Last And First Men

Author: Olaf Stapledon

This huge, panoramic novel takes us from the present, where we First Men are confined to Earth, to the 18th Men of the far distant future. In between we see evolution and technology produce incredible changes on the nature of humanity, as different forms of humankind rise and fall, adapt for life on other worlds, take on extraordinary new shapes, destroy themselves and rise from the ashes. No other work in the entire history of science fiction has such an extraordinary sweep, taking the story of mankind onward over millennia after millennia, and out across the solar system. Why itâ€™s on the list: This is simply the most comprehensive, the most gobsmacking, the most awesome account of posthumanity you are ever likely to encounter.

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Alternative Choice
Last and First Men is grand enough and awesome enough in scale for anyone, but Star Maker is even grander, it is nothing less than the entire history of life in the universe. It begins on a small scale with one man in contemporary England who is somehow taken up into the universe where he explores another civilisation on a planet not unlike earth. Then his mind merges with one of the people from this world, and they go on to explore another, then another, each time the cosmic mind grows until eventually they meet the Star Maker himself, and realise that this universe is only one among many.

Two other books by Stapledon are well worth checking out. Sirius is the story of a scientist who creates a dog with human-like intelligence that is raised alongside the scientist's daughter as if they are brother and sister. Odd John, on the other hand, is about a super-intelligent human, homo superior (this is the first appearance of that phrase), and about the conflicts this intelligence creates with ordinary humans.

Two other works deserve to be read alongside Odd John. The Hampdenshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford is one of the earliest stories of this type, being a biographical account of the upbringing of a deformed but preternaturally bright child. Another World by J-H RosnyaÃ®nÃ© is the story of a mutant child whose extraordinary perception allows him to see another order of life existing alongside our own, both unaware of each other.