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A review by jazzab1971
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
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.