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jazzab1971's review against another edition
4.0
This is perhaps the most epic (in the sense of the time scale it covers) book I have ever read...it covers something in the region of 2 billion years!
The edition I have is the 1990 paperback SF Masterworks reprint. It has a foreward by Gregory Benford in which he tells us that this edition is the first complete edition to be released in the USA...and then advises readers to skip the first four parts (which make up the first 78 pages)! Makes you wonder why they bothered with this complete edition...
Anyone who follows Gregory's advice will actually be doing themselves a disservice - they will miss out on the American President's brilliant reason/excuse for having an extra-marital affair, as well as the unique form of contraception that the race of the flight obsessed first men use.
The book looks at the future history of man from about 1930 onward. It is odd in that there is very few characters in it, and those that do appear only crop up for a few pages, making it less of a novel and more like a future history text book.
It works best when it looks closely at specific incidents, and tends to be quite hard going when Olaf slips into pages of philosophical discourse (which he tends to more and more as the book goes on).
On the whole, it is quite hard going in places, but is amazing in its sheer scope. Very imaginative and wide ranging, although it is rather dense reading for modern readers.
The edition I have is the 1990 paperback SF Masterworks reprint. It has a foreward by Gregory Benford in which he tells us that this edition is the first complete edition to be released in the USA...and then advises readers to skip the first four parts (which make up the first 78 pages)! Makes you wonder why they bothered with this complete edition...
Anyone who follows Gregory's advice will actually be doing themselves a disservice - they will miss out on the American President's brilliant reason/excuse for having an extra-marital affair, as well as the unique form of contraception that the race of the flight obsessed first men use.
The book looks at the future history of man from about 1930 onward. It is odd in that there is very few characters in it, and those that do appear only crop up for a few pages, making it less of a novel and more like a future history text book.
It works best when it looks closely at specific incidents, and tends to be quite hard going when Olaf slips into pages of philosophical discourse (which he tends to more and more as the book goes on).
On the whole, it is quite hard going in places, but is amazing in its sheer scope. Very imaginative and wide ranging, although it is rather dense reading for modern readers.
brucemri's review against another edition
5.0
One of the classics of science fiction on the grandest scale, this history of humanity from the aftermath of World War I till the destruction of the solar system still resonates deeply with me, long after I first read it. Changes in scientific understanding since 1930 make it so that most of it can't actually happen, but it has what some critics of science fiction call "plausible impossibilities" - things that resonate with our hopes, fears, dreams, wishes, and passions.
What really interests me much more than the technical bits are the philosophical ones. Stapledon reaches for a sense not just of the universe being beautiful, which many modern scientists and philosophers would agree with, but it being beautiful and therefore in some sense ultimately just and good, despite all the awful incidents on the way from any starting point to the whole. I think that that yearning has pretty well dropped out of Western intellectual life. We've seen additional human-scale awfulness, and learned more about how large a force sheer random contigency plays in existence at all scales, and between those, it's...maybe less necessary as well less feasible to anchor a moral vision in acceptance of the cosmos just as it is. But there's something in the mind of (at least) this reader that would still very much like to be able to feel that sense, and it was well worth riding along with Stapledon for the trip.
I had this in audiobook form. Stephen Greif did an outstanding job making the darnedest things seem plausible and inviting, mixing a studied intellectual calm with great passion where appropriate.
What really interests me much more than the technical bits are the philosophical ones. Stapledon reaches for a sense not just of the universe being beautiful, which many modern scientists and philosophers would agree with, but it being beautiful and therefore in some sense ultimately just and good, despite all the awful incidents on the way from any starting point to the whole. I think that that yearning has pretty well dropped out of Western intellectual life. We've seen additional human-scale awfulness, and learned more about how large a force sheer random contigency plays in existence at all scales, and between those, it's...maybe less necessary as well less feasible to anchor a moral vision in acceptance of the cosmos just as it is. But there's something in the mind of (at least) this reader that would still very much like to be able to feel that sense, and it was well worth riding along with Stapledon for the trip.
I had this in audiobook form. Stephen Greif did an outstanding job making the darnedest things seem plausible and inviting, mixing a studied intellectual calm with great passion where appropriate.
ianjsimpson's review against another edition
3.0
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapleton builds on the work of past authors and leads to the ideas found throughout science fiction literature since... https://theforgottengeek.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/the-history-of-science-fiction-literature-challenge-last-and-first-men-by-olaf-stapleton-1930/
carosbcher's review against another edition
4.0
Definitely a unique book, in many ways. Stapledon covers about 2 000 000 000 years of human history. Which is quite an ambitious time frame for approximately 450 pages, and yes, you might think that humans have not existed for such a long time...not yet!
The premise of this book is intriguing: A member of the species of the Last Men influences the brain of a writer (and one of our First Men "peers" [actually 1930 peers but with the 2 000 000 000 years in mind, this does not really matter]) and makes him write a novel, well, at least the author thinks he writes a novel. But (!) our relative from the future tells him the whole history of our race: from shortly past 1930 until the end of the humans.
The main character in this story is the wholeness of human race with its sidekick evolution. (And just for that I'd recommend this book to anybody who's searching for something extraordinary/likes Darwin).
The story is constantly but subtly criticizing our society, religion, our way of ruining the planet we live on and our way of interacting with others, and yes, also monogamy (quite as constantly as religion). Stapledon lets us take part in a visionary imagination of the future (and in some parts it's creepy how close he guessed with where we are now) and in really creative evolutionary processes of our species :)
The premise of this book is intriguing: A member of the species of the Last Men influences the brain of a writer (and one of our First Men "peers" [actually 1930 peers but with the 2 000 000 000 years in mind, this does not really matter]) and makes him write a novel, well, at least the author thinks he writes a novel. But (!) our relative from the future tells him the whole history of our race: from shortly past 1930 until the end of the humans.
The main character in this story is the wholeness of human race with its sidekick evolution. (And just for that I'd recommend this book to anybody who's searching for something extraordinary/likes Darwin).
The story is constantly but subtly criticizing our society, religion, our way of ruining the planet we live on and our way of interacting with others, and yes, also monogamy (quite as constantly as religion). Stapledon lets us take part in a visionary imagination of the future (and in some parts it's creepy how close he guessed with where we are now) and in really creative evolutionary processes of our species :)
expendablemudge's review against another edition
1.0
Rating: 1/2* of five
I cried "uncle" on p59 of this book, which was part of a group read on LibraryThing; it was written in 1930 or so, it's true, but nothing as ephemeral as passing time can excuse the line:
*buzz* you're out, Dr. Stapledon, and thanks for playing our game! This is supposedly a novel! That kind of snore-inducing prose is not even excusable in a textbook, though it is explainable there; in a novel, an entertainment, this tone is just about as far off the mark as any I can imagine. I can't fairly comment on the plot, since there isn't any that I can discern. The story unfolds as a being from our remote future lectures us on what we did wrong, with special emphasis on the horrors of America (oof, how very outmoded that sounds) and China as co-controllers of civilization.
Now I can't fault Dr. Stapledon for prescience, since he pegged the two dominant countries of the future so solidly, but there are no characters to make us care about the story and there are no passages of graceful prose to make us forgive the lack of characters. All in all, even given that I was skimming most of the book, it was a waste of a lovely Sunday afternoon.
I cried "uncle" on p59 of this book, which was part of a group read on LibraryThing; it was written in 1930 or so, it's true, but nothing as ephemeral as passing time can excuse the line:
A century after the founding of the first world state a rumour began to be heard in China about the supreme secret of scientific religion, the awful mystery of Gordelpus, by means of which it should be possible to utilize the energy locked up in the opposition of proton and electron.
*buzz* you're out, Dr. Stapledon, and thanks for playing our game! This is supposedly a novel! That kind of snore-inducing prose is not even excusable in a textbook, though it is explainable there; in a novel, an entertainment, this tone is just about as far off the mark as any I can imagine. I can't fairly comment on the plot, since there isn't any that I can discern. The story unfolds as a being from our remote future lectures us on what we did wrong, with special emphasis on the horrors of America (oof, how very outmoded that sounds) and China as co-controllers of civilization.
Now I can't fault Dr. Stapledon for prescience, since he pegged the two dominant countries of the future so solidly, but there are no characters to make us care about the story and there are no passages of graceful prose to make us forgive the lack of characters. All in all, even given that I was skimming most of the book, it was a waste of a lovely Sunday afternoon.
hilaritas's review against another edition
4.0
A pretty heady, highly idiosyncratic proto-SF tale that covers a mere couple billion years of human history. Unusual because it is a novel without any characters to speak of, nor any plot other than the endless rise, fall, rise again, fall to barbarism redux, and destruction(?) of humankind. It can be a bit dry because of that approach, but honestly, I found it enjoyable. In what other book can a hundred million years pass before he even gets to a comma? It's great.
This is also interesting because it's clearly the antecedent for tons of transhumanist thinking, but Stapledon's relationship to that line of evolutionist thought seems considerably more nuanced. While this book is clearly playing with ideas of a Hegelian World Spirit, Stapledon throws a lot of cold water on the idea of linear progress, and maybe on the possibility of achieving such a universal project at all. Over and over Stapledon tells us about a human society that reaches a peak, and then quickly succumbs to inherent structural problems, external climate disasters, or just plain predation. He also frankly deals at one point with the problem of human exceptionalism and expansion, when he strips the romance from our growth with a tale of the intentional genocide of a potentially sentient species on Venus to allow for terraforming.
This book is old fashioned in diction, and often feels closer to the 19th century than the 21st. But there's a lot to love here. It's mind-expanding in its sheer scope, it is honestly a lot more critical in its approach than lots of later SF, and it's also just fun. Stapledon predicts tons of technological developments, and watching him do so around the limitations of his time period is often astounding. He basically predicts in some form or fashion, among others: the EU, genetic modification, superintelligence/AI, wifi, x-rays, pulsars, etc., etc. The superintelligence one is particularly memorable. As Stapledon has little to no concept of machine intelligence/computing, he posits giant engineered concrete towers filled with brain matter. Quite an image!
The book is full of fun little weirdnesses like that (punctuating a somewhat droning narrative of "and then another thousand million years of the same type hunting and gathering passed..."). I started reading this for the historical SF perspective, but I really came to have a lot of affection for it. Highly recommended to anyone interested in SF, the teleology of intelligence, or just plain strange books.
This is also interesting because it's clearly the antecedent for tons of transhumanist thinking, but Stapledon's relationship to that line of evolutionist thought seems considerably more nuanced. While this book is clearly playing with ideas of a Hegelian World Spirit, Stapledon throws a lot of cold water on the idea of linear progress, and maybe on the possibility of achieving such a universal project at all. Over and over Stapledon tells us about a human society that reaches a peak, and then quickly succumbs to inherent structural problems, external climate disasters, or just plain predation. He also frankly deals at one point with the problem of human exceptionalism and expansion, when he strips the romance from our growth with a tale of the intentional genocide of a potentially sentient species on Venus to allow for terraforming.
This book is old fashioned in diction, and often feels closer to the 19th century than the 21st. But there's a lot to love here. It's mind-expanding in its sheer scope, it is honestly a lot more critical in its approach than lots of later SF, and it's also just fun. Stapledon predicts tons of technological developments, and watching him do so around the limitations of his time period is often astounding. He basically predicts in some form or fashion, among others: the EU, genetic modification, superintelligence/AI, wifi, x-rays, pulsars, etc., etc. The superintelligence one is particularly memorable. As Stapledon has little to no concept of machine intelligence/computing, he posits giant engineered concrete towers filled with brain matter. Quite an image!
The book is full of fun little weirdnesses like that (punctuating a somewhat droning narrative of "and then another thousand million years of the same type hunting and gathering passed..."). I started reading this for the historical SF perspective, but I really came to have a lot of affection for it. Highly recommended to anyone interested in SF, the teleology of intelligence, or just plain strange books.
editor_b's review against another edition
5.0
One of my favorite books, but definitely not for everybody, Last and First Men is a future history that reads like one. That is, it reads more like a textbook than a novel. The time-scale accelerates as the book progresses, so that subsequent chapters cover centuries and then millennia in a matter of pages. There are no individual characters after the 20th century or so. Truly, it is not a novel, but a philosophical treatise in the speculative mode.
There are some errors in Stapledon's science, some of which reflect on the fact that he was not a scientist. Other errors reflect the time of the writing, as the book was published in 1930. But his speculations on genetic engineering and terraforming were amongst the earliest.
What makes this book so fascinating, and almost unique, is the scope — the vastness of the time-scale. What's the last story you read that covered two billion years? As such, the narrative is largely concerned with the rise and fall of civilizations. New beginnings require old endings. We follow the trajectories of eighteen distinct species of humanity, rather than individual experiences. There are single sentences here so epic that another author might have developed them into a whole series of novels.
The only book I know with a bigger scope is Stapledon's own [b:Star Maker|525304|Star Maker (SF Masterworks, #21)|Olaf Stapledon|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YWzCYbNGL._SL75_.jpg|1631492], which covers nothing less than the history of intelligence in the universe.
Contemplating such awe-inspiring vistas is healthy, I think. Sometimes we seem to forget that our current moment of technological supremacy will not last, that in fact all empires are dust in the wind. We do well to remember.
Some will find it dry, tedious, perhaps overly intellectual. I found it vastly stimulating to the imagination. Even so things didn't really kick into high gear for me until the advent of the "Fourth Men," essentially giant disembodied brains who turn ugly. But don't expect a rollicking adventure tale. The author is primarily interested in big philosophical questions such as the nature of humanity and the meaning of life.
It's worth noting this book was hugely influential on great number of writers. I liken Stapledon to the Velvet Underground. Not many people bought their records, but everyone who did started their own band.
There are some errors in Stapledon's science, some of which reflect on the fact that he was not a scientist. Other errors reflect the time of the writing, as the book was published in 1930. But his speculations on genetic engineering and terraforming were amongst the earliest.
What makes this book so fascinating, and almost unique, is the scope — the vastness of the time-scale. What's the last story you read that covered two billion years? As such, the narrative is largely concerned with the rise and fall of civilizations. New beginnings require old endings. We follow the trajectories of eighteen distinct species of humanity, rather than individual experiences. There are single sentences here so epic that another author might have developed them into a whole series of novels.
The only book I know with a bigger scope is Stapledon's own [b:Star Maker|525304|Star Maker (SF Masterworks, #21)|Olaf Stapledon|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YWzCYbNGL._SL75_.jpg|1631492], which covers nothing less than the history of intelligence in the universe.
Contemplating such awe-inspiring vistas is healthy, I think. Sometimes we seem to forget that our current moment of technological supremacy will not last, that in fact all empires are dust in the wind. We do well to remember.
Some will find it dry, tedious, perhaps overly intellectual. I found it vastly stimulating to the imagination. Even so things didn't really kick into high gear for me until the advent of the "Fourth Men," essentially giant disembodied brains who turn ugly. But don't expect a rollicking adventure tale. The author is primarily interested in big philosophical questions such as the nature of humanity and the meaning of life.
It's worth noting this book was hugely influential on great number of writers. I liken Stapledon to the Velvet Underground. Not many people bought their records, but everyone who did started their own band.
dlbvenice's review against another edition
2.0
Some truly fascinating speculations about the future of humankind. But only arguably worth wading through the lengthy, maddeningly abstract and non-specific prose. And much of the view of how future Men would be and would behave was bounded within the very narrow scope of vision that was white, male, British-empire-colonial, and least to my 21st century sensibilities.
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