reading (Last and First Men)

I finished Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" this morning. It is an impressive work of psychological and sociological science fiction. This isn't your standard science fiction novel with characters interacting to for the plot. This is a true future history, written more like a history text than a novel. As such it's denser than your average novel.

Stapledon creates a series of cultures each with its own unique physiology, psychology, sociology, and technology. He weaves cause and effect together in each of these to make each of Eighteen human species and a couple of alien species as well. Covering two of billion of years in one book the perspective is definitely birds eye, a nice technique for avoiding some of the more inconvenient details. Stapledon takes his shots at the ills of current society, sometimes with a rapier sharp choice of words. He also shows an incredibly nimble creative mind building cultures.

Like any future history it can't be judged on its accuracies or lack thereof. Stapledon was trying to express ideas, themes, and lessons, not to predict. But it's still fun to read the prediction.

Reading some of Stapledon's rhapsodizing I couldn't help but think he should be chatting in a room in one of the North American Phalanxes or a similar setting.

6. Olaf Stapledon "Last and First Men"

Maine: the way life should be.

Well, it's the way January should be anyway, cold with icy bits on the sidewalks.

Tonight we went out to dinner with littleredhead and groundctrl. I almost didn't notice the food, which was quite wonderful, because I was caught up in the conversation. I think littleredhead and groundctrl are who derien and I would be if we were more socially adept, polite, and better looking. Okay, we'd probably have to be smarter too, but that one I could live without, I work in a warehouse.