Last and First Men

Olaf Stapledon

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Penguin??Books

Odd John

John Wainwright is a freak, a human mutation with an extraordinary intelligence which is both awesome and frightening to behold. Ordinary humans are mere playthings to him. And Odd John has a plan to create a new order on Earth, a new supernormal species. But the world is not ready for such a change ...

Science Fiction

EYRE METHUEN

Last Men in London (1932) is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon. The narrator is the same member of the eighteenth and final human species who purportedly induced Stapledon to write Last and First Men. Last Men in London is the story of this being's exploration of the consciousness of a present-day Englishman named Paul, from childhood through service with an ambulance crew in the First World War (mirroring Stapledon's own personal history) to adult life as a schoolteacher faced with a "submerged superman" in his class nicknamed Humpty. The inadequacies of Paul's character, the various dilemmas he has to face during his life, and the occasional influence of the advanced being who shares his experiences, provide Stapledon with a semi-autobiographical platform on which to expound his philosophical and moral beliefs.

Last Men in London

Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

New English Library Ltd.

In the list of modern science fiction personalities, the late British philosopher and novelist W. Olaf Stapledon is prominent. Last and First Men and Starmaker are generally considered to be the finest future histories ever written, the gage by which all earlier and later works are measured. Odd John and Sirius are no less accurate in dealing with the problem in another guise. The central question is: if and when a superior being is introduced into a culture, how will either survive? Stapledon’s answers are by no means romantic fantasies; they are the pathetic, realistic conclusions which we, one day, may be forced to accept. Odd John is the definitive fictionalization of the mutated superman. After a strange birth and childhood, John is suddenly compelled to accept the fact that he is different. What is more, he has to decide what to do with his gifts. Sirius, although the logical successor to Odd John, deals with quite another being — an alien intelligence, artificially produced, a dog with superhuman mentality, who is not only superior to his own kind, but rejected by those with whom he has most in common. Stapledon uses his powers — intellectual, imaginative, and observant — to detail the conflict in its very "human" form. Odd John and Sirius are something else besides explorations of superbeings. Stapledon is capable of a great deal of humor and tongue-in-cheek description. If his writing, as he says in the subtitle to Odd John, is between jest and earnest, his sympathies are divided between the conflicting forces of man and superman. For those in literature, in psychology, in philosophy, or even in the world as it now exists, the detailed histories of these two strange beings will be ones to ponder. If anything, we have moved closer to the stage when conflict between superior and sapient man is imminent.

Odd John and Sirius (Dover Literature: Science Fiction/Fantasy)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Dover Publications

A science fiction classic from Olaf Stapledon.

Last And First Men

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Gollancz

Nebula Maker

Sphere Books Limited

Widely regarded as one of the true classics of science fiction, Star Maker is a poetic and deeply philosophical work. The story details the mental journey of an unnamed narrator who is transported not only to other worlds but also other galaxies and parallel universes, until he eventually becomes part of the "cosmic mind." First published in 1937, Olaf Stapledon's descriptions of alien life are a political commentary on human life in the turbulent inter-war years. The book challenges preconceived notions of intelligence and awareness, and ultimately argues for a broadened perspective that would free us from culturally ingrained thought and our inevitable anthropomorphism. This is the first scholarly edition of a book that influenced such writers as C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke and which Jorge Luis Borges called "a prodigious novel."

Star Maker (Early Classics Of Science Fiction)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Wesleyan University Press

Last Men in London (The Gregg Press Science Fiction Series)

Gregg Press (NY)

Star Maker

Classics

Lythway P.

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Books by Olaf Stapledon