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A review by din0_bot
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
5.0
This is a book that inspired the great Sir Arthur C. Clarke. This book deserves more recognition than it gets. It's a true classic in my eyes.
I spent years searching for this book after having learned about its existence in [b:Evolution|66792|Evolution|Stephen Baxter|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390475106s/66792.jpg|2117008], which also projects human evolution into the far future, but takes a more somber tone. As soon as I found it, though, I devoured it. It pulled me away from homework, video games, and sleep. It's not often that a book comes along and entrances me so utterly and completely that it stays with me for years after reading. Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is one of those few, after [b:Hyperion|77566|Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg|1383900] by Dan Simmons and [b:Dandelion Wine|50033|Dandelion Wine (Green Town, #1)|Ray Bradbury|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1374049845s/50033.jpg|1627774] by Ray Bradbury.
Stapledon does more than just project scientific speculation about humanity's evolutionary potential two billion years hence; he reaches back, just like the Last Men, into our species' past and draws on all the hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, joy, and suffering and weaves it through a daisy-chain of numerous variations on the human theme throughout the eons. There are no main characters, save humans and the incredible adversity they face, but Stapledon achieves something that most science fiction (especially during his time) cannot: he evokes powerful feelings of hope and loss on a stage that is incomprehensibly grand and mind-boggling. Nature, in the form of diseases, alien life forms, and the harshness of the planets of our solar system threatens and crushes the humans, but they earn their right to continue evolving by clinging to their foothold and thriving as only life itself can. Moreover, this book began my slow journey into understanding just how precious and fragile life is.
For a narrative whose vehicle is an overview of future history, Last and First Men reaches both emotional and cerebral heights that have remained in my mind for years. The last few pages are especially poetic. Writing this almost makes me want to set aside my fantasy reading just to read Last and First Men again.
I highly suggest this book. It's a piece of sci fi history, and a damn beautiful one at that.
I spent years searching for this book after having learned about its existence in [b:Evolution|66792|Evolution|Stephen Baxter|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390475106s/66792.jpg|2117008], which also projects human evolution into the far future, but takes a more somber tone. As soon as I found it, though, I devoured it. It pulled me away from homework, video games, and sleep. It's not often that a book comes along and entrances me so utterly and completely that it stays with me for years after reading. Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is one of those few, after [b:Hyperion|77566|Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg|1383900] by Dan Simmons and [b:Dandelion Wine|50033|Dandelion Wine (Green Town, #1)|Ray Bradbury|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1374049845s/50033.jpg|1627774] by Ray Bradbury.
Stapledon does more than just project scientific speculation about humanity's evolutionary potential two billion years hence; he reaches back, just like the Last Men, into our species' past and draws on all the hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, joy, and suffering and weaves it through a daisy-chain of numerous variations on the human theme throughout the eons. There are no main characters, save humans and the incredible adversity they face, but Stapledon achieves something that most science fiction (especially during his time) cannot: he evokes powerful feelings of hope and loss on a stage that is incomprehensibly grand and mind-boggling. Nature, in the form of diseases, alien life forms, and the harshness of the planets of our solar system threatens and crushes the humans, but they earn their right to continue evolving by clinging to their foothold and thriving as only life itself can. Moreover, this book began my slow journey into understanding just how precious and fragile life is.
For a narrative whose vehicle is an overview of future history, Last and First Men reaches both emotional and cerebral heights that have remained in my mind for years. The last few pages are especially poetic. Writing this almost makes me want to set aside my fantasy reading just to read Last and First Men again.
I highly suggest this book. It's a piece of sci fi history, and a damn beautiful one at that.