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reading (Star Maker)
Jan. 27th, 2007 03:19 pmI finished Olaf Stapledon's "Star Maker" this morning. This book comes in at just 200 pages of small print, but it's a slow 200 pages. The first part of the book explores possible variations of intelligent life on worlds, the second part goes into hardcore cosmology.
The first part explores a lot of different biological variations on the same theme, the growth of animal to intelligence then to communal mind. We see Stapledon's fascination with community and his belief that the ultimate in human (or human like) experience can only be accomplished through the formation of group mind. In for a penny, Stapledon is in for a pound, and even a ten pound note. He takes it from the group mind, to the world mind, the the solar system mind, to the galactic mind, to the universal mind. Maybe he's right about this being the ultimate, but reading each iteration is a waste of the precious little time life has in the universe. But he had to go through every level so it would be an all encompassing theory of wankiness.
The second part of the book is Stapledon sitting in a corner pulling on his philosophical penis for page upon page. Do other philosophers and cosmologists eat this up and debate the relative merits of this vision? Maybe they do and I'm just a pleb.
Overall, I would recommend Last and First Men to someone who wants stimulation. I could only recommend Star Maker to someone who wants self-flagellation.
7. Olaf Stapledon "Star Maker"
The first part explores a lot of different biological variations on the same theme, the growth of animal to intelligence then to communal mind. We see Stapledon's fascination with community and his belief that the ultimate in human (or human like) experience can only be accomplished through the formation of group mind. In for a penny, Stapledon is in for a pound, and even a ten pound note. He takes it from the group mind, to the world mind, the the solar system mind, to the galactic mind, to the universal mind. Maybe he's right about this being the ultimate, but reading each iteration is a waste of the precious little time life has in the universe. But he had to go through every level so it would be an all encompassing theory of wankiness.
The second part of the book is Stapledon sitting in a corner pulling on his philosophical penis for page upon page. Do other philosophers and cosmologists eat this up and debate the relative merits of this vision? Maybe they do and I'm just a pleb.
Overall, I would recommend Last and First Men to someone who wants stimulation. I could only recommend Star Maker to someone who wants self-flagellation.
7. Olaf Stapledon "Star Maker"
