Last and First Men

It's certainly impressive - both in concept and in execution. I can't really say I've read anything like it; I'm reminded of Asimov's Foundation "trilogy", only with a scope much grander, or of... some book I read back in my SF days... something by Aldiss, perhaps? Something about mankind millions of years into the future, living in space stations underground... it's fuzzy. Also of Swedish sf/non-fiction astronomy writer Peter Nilson, whom I absolutely adore, but who is mostly untranslated AFAIK.

Anyway. This might be the first novel I've ever read where the foreword urged me to skip the first few chapters - and it's easy to see why, even if I wouldn't recommend it. Because even if he gets some guesses about the 20th-21st centuries VERY show more wrong (and bases them almost entirely on national stereotyping which I hope is supposed to be satirical) he actually gets a few things right - if not in detail. The dominance of an increasingly nationalistic and religious America, for instance, or the rise of a China which adopts capitalism but not democracy...

But it's after all that that things get really interesting. One thing that strikes me is how far we've come since 1930; Stapledon is a pessimist when it comes to humanity's (or if that should be humanities') ability to live in peace with each other or others, but when it comes to technology he's already been overrun - his mankinds need millions of years to develop things such as space flight, nuclear power or genetics, but Stapledon's own contemporaries needed less than 20 years. If I had any main problem with the story, it's exactly this; things take TOO long, as if he needed to find some way to stretch it to 2,000 million years - and so we have species-wide civilizations lasting millions of years with no great changes, we have evolution simply "taking a break" from time to time, etc.

But the main story here, of course, is the development of Man. Or Men. And even if I think it suffers from hardly having any characters whatsoever - it does get a bit same-same-but-different after a while when all numbers are counted in millions - and even if Stapledon goes on to apply the same national stereotyping he uses on The First Men to...um... species-related stereotyping later on, it's a fascinating, if rarely thrilling, read. The sheer imagination it takes to pull something like this off; the plausibility he, despite some romantic naivite both when it comes to society and biology, manages to add to his broad strokes of the brush... Plus, he's occasionally VERY funny. I'm not sure if some bits are intended as satire on the First Men or if he's writing it all as straight-faced as he can, but since they are all to some extent human - and we are all too human - it certainly works as such from time to time.

As someone who always prefers character to plot, I was surprised at how much I liked this. It has its faults, and it rarely kept me turning pages breathlessly, but... I've never read anything with the same approach, and I find myself wishing there were more books like it. 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 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 show more 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

Unlike anything I've ever read: an exercise in applying an evolutionary perspective and a decent understanding of scientific and technological ideas (for the time) to human history - from the 20th century to two billion years in the future, when the last humanoid species finally goes extinct - because the sun dies. No magic tricks, no wishful thinking - immortality or interstellar travel - no gimmicky plot or comic book characters - just pure speculation presented as if it were a chronological overview of the future history of our species and its descendants. It bears mentioning that one human species after another is basically responsible for its own decline and fall (often, presciently, causing large-scale ecological damage when they show more go) - and that they all rise, weaken, and die just as individuals or particular societies do. The particulars of Stapledon's future scenarios are fascinating not because they seem to reflect our present - or his - but precisely because they don't. show less

[Expanding on the blurb by this edition's Publisher]:
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 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 show more 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.

Reading time of ~7.25 hours (116301 words).
This DRM-Free edition published by epubBooks, 2020. show less

I'm not gonna lie, folks; of all the books I've tackled so far this year, Last and First Men has been the toughest challenge to my resolve to only read one book at a time. That's not to say it's by any means a bad book; it's part of the SF Masterworks Collection* for very good reasons. It's just that, well, gripping storytelling it ain't.

Penned in 1930 by a philosophy professor, Last and First Men is heavy on exposition and all but devoid of character, dialogue or even plot beyond "exploring the nature of the 18 races of man from First (20th Century earthbound Homo sapiens sapiens) to Last (Neptunian superbeings who live for thousands of years) and how their society kept on evolving and devolving and evolving again." The text is show more presented as a sort of lecture series on the history of humanity, delivered by a Last Men scholar who doesn't quite sneer at his predecessors and their flaws but doesn't exactly hold them in reverence, either. Indeed, often the prose reads like that of a 19th century natural history text on, say, social insects, albeit very sophisticated ones.

The early chapters of the novel are best read, by a 21st century sci-fi fan, as a strange form of alternate history a la, say, Harry Turtledove; in this case, our point of departure is not long after Last and First Men's original publication date, for nothing like World War II and the Holocaust even remotely figures in this extrapolation. Stapledon possessed an acute talent for that, but humanity has always been full of surprises! One can smile indulgently at how off base he was, but to do so is to completely miss why this book is a classic of the genre; after all, the rest of the 20th century is not even the first tenth of this book, and the First Men's story covers thousands of years of struggle (sometimes genocidal) to form a world government, the creation of a scientific religion in which "divine energy" is the object of worship and the purview of a rigid guild of scientists, and the development of a culture of abundance (no disease, no want, a flying car for everybody) that values strenuous physicality (and flight) above all else, to the detriment of human intelligence. With predictable results.**

But wait! Like I said, that's not even 25% of the book. I've never read any fiction so ambitious in scope, folks. The closest I can think of is maybe Stephen Baxter's Evolution, but even it just took on the life-span of life on planet Earth. Last and First Men covers "about two thousand million years", takes us, or a future version or 18 of us to the outer solar system, and teems with phrases like "Not till many hundred thousand years had passed did..." It's truly stupefying. It's also very, very clever; to encompass so much time in just 300 pages or so, it has to be. There's a mathematical progression governing the level of detail and verbiage devoted to each iteration of humanity; I suspect, though am not really a rigorous enough person to be sure of this, that this is an instance of exponential decay. At any rate, the narrative speeds up considerably once Stapledon has dispensed with our own species, the First Men***, and keeps on speeding up until eventually a million years can pass in a sentence fragment. At one point, ten million years pass because it's a time of barbarism and stasis. Well, okay, Mr. Stapledon; it's your Memorable Fancy.

For a giant William Blakean Memorable Fancy is what this book is, a visionary and somewhat allegorical tale spun out to illustrate the writer's philosophy, hopes and fears. I would love to see an edition of this book illuminated in the way that Blake did his works. It would be an eminently lovely thing.

Along the way, we get to watch Stapledon toss off a stunning array of concepts and ideas that were quite ahead of his time and the influences of which we can find throughout science fiction: the perils of genetic engineering, Peak Oil and its aftermath, the cyclical natures of high civilization and barbarism, aliens that are genuinely and profoundly alien (i.e. not Star Trek humanoids with extra nobbly bits on their faces), the fragility of knowledge, the notion that humans can easily evolve back into animals if care is not taken...

It's easy, in short, to see how Last and First Men came to be such a very influential book. People talk about how Heinlein originally dashed off all of the sci-fi tropes with which we have become so familiar, but for a lot of them, Stapledon was there first.

I wonder what his other novels are like.

*I didn't use that edition's cover to decorate this post because I liked this cover so very, very much better! I mean, look at it!

**Think Idiocracy meets Otto from A Fish Called Wanda.

***In his forward to SF Masterworks edition, the great Gregory Benford advises readers to consider skipping the "badly dated" first 20-25% of this novel, partly for reasons I've already observed (in addition to the wrong guesses at history, this first narrative teems with racial and national stereotypes, and of course gives women the shortest possible shrift) but also to spare American readers some tart observations from a British philosopher who was no great fan of capitalism and American cultural hegemony. But to skip these chapters would deprive the reader of the sensation of being swept along through time at an ever-accelerating rate that is one of this novel's unique and most exceptional offerings. If you're going to read it, read it. show less

Published in 1930, this is a science fiction novel of big ideas. I'm impressed by the ambition of the book which outlines a future history starting in the 20th/21st centuries and carries forward two billion years into the future. It is a powerful exploration of progress (and how fragile progress can be), the perils and promise of genetic engineering and long range thinking. The author imagines multiple kinds of humanity over a long range of time with different interests, technologies, obsessions and more.

One small note of criticism. The book is great on ideas, concepts and exploring "what if?" questions. However, there are barely any characters. I'm not entirely sure if there is a plot per se. Despite these shortcomings, it is a show more magnificent work of ideas and I can see its influence far and wide in science fiction and beyond. show less

It's really hard to describe this novel in a way that can do it justice because any cursory explanation such as "plotless" and "characterless" has some rather negative connotations. :)

Indeed, it's kinda impossible to have those here except in brief glances relying on bird's eye views before necessarily jumping on to the next BIG IDEA and Super-Imaginative setting.

For what we have here, way back in 1930, is novel of Future History influencing every big SF author of the day, even influencing Winston Churchill, HG Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and countless SF writers ever since.

Why? Let me do this quick: Eighteen iterations of mankind over a billion years, from the total death of our mankind, the evolutionary re-emergence of the next, the show more differences, oddities, rediscoveries after soooo much time, the new dreams, aspirations, religions, the different values, before the next mankind dies off. We have Martian invasion, we have our invasion of Venus, we have major genetic modifications, telepathy during other iterations, the ability to experience racial memory a-la Dune, adding multiple sexes, immortality, living in gas giants, and sometimes merely striving only to improve the human race. Over a billion years. And of course, whole races die. Over and over.

It's grand, majestic, awe-some, and brilliant.

So much imagination is crammed into so few pages that a prospective SF author could just pour through this and continue to point at reused story ideas for even current-day authors! I look at the nuclear-powered version of life on Venus, the intelligent clouds of Mars, the huge brains, the musical race, the race of time-travelers, and my jaw just drops.

It's not without emotion, either. There's a deep an abiding love for everyone here even as a whole race suffers deep ennui and an existential crisis or during others that suffer impossible odds, accidents, or the final death of our solar system. The philosophies give it away. The spirit of the human races rise and ebb and undergo vast changes.

And yet there's no characters or plot. Just setting and world-building and vast movements of so many people. :)

It would never get published today.

And yet, it's still brilliant. Absolutely worth knowing, even now. :) It makes me wonder what we're collectively doing. We can't forget that works like this EXIST. :) show less