"No book before or since has ever had such an impact upon my imagination," declared 2001 author Arthur C. Clarke of this masterpiece of science fiction. An imaginative, ambitious history of humanity's future that spans billions of years, this 1930 epic abounds in prescient speculations. A must-read for scholars of the genre.
Last And First Men (S.F. MASTERWORKS)
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Olaf Stapledon's first novel Last and First Men, published in 1930, has sometimes been called science fiction's Bible--a sweeping, exhilarating history of humanity's future. Its awesome timescale, stretching across five billion years, was an inspiration to the young Arthur C. Clarke, who later wrote: "No book before or since ever had such an impact on my imagination." However, Last and First Men should come with a health warning: The early chapters, dealing with near-future politics from the viewpoint of 1930, are mired in dodgy short-term speculation and have dated badly. Soon Stapledon rings down the curtain on us "First Men" as an uncontrolled nuclear reaction sweeps the world and boils the oceans--and now his imagination takes flight. The Second Men are plagued with invasions of cloud-like Martians; the bat-eared, six-fingered Third Men deliberately create the Fourth Men who are essentially huge, immobile brains ... and so on through ever-vaster gulfs of time. Individuals, nations, civilizations, even species are evocatively shown as mayflies flickering in and out of existence in an immense, chilly cosmos that goes uncaringly on forever. Yet it's not a gloomy work: even as the dying Sun promises to become their funeral pyre, the Last Men affirm that "It is very good to have been man." Another classic choice from Millennium SF Masterworks. --David Langford
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
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About the Author
Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) was born near Liverpool and educated at Balliol College, Oxford and Liverpool University. After spending eighteen months working in a shipping office in Liverpool and Port Said, he lectured extramurally for Liverpool University in English Literature and industrial history. He served in France from 1915 until 1919 with the Friends Ambulance Unit and then lectured again for Liverpool University in psychology and philosophy. His novels include First and Last Men, Last Men in London, Star Maker and Odd John.
--This text refers to an alternate
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
After 20 years of reading about Last and First Men (they had not even heard of it in Hay-on-Wye)I have found it at last. If your idea of a novel is a book about people's relationships, it may not be for you. That particular element of novels bores me to death and this is more my idea of a compelling read. The history of mankind from 1930 to a few billion years hence is pre-written by a philosopher and fantasist possessed of a great and unquiet mind, inhuman but not inhumane as someone has well put it. On no account skip the opening chapters, whatever anyone tells you. The fact that S got the world's history 1930-2002 completely wrong is not the point -- the rest of it will almost certainly prove to be all wrong too, if we think like that. What these first chapters do is to get us into the author's weird exalted and passionless mindset. He is not so much on another planet as in an alternative universe. It is entirely to the book's advantage that he has no grasp of realpolitik and even that he has no detectable sense of humour -- when I was beginning to feel the latter as a lack I came to the only bit where he ascribes humour to any of his characters, a race of monkeys depicted in general unsympathetically and not least for their possession of this deplorable characteristic. That put me in my place I can tell you. From start to finish I got no sense of either pity or cruelty as he chronicles the the periodic near-annihilations that overtake the various successive human races, and while his account of the systematic extermination of the intelligent life on Venus filled me with a wrenching sense of tragedy that I did not feel for any of the mankinds the author himself seemed as unmoved as ever. If Wuthering Heights was written by an eagle, who or what wrote Last and First Men? Of other human proclivities I can report that sex is methodically accorded its place in a thorough and businesslike manner reminiscent of Peter Simple's great sexologist Profesor Heinz Kiosk (assisted by Dr Melisande Fischbein). Of anything I would recognise as love or affection or friendship I can find not a trace.
-- 'here he has not gone so far as to trouble the eternal gods or the stars that blight our human lot.' That comes in Star Maker. Here the 18th and last men are trapped in our solar system when final doom reaches out from the stars. Next -- Star Maker, which makes this book seem parochial.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It is hard to fully express the effect this book has had on me. I was lent it by my grandfather, who read it close to 60 years ago and insists that it still haunts him.
I can see why. Stapledon's writing, though rather stale and flat to begin with, belies a stunning imagination that not only beggers belief with its soaring vastness; but really blows a hole out the back of "accepted" morality, social values and most over, polical values.
Stapledon makes modern governments' 10-year line-of-sight feel both criminal and also charmingly, but laughably, childish.
I'm no political scientist (far from it...), but I found my atitudes towards my country, my planet and my fellow man re-evaluted through reading this work.
Highly recommended.
I can see why. Stapledon's writing, though rather stale and flat to begin with, belies a stunning imagination that not only beggers belief with its soaring vastness; but really blows a hole out the back of "accepted" morality, social values and most over, polical values.
Stapledon makes modern governments' 10-year line-of-sight feel both criminal and also charmingly, but laughably, childish.
I'm no political scientist (far from it...), but I found my atitudes towards my country, my planet and my fellow man re-evaluted through reading this work.
Highly recommended.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is a really old classic written in 1930 and you have to make some allowances for its age, especially in the early chapters. It sets out to tell the ambitious story of the entire history of mankind from the perspective of the Last Men, very distant descendants of homo sapiens. Succeeding chapters take us through the fate of the First Men (ourselves), the rise of the Second Men and their doom and on through a variety of stories each covering a greater and greater period of time until we reach the final end of the Fifteenth Men - the Last Men living in the outer solar system long after the Earth has become uninhabitable. The whole thing is told in the curiously dispassionate tones of an encyclopaedia. It's a story without characters, without much of a sense of place or description and without any human warmth. In fact it lacks almost all of the attributes of a traditional novel. The only excitement is the cold drama of the great sweeps of imaginary history it describes but it works brilliantly to evoke that desolate mood.
'Star Maker', a sort of a sequel (yes, you can have a sequel to the end of mankind!) manages to trump 'Last and First Men' (an amazing feat) and is possibly an even better book but if you want to read either of these you should start with 'Last and First Men'.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Ancient Future
This book, as I write, is over 80 years old, having been written in 1930, a fact worth bearing in mind as you read. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Anath
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing journey
For a book written over 80 years ago some of the foresight and concepts are incredible. The style of writing is intricate but never over complicated. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Diablo
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic
This really is a classic - read by me many years ago and now purchased again to allow a re-read. Brilliant vision and scope from this sci-fi writer.
Published 3 months ago by cg
5.0 out of 5 stars
A mighty and astonishing vision of the future of humankind
Stunned, shocked and amazed was my reaction on completing the final page of this book. It is simply a masterpiece, and deserves to be much better-known. Read more
Published 3 months ago by William Robinson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Every sci-fi follower should read this.
It is a most unusual book, having virtually no dialogue and hardly any individual characters. And yet it is easy to see why so many classic sci-fi authors credit this as an... Read more
Published 4 months ago by emdeefos
4.0 out of 5 stars
A hard read, but amazing for the time
I found this book surprisingly tough to get through. I think that the reason was the exceptionally flowery wording and the repetitive nature of the work. Read more
Published 10 months ago by K. Royle
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Story-telling, Future-reading and Hard-going
What can this book tell us today? Can it still be enjoyed by today's readers? These were the two questions I had lurking in the back of my mind when I got my copy of this 1930... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Sean T. Page
5.0 out of 5 stars
astonishing.
There is not a book like it. It takes you on a journey like no other. I really enjoyed this book but it left me feeling uneasy for quite a while, not sure why... Read more
Published on 17 May 2011 by Johan RF
2.0 out of 5 stars
2 billion years? I feel like I've lived through them.
I'm trying to think of something nice to say about this, but the most I can generate is that at least I finished it. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2011 by Enzyme
2.0 out of 5 stars
Epic but ultimately boring
I read the synopsis for this book, thought it looked interesting, and saw that most of the reviews were positive, so gave it a go. Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2010 by Andy Dufresne
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