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“It is very good to have been man.”
Is it? A chronicle of the next two million years as narrated by the final human being, Olaf Stapledon's masterpiece follows the rise and fall of humanity and its ancestors from the primordial abysses to cultural and technological heights—and far, far beyond.
Over eons of future history, the human form itself undergoes dramatic changes, elongating, shrinking, and, finally, totally escaping the bounds of the body. As rebirth succeeds cataclysm succeeds rebirth, there is always a new race of men to take up the torch from the last, down to “the last syllable of recorded time.” And while the hard laws of the cosmos may not have bent to Man’s existence, yet for a span of ages, Man knew who and what he was—and still dared to act.
Stapledon’s infinite and icy vision of the future may seem bleak to some. For others, it is a triumph that a thing like Man existed at all. And endured through eons of changes. Presenting the definitive edition of Olaf Stapledon’s classic science fiction novel, with an introduction by famed evolutionary psychologist Geoffery Miller, author of The Mating Mind, and associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, followed by a counterpoint interpretative essay from historian and C.S. Lewis scholar Brad Birzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and professor of history at Hillsdale College. Also contains an all-new biographical essay, and more.
This speculative masterpiece and science fiction foundational classic has often inspired, at times horrified, and always jolted the imagination of thinkers and dreamers for decades. Now in a new and definitive edition for our time, Stapledon’s two-million-year ode to Man with its vast scale of space and time provides a bleak and bracing vision of humanity’s place in the cosmos—and what we may yet become.
“Stapledon was the most important visionary of the twentieth century . . . In Star Maker he begins where everyone else ends.”—Arthur C. Clarke
“Stapledon out-thought most philosophers — and out-dreamed most poets.”—Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction
“For some Stapledon is a guide; for others a warning. But none can pretend he did not see far.”—Stanislaw Lem, Microworlds: Essays and Reviews
“His imagination is not only powerful, but philosophical.”—Jorge Luis Borges in Other Inquisitions
“At times it seems less a story of cosmic vision than a nightmare of inhumanity. Yet even in the darkest parts, one feels the mind of a true writer.”—H.G. Wells
“He is something like a historian of possibility.”—Virginia Woolf
“To read Stapledon is to look over the edge of time itself.”—Robert Silverberg
“His universe is terrifying because it is plausible.”—Frank Herbert
“Stapledon’s imagination is immense—almost terrifying. You feel as though you are looking at creation through some vast chimney.” —C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man
Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) was the author of many of novels and nonfiction books, among them Last and First Men, Star Maker, and Odd John. Stapledon is considered one of the fathers of visionary science fiction, heir to H. G. Wells, and a major influence upon writers such as science fiction authors Arthur C. Clarke, Winston Churchill, and Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, as well as many American science fiction authors and scientists, including physicist Freeman Dyson. C. S. Lewis notably thought Stapledon “cracking good,” but was shaken by and reacted strongly to Stapledon’s dark vision. Stapledon’s novels are known for their sprawling scope, imaginative breadth, and philosophical depth, exploring themes of evolution, human consciousness, and the destiny of mankind across cosmic timescales.