"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 fic...
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May 14, 2010
Kaput
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This book is dense with detail, exhaustively so at times. I couldn't read more than a chapter before my head was full to the brim with stern ominous sentences and dry relentless visions. It was worth it though, because Stapledon took the time to imagine the potential future of man over billions of years and dedicated delicate, intricate thought to this.
The near future as he imagines it is not so good and for seventy pages or so I switched effortlessly between interest and frustratio More...
The near future as he imagines it is not so good and for seventy pages or so I switched effortlessly between interest and frustratio More...
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Apr 18, 2009
Manny
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Stapledon tells you the story of the human race, starting now and ending with its demise, well over a billion years in the future. People change in all sorts of unexpected ways; during some periods, they have godlike intelligence, during others they aren't even sentient any more. The book has obvious flaws, but there's just nothing else like it. Some of the images are impossible to forget.
Despite the fact that it's not very well known (none of my 115 GR friends have it on their shelv More...
Despite the fact that it's not very well known (none of my 115 GR friends have it on their shelv More...
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Dec 19, 2011
Richard
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Rating: 1/2* of five
I cried "uncle" on p59 of this book, which was part of a group read on LibraryThing; it was written in 1930 or so, it's true, but nothing as ephemeral as passing time can excuse the line, "A century after the founding of the first world state a rumour began to be heard in China about the supreme secret of scientific religion, the awful mystery of Gordelpus, by means of which it should be possible to utilize the energy locked up in the opposition of pr More...
I cried "uncle" on p59 of this book, which was part of a group read on LibraryThing; it was written in 1930 or so, it's true, but nothing as ephemeral as passing time can excuse the line, "A century after the founding of the first world state a rumour began to be heard in China about the supreme secret of scientific religion, the awful mystery of Gordelpus, by means of which it should be possible to utilize the energy locked up in the opposition of pr More...
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Nov 28, 2011
Nicolas
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Over the course of hundreds of millions of years Olaf Stapledon creates an intricate and detailed overview of 18 species of men. In his book Last and First Men he starts with the very first men which is the common 20th century and earlier man. His book is very philosophical as it touches upon the reasons why we cannot obtain a higher level of consciousness and understanding. Through a narrator one of the “Last Men” they go through Golden and Dark ages throughout these 18 species of men. I r More...
Aug 10, 2011
Akshay
rated it:
Ive been a fan of scifi for a long while now - I read practically everything but scifi is my greatest joy when written well and this one turned out to be the grandfather of them all!
I had never even heard of Stapledon or this book before I came across it in my favourite book store and had the good luck of not reading it for months but decided last minute to take it on a recent vacation with me, where I was able to give it due time - and believe me this is a book that needs it.
Not madly long, bu More...
I had never even heard of Stapledon or this book before I came across it in my favourite book store and had the good luck of not reading it for months but decided last minute to take it on a recent vacation with me, where I was able to give it due time - and believe me this is a book that needs it.
Not madly long, bu More...
Aug 20, 2010
Stephen
rated it:
4.0 stars. WOW, this book is in a class all by itself for originality, imagination and scope. I can not believe I have not heard more about this book as being one of the true "classics" of science fiction. Written in the 1930's, this is a future history that tells the story of mankind over a span of 2 billion years (yes billion with a B) from 1930 until approximately the year 2,000,000,000. During that period humanity evolves through what Olaf describes as 18 different species of men (
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Sep 02, 2009
Dave
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Prior to the publication of “Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future” in 1930, Olaf Stapledon had already published a couple of short stories, poems, including a book of poetry, a non-fiction book “A Modern Theory of Ethics: A Study of the Relations of Ethics and Psychology”, and numerous essays. However, this was his first book of fiction, and remains, if not his most famous work, than one of his two most famous works. While clearly Stapledon’s fictional work falls into the cat
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Sep 09, 2011
Mitch
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I read Last and First Men as part of a compendium of Stapledon's stories called To The End of Time. The compendium's title truly captures the sheer sense of epic Last and First Men entails.
Stapledon's vivid imagery of humanity brings forth a near-boggling wonder of human evolution. Granted, with Stapledon's story spanning billions of years, it is quite hard for the reader to grasp the true time scale of human history portrayed within the novel. I enjoyed the novel primarily because it More...
Stapledon's vivid imagery of humanity brings forth a near-boggling wonder of human evolution. Granted, with Stapledon's story spanning billions of years, it is quite hard for the reader to grasp the true time scale of human history portrayed within the novel. I enjoyed the novel primarily because it More...
Feb 21, 2009
David
rated it:
The scope and imagination of this book are unlike anything else I've read. The only possible exception is Greg Egan's Diaspora, which reads more like a conventional novel, following the paths of a few individual characters. First and Last Men reads like a history of humanity as a whole. Instead of characters, it has nations and species. Stapledon's psychological generalizations about the human race of various times and places cannot help but seem dated, but the dizzying acceleration of the pace
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Sep 12, 2011
Editor
rated it:
One of my favorite books, but definitely not for everybody, Last and First Men is a future history that reads like one. That is, it reads more like a textbook than a novel. The time-scale accelerates as the book progresses, so that subsequent chapters cover centuries and then millennia in a matter of pages. There are no individual characters after the 20th century or so. Truly, it is not a novel, but a philosophical treatise in the speculative mode.
There are some errors in Stapledon' More...
There are some errors in Stapledon' More...
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Jun 27, 2010
Aleš
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jul 19, 2010
Lucas
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The book is one long info-dump- future history that only bothers to introduce specific characters a few times in the earlier parts. The rest is all sweeping generalizations about civilizations of millions or trillions of humans, their sexual nature, and industrial or philosophical bent. I expected to get bogged down and not finish it, but it's not too long and it grew increasingly compelling the further I got into it.
There is a lot in common with other 'deep time' books that Step More...
There is a lot in common with other 'deep time' books that Step More...
Dec 05, 2008
Evan
rated it:
Remarkable book, filled with enough ideas to generate hundreds of SF novels, which it probably has. Its obsession with racial consciousness and its insistence on psychoanalyzing entire civilizations feels dated, very 1930s, as the diction. Most of HG Wells reads like it could've been written last week, but Stapledon you have to imagine in a wool double-breasted suit, eating war time rations, and listening to the BBC on a wooden radio.
And the species of human pathology and catastr More...
And the species of human pathology and catastr More...
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Sep 28, 2009
Dave
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Man, oh man. It's been a long time since I had to renew a library book because I wasn't done reading it. I have to admit, this was a slog. Olaf Stapledon has an incredible imagination. His works inspired many of the great names and most enduring concepts in SF (Dyson spheres and racial overminds, for example). He's an unending font of insightful observation, interesting speculation, and far flung extrapolation.
He is not, however, a masterful writer. His prose soars at times, and I fo More...
He is not, however, a masterful writer. His prose soars at times, and I fo More...
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Aug 09, 2011
Ivo
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Last and First men is best described as pretty random. It starts out interestingly, describing post-world war 1 international relations with some uncanny predictions, but an equal amount of total misses and goes downhill from there. The quote-unquote evolutionary steps that man takes are alternately ridiculous and mundane, leading to a narrative without a lot of direction. The saving grace is the inherently interesting subject matter and some relatively good writing. I had very high hopes fo
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Sep 08, 2010
Robert
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I just read this based on a note I saw somewhere that it is even better than Starmaker. I have to say it is not. It reads more like a long preamble or early draft of Starmaker. You can get the gist of the plot from other reviews. It is good...but less good than Starmaker because the vision is more limited to humankind. Stapledon takes almost the whole novel to trace the future history of humans to points where they begin to make some kind of group mind connection with other sentient creatures in
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Sep 14, 2011
Hairybrew
rated it:
For some, the first half of Last and First Men might either turn off your drive to continue reading, or speed up your pace in anticipation of a different kind of story told in a different manner. Giving up on Olaf's work early is just as big of a mistake as racing through an already expansive timeline. Accepting the novel for it's own style of storytelling was my biggest struggle. Should the droning rise and fall of civilization leading to the more imaginative second half of the book been edited
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Sep 27, 2011
Kian
rated it:
A book of great depth and ideas, this explores the future ficitional history of humankind from our own generation until humankind's demise. The book does not follow the narrative of a single person, rather following the social trends of the different species of humans.
As a warning - this book took me three months to read. The subject matter is presented in quite a dry way, which resembles more a historical non-fiction than a sci-fi epic. This effect is intentional, but can make re More...
As a warning - this book took me three months to read. The subject matter is presented in quite a dry way, which resembles more a historical non-fiction than a sci-fi epic. This effect is intentional, but can make re More...
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Oct 13, 2011
Chris
rated it:
Where's that sixth star when you need it? I am in awe of this book and the mind that produced it.
In my youth, I'd spotted this on the shelves in the local bookstore and my curiosity was piqued, but I never got around to reading it. Ah, if only I'd known what lurked inside those covers....
Many later titans of Science Fiction, notably Arthur C Clarke, Doris Lessing, Stanislaw Lem, Theodore Sturgeon, cite Stapledon as a key influence. It's easy to see why. Published in 1930, when science fict More...
In my youth, I'd spotted this on the shelves in the local bookstore and my curiosity was piqued, but I never got around to reading it. Ah, if only I'd known what lurked inside those covers....
Many later titans of Science Fiction, notably Arthur C Clarke, Doris Lessing, Stanislaw Lem, Theodore Sturgeon, cite Stapledon as a key influence. It's easy to see why. Published in 1930, when science fict More...
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Jan 23, 2011
Tom
rated it:
There's a great deal to admire in this book. Across three hundred pages and four billion years, Stapledon serves-up everything from doomed utopias and world-spanning eugenics programmes, to autocratic super-brains, Martian invasions, terraforming, time-travelling telepaths, super-minds, degraded sub-men, conscious stars and more philosophy than you can shake a stick at. The central question of the book seems to be how humanity can remain sane, and achieve something close to perfection, in an ind
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Mar 09, 2010
Bill
rated it:
Written in 1930, this is a kind of future history of mankind. This is not a 'story' in the normal sense, but more of a prediction for the future development of mankind over 2 billion years. It is a rather humourless book with a strange outlook on mankind.
In short.. 'Man' is great, he invents, he expands, he wars, he evolves. Man almost is wiped out through various natural disasters, wars, diseases; but always makes it through. After each near escape, he has evolved. These evolu More...
In short.. 'Man' is great, he invents, he expands, he wars, he evolves. Man almost is wiped out through various natural disasters, wars, diseases; but always makes it through. After each near escape, he has evolved. These evolu More...
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Aug 24, 2008
Jazza1971
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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 comp More...
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 comp More...
Mar 11, 2008
Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch
rated it:
Published in 1930, the view from the year 2,000,000,000.
"CHAPTER IV: AN AMERICANIZED PLANET
1. THE FOUNDATION OF THE FIRST WORLD STATE
"WE have now reached that point in the history of the First Men when, some three hundred and eighty terrestrial years after the European War, the goal of world unity was at last achieved--not, however, before the mind of the race had been seriously crippled.
"There is no need to recount in detail More...
Oct 21, 2007
http://nhw.livejournal.com/909687.html[return][return]This is an epic story of the future of the human race, starting in the present day (ie about 1930) and ending millions of years from now just before the destruction of the solar system by cosmic catastrophe. I think of Stapledon's epic yet detached tone as a peculiarly English style of writing; I detect it also in Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest, and especially Stephen Baxter who is in many ways Stapledon's heir.[return][return]The weakest p
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Jan 06, 2012
Rita
rated it:
Ok, this was more an appreciate than a like, but I really did enjoy the concepts...it was just the experience of reading that was the problem. I was assigned this and the Starmaker (in one combo volume) at the same time in a science fiction class, and these two books were the only ones that felt like homework. I kept dashing the book away from me, cursing the author. But I finished it and the other one and enjoyed talking about it later. So say it was an adventure!
Sep 03, 2010
D-day
rated it:
An amazing feat of imagination as Stapledon recounts the future history of humanity over the next two billion years encompassing 18 different species. If you think that's impressive, his later book 'Starmaker' recounts the future history of the entire universe!. Both works are stunning in the scope of their vision and invention. But they necessarily are very general and therefore reading them can be very dry, as there are characters or dialogue, just straight exposition.
Jan 15, 2012
Dave
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For it's time, this was a great book. They don't make sci fi with this scope anymore. Stapledon's predictions are often far off, but he can't be blamed for that. The science of his time could hardly imagine today's technology. Things we take for granted, he predicted for civilizations millions of years in the future, such as being able to go to the moon.
But it's a good, if wordy story. I recommend it, but with the caveat that it's not for all.
But it's a good, if wordy story. I recommend it, but with the caveat that it's not for all.
Sep 10, 2011
Christophe
rated it:
Sublime imagination exercise by philosopher Olaf Stapledon, not wanting to predict the future of mankind but giving a possible path, which focusses on a philosophical analysis of our human nature rather than actually trying to correctly predict events which, of course, would be impossible. Published in 1930.
A fictional history starting with us, the First Men, to the Last (18th) Men...
A fictional history starting with us, the First Men, to the Last (18th) Men...
Sep 04, 2011
Dave
rated it:
An astounding book on many levels, the tale of the Last and First Men is as interesting for the seemingly obvious predictions it never makes, as for the astounding predictions is does make, given when it was written. (Eg fibre-optics, solar panels, the Internet never get a mention, nor anything like them, but terraforming, genetic engineering etc all are well predicted.) Amusingly for us living now under the shadow of a fossil-fuel powered climate emergency, Stapeldon predicates much of the su
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Nov 25, 2011
Lorena
rated it:
It's a new way of looking at the human race. You have never thought about how the the future mankind will be until you read this book. You learn that your descendent is still human, even if these beings have had to remake themselves to adapt to a new planet or just because their philosophy has conveyed the to necessity to change.
