Reviews

Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future by Olaf Stapledon

lbrex's review against another edition

5.0

It's not possible to do this massively-scaled and flat-out bonkers novel justice in a short review. Olaf Stapledon has a feverishly fertile imagination. He doesn't shy away from writing a novel, enabled through a form of historical telepathy, that tells the future of the seventeen later species evolved from humanity until the final demise of humans around 5 trillion years in the future. The book begins as a somewhat sly set of predictions about the state of humanity after World War I and imagines the apocalyptic destruction of the twentieth-century world order over next 10 million years after 1930, the book's year of publication.

The later evolutionary development of humanity shows us surprising dead ends and odd evolutionary developments, such as the grafting of genes from sentient Martian clouds into the human genome as well as the necessity of transporting humanity to Neptune after solar changes make life on earth impossible. The entire narrative is told with an eye towards what Stapledon's narrator calls "cosmic beauty," a sense that humanity's destiny, when viewed by some sort of grander higher power, is tragic and beautiful. The ending, which allows for significant meditation on the demise of the human species, is strangely touching, despite the oddities that readers have witnessed for 300 pages.

I recommend this book enthusiastically but I also recognize that it is not for everyone. In fact, some of you might be bored by it, but I was ultimately struck with a unique form of wonder (though the novel is not without its problematic representations). Apparently Stapledon had socialist tendencies and went on to inspire Arthur C. Clarke, so there's certainly a lot to explore here. If you like science fiction, utopian literature, or simply odd books, this one to put on your list!

jjahnavi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Olaf's genius is outstanding. I'm so grateful to have read the words that came out of Olaf's mind. With my myriad thoughts, as I read this book, I could layer a book upon his. Olaf's knowledge & it's extrapolation astound me, inspire me. How neatly, he characterized the many nation's of today's world - makes me wonder - did he hold some insight into the future, hitherto unknown or, have the nations changed so little that they, by and large, remain in the character that Olaf described in the 1930s. The summary aptly says: this is a history of our future. And I love it! I haven't always agreed with Olaf's ideas but I have enjoyed these :D It teaches me to be better. 

canislatrans's review against another edition

4.0

An astonishing work of imagination; I thought I'd read plenty of early sf, but this was totally off my radar until now.

ashcomb's review against another edition

4.0

It is no wonder this book and Olaf Stapledon's words has inspired future generation of writers. His imagination of human history and evolution is fantastical and now after 91 years you can see the influence he has had on science fiction. While I grimace and disagree with some of his predictions, there is still merit to it. He has a firm understanding of human nature. Maybe tat pessimistic and misanthropic, but he is searching for a philosophical being who transcendent gender, race, self, and rivalry, so I grand him his pessimistic attitude. I have to agree with most of it. Who knows if we live to see the day our sun dies out or the day we evolve past these bodies and become more attuned with the physical world. Unfortunately, I won't be there to see it, but at least with these kinds of books I can imagine what it might be like.

geeklet's review against another edition

adventurous challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

donatasd's review against another edition

5.0

Surely one of the best scifi books. However, everyone interested in anthropology, social sciences or spirituality will find it appealing. Unless interested in alternative history, I recommend to skip first few chapters as it discusses current affairs from 30s perspective.

joosty's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

mdpenguin's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

This was a grand undertaking on the part of the author and there's a lot about it that is really interesting, however I really don't think it's very good for two reasons. The first is that the writing is a lot like a philosophical essay in that it repeats things over and over in different ways to ensure that the intended meaning gets through. The second is that it's just so wrong about so much. 

Part of this, of course, is that it was published in 1930, before WWII and with the contemporary state of technology and the sciences. But some of it is just bad thinking, both on his part and that of many of his contemporaries in England. An example of weakness on his part was that technology was already moving faster than what he supposed would happen in the future of his time. Much of what he projected would take 100's of years was accomplished by the end of the 20th century and there were plenty of scientists who would have gotten this timescale pretty close to correct. The science of heredity in England at the time was pretty horrible, and English racial theory – with all of the nasty implications that served as the backbone for eugenics programs domestically, in the US, and in Nazi Germany – plays a heavy role in the development of the various human species through the book. The nastiness is tempered somewhat by Nietzsche's heavy influence on the progression of the species, but it still felt kind of grody to me, having grown up in a country that shut down its last public Eugenics program only in the mid 1970's. 

At first it was interesting to see where he got things wrong and where his propositions rhymed with what really happened, but the writing made it a slog to get from one interesting idea to the next. And after a while, the wrongness just stopped being interesting. With the social developments of the mid-20th century through the remainder of the more familiar structure of society, one could think about what the world looked like to a well-educated Englishman in 1930 and see where he might come to the conclusions that he did. But as the geopolitics stopped being couched in familiar terms and started becoming much broader, all that was really left was the fact that things just don't work the way that he thought that they did. 

I think that I might have found it quaint if this were written from the perspective of the 1830's rather than the 1930's. The 1930's was just as science was starting to figure out astrophysics and engineering was really starting to understand how to harness energy to do interesting things, so it wasn't far enough removed from modern times for me to suspend disbelief and accept that things might just work differently in the setting of this book. If there were fallacies involving the luminous ether rather than fallacies regarding fission then I could just shrug it off. But each thing that he was wrong about in regards to physics and engineering were close enough to the real thing that I couldn't help but see it as error rather than just a different world. 

The grand scope of this project, however, was impressive. And, though many of the premises were wrong, the thinking was coherent and interesting. If it had been slightly better written or had come out a decade and a half later then I think that I'd have liked it. As it stands, I'm glad to have satiated my curiosity by having read it but would honestly rather have spent my time reading something else. 

aitorfmg's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Una oda a la humanidad por todo lo alto que encapsula las dos bases de la ciencia ficción: que el ser humano siempre se adapta y sobrevive a las circunstancias, y que no somos nada frente a la magnitud del cosmos. Se notan las raíces de Stapledon, antes filósofo que escritor, al elucubrar no tanto desde la ciencia (que también) como desde la antropología. Trata la condición del ser humano desde su esencia y, especialmente en sus últimos capítulos, menos historicistas, aborda la supervivencia de la especie desde un punto de vista que busca hacernos cuestionar nuestra propia forma de ser en el presente. Justifica la existencia de este libro a través de la investigación temporal de las últimas humanidades, expandiendo su mitología y buscando siempre mejorarnos como personas. Quiere que compartamos, que socialicemos y que busquemos en el Otro nuestro propio interior.

La última y la primera humanidad es una conversación unidireccional que traspasa el tiempo y el espacio para, a través de la bondad de esa Última Humanidad, demostrarnos hasta dónde podemos llegar en nuestro estado casi embrionario. Quizás los primeros capítulos se excedan en su historicismo, pero Stapledon ama al ser humano y sabe que, para mirar hacia delante, debemos repasar los grandes errores de la humanidad. Este es un trabajo de imaginación, lógica y racionalismo desbordantes cuyo objetivo es siempre abrirnos los ojos a la vastedad del universo y al valor de las relaciones interpersonales. Una de las grandes obras de la ciencia ficción tanto por la creatividad del autor en un impresionante ejercicio de worldbuilding como por su propósito altruista.

pandoozled14's review against another edition

3.0

It was not a pleasant read, but I respect what it tried to do.