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A review by gringoley
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
2.0
I can’t recommend this thing to anyone that isn’t into hardcore scifi prehistory because it is a perfect example of the best and worst of the genre.
Imagine using old stereotypes and prejudices to create a history of mankind from 1930 to over a billion AD. That pretty much sums up the first parts of the book. Incidentally the edition I read has a recommendation from the publisher to SKIP the first part of the book because of its gross failure is predict events. However, if predictive accuracy is an issue for you then you had better skip the whole thing because in it man takes over 200 million years just to go to the moon rather than only 39 years (1969, and to be fair the author died in 1950). The book has no plot, story, or real characters, and reads like an essay. Therefore the following is only slightly more spoiler than quoting from the dictionary but consider yourself warned. It wasn't all bad though, kudos for not making Martians little green men. Here’s a couple shocking/interesting quotes:
For those who though Heinlein was the first free-love scifi author - “The sexual morality of the Second Men passed through all the phases known to the First Men; but by the time that they had established a single world-culture it had a form not known before. Not only were both men and women encouraged to have as much casual sexual intercourse as they needed for their enrichment, but also, on the higher plane of spiritual union, strict monogamy was deprecated. For in sexual union of this higher kind they saw a symbol of that communion of minds which they longed to make universal. Thus the most precious gift that a lover could bring to the beloved was not virginity but sexual experience. The union, it was felt, was the more pregnant the more each party could contribute from previous sexual and spiritual intimacy with others. Yet though as a principle monogamy was not applauded, the higher kind of union would in practice sometimes result in a life-long partnership. But since the average life was so much longer than among the First Men, such fortuitously perennial unions were often deliberately interrupted for a while, by a change of partners, and then restored with their vitality renewed. Sometimes, on the other hand, a group of persons of both sexes would maintain a composite and permanent marriage together. Sometimes such a group would exchange a member, or members, with another group, or disperse itself completely among other groups, to come together again years afterwards with enriched experience. In one form or another, this "marriage of groups" was much prized, as an extension of the vivid sexual participation into an ampler sphere. Among the First Men the brevity of life made these novel forms of union impossible; for obviously no sexual, and no spiritual, relation can be developed with any richness in less than thirty years of close intimacy.”
Several steps beyond even pan-sexual . . . “Around the ancient core of delight in physical and mental contact with the opposite sex there now appeared a kind of innately sublimated, and no less poignant, appreciation of the unique physical and mental forms of all kinds of live things. It is difficult for less ample natures to imagine this expansion of the innate sexual interest; for to them it is not apparent that the lusty admiration which at first directs itself solely on the opposite sex is the appropriate attitude to all the beauties of flesh and spirit in beast and bird and plant.”
I'm gonna skip the quote on high-minded reasons for cannibalism among close friends.
My favorite quote: “I can only point out that, the higher a mind's development, the more it discovers in the universe to occupy it.”
And finally all the races of men:
1) Humans
2) Gentle club-footish extra large humans
Martian cloud brains
3) Cat-ish humans
4) Giant 12 foot plus brain humans
5) Super human giants
Venetian swordfish-crabs
6) Less-supermen
7) Pygmy bat-like men
8) Long-headed pedestrian humans.
(9 - 18 Ten Neptunian human species)
9) Weak & brute dwarf men
10) Long-armed hairless rabbit men with hands (evolved from hoofed sheep-like, rat-like, cat-like, and bug-bird-like sub-men)
11) Tusked men
12) Kangaroo men
13) Chucky broad-as-tall men
14) Thick-set cramped-body imperfectly-human men
15) Great weighted-head men
16) Telepathic, front-and-back-eyed men
17) Imperfect group-brain men
17) Perfect group-brain The last men
?The universal cosmic soul of all universes?
Imagine using old stereotypes and prejudices to create a history of mankind from 1930 to over a billion AD. That pretty much sums up the first parts of the book. Incidentally the edition I read has a recommendation from the publisher to SKIP the first part of the book because of its gross failure is predict events. However, if predictive accuracy is an issue for you then you had better skip the whole thing because in it man takes over 200 million years just to go to the moon rather than only 39 years (1969, and to be fair the author died in 1950). The book has no plot, story, or real characters, and reads like an essay. Therefore the following is only slightly more spoiler than quoting from the dictionary but consider yourself warned. It wasn't all bad though, kudos for not making Martians little green men. Here’s a couple shocking/interesting quotes:
For those who though Heinlein was the first free-love scifi author - “The sexual morality of the Second Men passed through all the phases known to the First Men; but by the time that they had established a single world-culture it had a form not known before. Not only were both men and women encouraged to have as much casual sexual intercourse as they needed for their enrichment, but also, on the higher plane of spiritual union, strict monogamy was deprecated. For in sexual union of this higher kind they saw a symbol of that communion of minds which they longed to make universal. Thus the most precious gift that a lover could bring to the beloved was not virginity but sexual experience. The union, it was felt, was the more pregnant the more each party could contribute from previous sexual and spiritual intimacy with others. Yet though as a principle monogamy was not applauded, the higher kind of union would in practice sometimes result in a life-long partnership. But since the average life was so much longer than among the First Men, such fortuitously perennial unions were often deliberately interrupted for a while, by a change of partners, and then restored with their vitality renewed. Sometimes, on the other hand, a group of persons of both sexes would maintain a composite and permanent marriage together. Sometimes such a group would exchange a member, or members, with another group, or disperse itself completely among other groups, to come together again years afterwards with enriched experience. In one form or another, this "marriage of groups" was much prized, as an extension of the vivid sexual participation into an ampler sphere. Among the First Men the brevity of life made these novel forms of union impossible; for obviously no sexual, and no spiritual, relation can be developed with any richness in less than thirty years of close intimacy.”
Several steps beyond even pan-sexual . . . “Around the ancient core of delight in physical and mental contact with the opposite sex there now appeared a kind of innately sublimated, and no less poignant, appreciation of the unique physical and mental forms of all kinds of live things. It is difficult for less ample natures to imagine this expansion of the innate sexual interest; for to them it is not apparent that the lusty admiration which at first directs itself solely on the opposite sex is the appropriate attitude to all the beauties of flesh and spirit in beast and bird and plant.”
I'm gonna skip the quote on high-minded reasons for cannibalism among close friends.
My favorite quote: “I can only point out that, the higher a mind's development, the more it discovers in the universe to occupy it.”
And finally all the races of men:
1) Humans
2) Gentle club-footish extra large humans
Martian cloud brains
3) Cat-ish humans
4) Giant 12 foot plus brain humans
5) Super human giants
Venetian swordfish-crabs
6) Less-supermen
7) Pygmy bat-like men
8) Long-headed pedestrian humans.
(9 - 18 Ten Neptunian human species)
9) Weak & brute dwarf men
10) Long-armed hairless rabbit men with hands (evolved from hoofed sheep-like, rat-like, cat-like, and bug-bird-like sub-men)
11) Tusked men
12) Kangaroo men
13) Chucky broad-as-tall men
14) Thick-set cramped-body imperfectly-human men
15) Great weighted-head men
16) Telepathic, front-and-back-eyed men
17) Imperfect group-brain men
17) Perfect group-brain The last men
?The universal cosmic soul of all universes?