpfer«)
- Cause of death
- heart attack
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Seacombe, Wallasey, Cheshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Seacombe, Merseyside, England, UK
Caldy, Wirral, Merseyside, England, UK
Port Said, Egypt
Rocester, Staffordshire, England, UK
Manchester, England, UK
West Kirby, Merseyside, England, UK - Place of death
- Caldy, Wirral, Merseyside, England, UK
- Burial location
- Dee Estuary, Wirral, Merseyside, England, UK (ashes scattered)
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
Olaf Stapledon Question in Science Fiction Fans (February 2014)
"Last and First Men" Group Discussion in Group Reads - Sci-Fi (August 2013)
Reviews
Cattle! Cattle! a whole world of cattle! My God how they stink is Odd johns view of the human race (homo sapiens. Olaf Stapledon's novel published in 1935 has every right to be called a science fiction masterwork and it probably ranks with Aldous Huxley's [Brave New World] as literary science fiction.
The plot is a familiar one to science fiction readers, but the way it has been used by Stapledon would have seemed inventive and at times shocking, back then and it still has an impact today. show more John is an infant prodigy whose intelligence after a slow start easily outstrips those around him and his mind continues to develop at an alarming rate leaving his body struggling to keep up. At 8 years old John realises that he is very different from the rest of the human race and realises that he must keep his prodigious talents secret or he will be imprisoned or destroyed. His story is narrated by "Fido", Odd John's pet name for the adult friend of the family who becomes his willing helper. It is Fido's task to introduce the boy into the adult world so that he can learn things for himself. John studies politics, philosophy, religion, business and science and finds them all wanting. He embarks on his own course of study that takes him away from the family unit and into the natural world. It is his gradual realisation that there are others, perhaps only a handful, who are also super-normal that leads him to form the idea of setting up a colony, that will work in isolation from the human race. John discovers that he has telepathic powers and once these are harnessed he can communicate with and then track down the other super-normals, who are all gifted in different ways. If this is starting to sound like Salman Rushdie's [Midnight's Children], then I would not be at all surprised if this book had not sown the seeds for Rushdie's novel.
This is an intelligent novel and Stapledon uses the premise to examine society and world affairs in the inter-war years. Fido relates his many conversations with Odd John who takes every opportunity to sound off about what is wrong with the world and the human race:
"The best minds!, he said, "One of your main troubles of your unhappy species is that the best minds can go even farther astray than the second best, much farther than the umpteenth best. That has what has been happening during the last few centuries. Swarms of the best minds have been leading the population down blind alley after blind alley, and doing it with tremendous courage and resource, Your trouble, as a species, is that you can't keep hold of everything at once......................Then what with this new crazy religion of nationalism that's beginning and the steady improvement of the technique of destruction, a huge disaster is simply inevitable, barring a miracle which of course may happen."
Having used Fido as a biographer of Odd John's life, Stapledon is able to elicit a certain amount of sympathy for the super-normals, They are in many respects the superior race as Odd John keeps reminding Fido and their very difference allows them to flout earthly conventions. Taboos of murder and incest are ignored when the occasion demands and yet Stapledon does not portray them as monsters, we are torn between wanting them to succeed, but at the same time are appalled by some of their methods. An underlying theme to this novel is that homo sapiens keep on making the same mistakes, their inability to learn from these will eventually single them out as a doomed species, a failed experiment. It is this thought along with the super-normals continuing search for a new kind of spirituality that creates much of the dichotomy.
Olaf Stapledon wrote books on philosophy, politics as well as his science fantasy's and was the only British delegate to the communist backed cultural and scientific conference to world peace held at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. His academic credentials do not get in the way of his writing in this novel; while there are some pseudo-philosophical and political tracts to negotiate they are not without interest and the author never loses sight of his story. The search for other super-normals is exciting and inventive and the trials and tribulations of the super-colony are fascinating. There is a lack of suspense, because fairly early on we are informed of John's early death, but this does not purport to be an adventure story, it is a thoughtful intelligent novel whose biographical form firmly grounds it in the real world. Yes this is a literary novel and although you will not find flights of marvellous prose you will find a wealth of inventive ideas, interesting social commentary and that dichotomy at the very heart of the novel, which lifts this out of the pure science-fiction genre. 4.5 stars. show less
The plot is a familiar one to science fiction readers, but the way it has been used by Stapledon would have seemed inventive and at times shocking, back then and it still has an impact today. show more John is an infant prodigy whose intelligence after a slow start easily outstrips those around him and his mind continues to develop at an alarming rate leaving his body struggling to keep up. At 8 years old John realises that he is very different from the rest of the human race and realises that he must keep his prodigious talents secret or he will be imprisoned or destroyed. His story is narrated by "Fido", Odd John's pet name for the adult friend of the family who becomes his willing helper. It is Fido's task to introduce the boy into the adult world so that he can learn things for himself. John studies politics, philosophy, religion, business and science and finds them all wanting. He embarks on his own course of study that takes him away from the family unit and into the natural world. It is his gradual realisation that there are others, perhaps only a handful, who are also super-normal that leads him to form the idea of setting up a colony, that will work in isolation from the human race. John discovers that he has telepathic powers and once these are harnessed he can communicate with and then track down the other super-normals, who are all gifted in different ways. If this is starting to sound like Salman Rushdie's [Midnight's Children], then I would not be at all surprised if this book had not sown the seeds for Rushdie's novel.
This is an intelligent novel and Stapledon uses the premise to examine society and world affairs in the inter-war years. Fido relates his many conversations with Odd John who takes every opportunity to sound off about what is wrong with the world and the human race:
"The best minds!, he said, "One of your main troubles of your unhappy species is that the best minds can go even farther astray than the second best, much farther than the umpteenth best. That has what has been happening during the last few centuries. Swarms of the best minds have been leading the population down blind alley after blind alley, and doing it with tremendous courage and resource, Your trouble, as a species, is that you can't keep hold of everything at once......................Then what with this new crazy religion of nationalism that's beginning and the steady improvement of the technique of destruction, a huge disaster is simply inevitable, barring a miracle which of course may happen."
Having used Fido as a biographer of Odd John's life, Stapledon is able to elicit a certain amount of sympathy for the super-normals, They are in many respects the superior race as Odd John keeps reminding Fido and their very difference allows them to flout earthly conventions. Taboos of murder and incest are ignored when the occasion demands and yet Stapledon does not portray them as monsters, we are torn between wanting them to succeed, but at the same time are appalled by some of their methods. An underlying theme to this novel is that homo sapiens keep on making the same mistakes, their inability to learn from these will eventually single them out as a doomed species, a failed experiment. It is this thought along with the super-normals continuing search for a new kind of spirituality that creates much of the dichotomy.
Olaf Stapledon wrote books on philosophy, politics as well as his science fantasy's and was the only British delegate to the communist backed cultural and scientific conference to world peace held at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. His academic credentials do not get in the way of his writing in this novel; while there are some pseudo-philosophical and political tracts to negotiate they are not without interest and the author never loses sight of his story. The search for other super-normals is exciting and inventive and the trials and tribulations of the super-colony are fascinating. There is a lack of suspense, because fairly early on we are informed of John's early death, but this does not purport to be an adventure story, it is a thoughtful intelligent novel whose biographical form firmly grounds it in the real world. Yes this is a literary novel and although you will not find flights of marvellous prose you will find a wealth of inventive ideas, interesting social commentary and that dichotomy at the very heart of the novel, which lifts this out of the pure science-fiction genre. 4.5 stars. show less
RE: LAST AND FIRST MEN:
First published in 1930, LAST AND FIRST MEN is remarkably insightful and still contemporarily relevant in its philosophical understanding of human nature, failures, and aspirations. It is a work of unprecedented scale in the SF genre, describing the history of humanity from 1930 onwards across two billion years and eighteen distinct human species—both those naturally evolved and those human-designed, of which our own is but the first and, spiritually, the most show more primitive.
Stapledon’s conception of history is based on the Hegelian Dialectic: a cyclical pattern in which many civilizations repeatedly rise to greatness and descend into savagery over millions of years, and yet it is also one of incremental progress as later civilizations meet each successive threat to human survival through adaptation and the achievement of threat-specific physical, intellectual, communal, spiritual, and philosophical challenge until the noble, but inevitably, Last human civilization. But even then, in humility, there remains hope.
LAST AND FIRST MEN, in its presentation, is a "recounting" of the entirety of human history relayed to the author, of the First Men (like we, the readers), by the time-traversing telepathy of one of the very Last Men.
The story's protagonist is Humanity, and the plot is what befalls us as a species.
This narrative style may be off-putting to those accustomed to the usual fare of a modern novel's dialogue among relatable characters facing personal challenges, but for the reader with the ability to conceive of character and conflict and settings on the "macrocosmic" rather than the comparatively microcosmic scale -- and who possesses a philosophical interest in Man and matching curiosity regarding Life and our place and purpose within it will be amply rewarded.
Once I acclimated to the narrative format, I found LAST AND FIRST MEN increasingly engaging. I admittedly struggled with the Last Man's self-acknowledged dispassionate recount of his events that were both tragic and sometimes amoral to borderline immoral (such as episodes of eugenics, uncompassionate transhumanism, regrettable genocide, and unregretted euthanasia, as well as species-determined socially acceptable suicide). I was somewhat surprised by the equally matter-of-fact description of changing sexual mores, all plausible given the unique circumstances of the eighteen human species described.
The grand scale of humanity's story over millions of years, facing environmental, human (political, ideological, philosophical, religious), alien (Martian and Venusian), and cosmic challenges, evoked my awe.
LAST AND FIRST MEN has been highly acclaimed by figures as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Algernon Blackwood, Hugh Walpole, Arnold Bennett, Virginia Woolf, and Winston Churchill. show less
First published in 1930, LAST AND FIRST MEN is remarkably insightful and still contemporarily relevant in its philosophical understanding of human nature, failures, and aspirations. It is a work of unprecedented scale in the SF genre, describing the history of humanity from 1930 onwards across two billion years and eighteen distinct human species—both those naturally evolved and those human-designed, of which our own is but the first and, spiritually, the most show more primitive.
Stapledon’s conception of history is based on the Hegelian Dialectic: a cyclical pattern in which many civilizations repeatedly rise to greatness and descend into savagery over millions of years, and yet it is also one of incremental progress as later civilizations meet each successive threat to human survival through adaptation and the achievement of threat-specific physical, intellectual, communal, spiritual, and philosophical challenge until the noble, but inevitably, Last human civilization. But even then, in humility, there remains hope.
LAST AND FIRST MEN, in its presentation, is a "recounting" of the entirety of human history relayed to the author, of the First Men (like we, the readers), by the time-traversing telepathy of one of the very Last Men.
The story's protagonist is Humanity, and the plot is what befalls us as a species.
This narrative style may be off-putting to those accustomed to the usual fare of a modern novel's dialogue among relatable characters facing personal challenges, but for the reader with the ability to conceive of character and conflict and settings on the "macrocosmic" rather than the comparatively microcosmic scale -- and who possesses a philosophical interest in Man and matching curiosity regarding Life and our place and purpose within it will be amply rewarded.
Once I acclimated to the narrative format, I found LAST AND FIRST MEN increasingly engaging. I admittedly struggled with the Last Man's self-acknowledged dispassionate recount of his events that were both tragic and sometimes amoral to borderline immoral (such as episodes of eugenics, uncompassionate transhumanism, regrettable genocide, and unregretted euthanasia, as well as species-determined socially acceptable suicide). I was somewhat surprised by the equally matter-of-fact description of changing sexual mores, all plausible given the unique circumstances of the eighteen human species described.
The grand scale of humanity's story over millions of years, facing environmental, human (political, ideological, philosophical, religious), alien (Martian and Venusian), and cosmic challenges, evoked my awe.
LAST AND FIRST MEN has been highly acclaimed by figures as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Algernon Blackwood, Hugh Walpole, Arnold Bennett, Virginia Woolf, and Winston Churchill. show less
I have conflicting feelings about this book: I could just as well give it 1 star or 5 stars. The British science fiction author Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) certainly had an unbridled imagination. This was already evident in his phenomenal Last and the First Men (1930), a reconstruction of more than 2 billion years of human history (you read that right: 2 billion years). In this book, Star Maker (1937), he even goes a step further: he lets a British man look back on a cosmic journey of years show more along solar systems with inhabited planets, entire galaxies and ultimately the Creator/Star Maker himself. Once again, the strangest creatures, civilizations and cosmic empires pass by, in an increasingly intense succession and interconnection. Again I was impressed by Stapledon’s knowledge and use of the astronomical science of the time, I just think of his description of multiverses. Most notable is his emphasis on cosmic interconnectedness: starting with the methods of ‘psychical attraction’ and ‘disembodied flight’ that he uses to transport his narrator through space (and time) faster than the speed of light, along with an ever-increasing number of mentally interconnected entities, and culminating in a collective mind that encompasses the entire cosmos, a truly impressive image: “Each world, peopled with its unique, multitudinous race of sensitive individual intelligences united in true community, was itself a living thing, possessed of a common spirit. And each system of many populous orbits was itself a communal being. And the whole galaxy, knit in a single telepathic mesh, was a single intelligent and ardent being, the common spirit, the ‘I’, of all its countless, diverse, and ephemeral individuals.”
But Stapledon was also a child of his time (the interbellum), and that is shown, for example, in his long digression on racial differences, in the many references to fascism and capitalism, and in his very cyclical view of the development of civilizations. It is this constant rise and fall of civilizations, and especially the sometimes arbitrary destruction and annihilation of entire worlds, galaxies and even universes that raises fundamental, existential questions in the narrator: “As we searched up and down time and space, discovering more and more of the rare grains called planets, as we watched race after race struggle to a certain degree of lucid consciousness, only to succumb to some external accident or, more often, to some flaw in its own nature, we were increasingly oppressed by a sense of the futility, the planlessness of the cosmos.”
And so our narrator in his quest ultimately ends up with the Star Maker, the creator of everything. And – as might be expected – this ‘encounter’ is expressed in true Dantesque terms: “I saw, though nowhere in cosmical space, the blazing source of the hypercosmical light, as though it were an overwhelmingly brilliant point, a star, a sun more powerful than all suns together. It seemed to me that this effulgent star was the centre of a four-dimensional sphere whose curved surface was the three-dimensional cosmos. The star of stars, this star that was indeed the Star Maker, was perceived by me, its cosmical creature, for one moment before its splendour seared my vision.”
But the big question is of course how this Supreme Being could remain so indifferent to all these destroyed beings and worlds. In an attempt to explain this, Stapledon presents us with the image of a kind of Ultimate Laboratory Technician in a permanent creative mood, experimenting both within and outside of time (clearly Stapledon has read Augustine), with ever-reconfigured universes, a formidable, endlessly learning entity. This may seem an attractive intellectual image (which, by the way, comes close to the image of God in process theology), but from a human-existential point of view it seems to me an emotional sign of weakness.
The scope and depth of what Stapledon touches upon in this novel may safely be called phenomenal. But in all honesty I must say that the accumulation of descriptions and experiences is so overwhelming and sometimes so very detailed that it eventually becomes very difficult to follow, and – as far as I am concerned – also a bit long-winded. Hence my allusion to the choice between 1 or 5 stars. So I will cowardly refrain from giving a rating, but this is without a doubt one of the most remarkable writings of the first half of the 20th century show less
But Stapledon was also a child of his time (the interbellum), and that is shown, for example, in his long digression on racial differences, in the many references to fascism and capitalism, and in his very cyclical view of the development of civilizations. It is this constant rise and fall of civilizations, and especially the sometimes arbitrary destruction and annihilation of entire worlds, galaxies and even universes that raises fundamental, existential questions in the narrator: “As we searched up and down time and space, discovering more and more of the rare grains called planets, as we watched race after race struggle to a certain degree of lucid consciousness, only to succumb to some external accident or, more often, to some flaw in its own nature, we were increasingly oppressed by a sense of the futility, the planlessness of the cosmos.”
And so our narrator in his quest ultimately ends up with the Star Maker, the creator of everything. And – as might be expected – this ‘encounter’ is expressed in true Dantesque terms: “I saw, though nowhere in cosmical space, the blazing source of the hypercosmical light, as though it were an overwhelmingly brilliant point, a star, a sun more powerful than all suns together. It seemed to me that this effulgent star was the centre of a four-dimensional sphere whose curved surface was the three-dimensional cosmos. The star of stars, this star that was indeed the Star Maker, was perceived by me, its cosmical creature, for one moment before its splendour seared my vision.”
But the big question is of course how this Supreme Being could remain so indifferent to all these destroyed beings and worlds. In an attempt to explain this, Stapledon presents us with the image of a kind of Ultimate Laboratory Technician in a permanent creative mood, experimenting both within and outside of time (clearly Stapledon has read Augustine), with ever-reconfigured universes, a formidable, endlessly learning entity. This may seem an attractive intellectual image (which, by the way, comes close to the image of God in process theology), but from a human-existential point of view it seems to me an emotional sign of weakness.
The scope and depth of what Stapledon touches upon in this novel may safely be called phenomenal. But in all honesty I must say that the accumulation of descriptions and experiences is so overwhelming and sometimes so very detailed that it eventually becomes very difficult to follow, and – as far as I am concerned – also a bit long-winded. Hence my allusion to the choice between 1 or 5 stars. So I will cowardly refrain from giving a rating, but this is without a doubt one of the most remarkable writings of the first half of the 20th century show less
Perhaps my rating of this book is a bit too flattering. But that's because it's inspired by childhood nostalgia: I first read this when I was only 15, and it just blew me away. Perhaps that was what determined my choice to study history later. Because make no mistake: this may seem like a science fiction book, but in many ways it is more of a historical work. In this book, the Brit Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) lets the Last Man (that is, the last descendant of the 18th human species) look back show more on 2 billion years of human history. Yes, you read that right: 2 billion years. This book does not stick to a million more or less, and one civilization and human species follows the other, at an increasing pace.
Of course, Stapledon was a child of his time and there are expressions and opinions that are ‘not done’ any more in our time (almost a century later), such as the description that 'negro dance' (sic) has a "sexual and primitive character". Especially in the first chapters, which describe the succession of wars between European countries and then between America and China, Stapledon candidly expresses his opinion about peoples and countries. In this way, the unique merits of England are highlighted (English pacifism is interpreted as the highest expression of civilization in our era), and America in particular is hit hard ("this was essentially a race of bright, but arrested, adolescents. Something lacking which should have enabled them to grow up.”). In fact, the entire Americanization of the world would lead to the eventual demise of the First Man. Perhaps it is indeed better to skip the first 4 chapters, because they are too close to Stapledon's own time and as a consequence are too colored by his present views.
From the fifth chapter onwards, the new human species and their ascending and descending civilizations follow each other in rapid succession, spread over millions of years, with regularly very long Dark Ages. What Stapledon serves here testifies to a particularly inventive mind, which was also surprisingly well informed with the state of science at the time. It is striking that he has a good command of the principles of evolutionary theory, and is even up to date with the latest developments in atomic science and quantum physics. Before you start to think that Stapledon mainly focuses on abstract aspects: he pays a striking amount of attention to culture and religion. Almost all civilizations he describes, have special cultural characteristics and in almost all of them forms of religion set the tone, bringing those civilizations to both great heights and terrible lows. For example, during the third human species there is an extremely musical civilization, also called the Holy Empire of Music, which in no time falls into a tyrannical regime, a musical theocracy.
There is, of course, a system in Stapledon's review of the heroic history of the human species: “again and again folk after folk would clamber out of savagery and barbarism into relative enlightenment; and mostly, though not always, the main theme of this enlightenment was some special mood either of biological creativity or of sadism, or of both.” Apparently, Stapledon's vision was strongly marked by the horror of the First World War, and undoubtedly also by Oswald Spengler's Untergang des Abendlandes (the Decline of the West), 1918-1922. He may have derived his cyclical view of man (perhaps it is better to speak of a spiral view of history) from Spengler. But Stapledon certainly did not share the German's deep pessimism. In many respects (as is evident from his other writings) he stands in the utopian tradition, with the associated optimism. This Last and First Men ends with a striking eulogy for humanity (we are now at the 18th and last human species): “Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him there is achievement, small, but actual. Too soon, apparently, he comes to his end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things.”
As mentioned, my appreciation for this book may be a bit exaggerated. But the lyrical description of so many eras, and the infectious (naive) recurring resurrection of the human species, really appeal to me. Even with almost 50 years between my first and second reading of this book. No doubt that says something about me. show less
Of course, Stapledon was a child of his time and there are expressions and opinions that are ‘not done’ any more in our time (almost a century later), such as the description that 'negro dance' (sic) has a "sexual and primitive character". Especially in the first chapters, which describe the succession of wars between European countries and then between America and China, Stapledon candidly expresses his opinion about peoples and countries. In this way, the unique merits of England are highlighted (English pacifism is interpreted as the highest expression of civilization in our era), and America in particular is hit hard ("this was essentially a race of bright, but arrested, adolescents. Something lacking which should have enabled them to grow up.”). In fact, the entire Americanization of the world would lead to the eventual demise of the First Man. Perhaps it is indeed better to skip the first 4 chapters, because they are too close to Stapledon's own time and as a consequence are too colored by his present views.
From the fifth chapter onwards, the new human species and their ascending and descending civilizations follow each other in rapid succession, spread over millions of years, with regularly very long Dark Ages. What Stapledon serves here testifies to a particularly inventive mind, which was also surprisingly well informed with the state of science at the time. It is striking that he has a good command of the principles of evolutionary theory, and is even up to date with the latest developments in atomic science and quantum physics. Before you start to think that Stapledon mainly focuses on abstract aspects: he pays a striking amount of attention to culture and religion. Almost all civilizations he describes, have special cultural characteristics and in almost all of them forms of religion set the tone, bringing those civilizations to both great heights and terrible lows. For example, during the third human species there is an extremely musical civilization, also called the Holy Empire of Music, which in no time falls into a tyrannical regime, a musical theocracy.
There is, of course, a system in Stapledon's review of the heroic history of the human species: “again and again folk after folk would clamber out of savagery and barbarism into relative enlightenment; and mostly, though not always, the main theme of this enlightenment was some special mood either of biological creativity or of sadism, or of both.” Apparently, Stapledon's vision was strongly marked by the horror of the First World War, and undoubtedly also by Oswald Spengler's Untergang des Abendlandes (the Decline of the West), 1918-1922. He may have derived his cyclical view of man (perhaps it is better to speak of a spiral view of history) from Spengler. But Stapledon certainly did not share the German's deep pessimism. In many respects (as is evident from his other writings) he stands in the utopian tradition, with the associated optimism. This Last and First Men ends with a striking eulogy for humanity (we are now at the 18th and last human species): “Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him there is achievement, small, but actual. Too soon, apparently, he comes to his end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things.”
As mentioned, my appreciation for this book may be a bit exaggerated. But the lyrical description of so many eras, and the infectious (naive) recurring resurrection of the human species, really appeal to me. Even with almost 50 years between my first and second reading of this book. No doubt that says something about me. show less
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