A novel without a single character--that is, unless you count civilizations, peoples if you prefer, as characters. Improbably, it carried me along, although there were a few too many cycles of birth-death-rebirth of humanity. You can see how it's the great-great ancestor of the far-future scifi genre like Foundation and Dune--it was published in 1930. I'd give it 4 stars for ideas, 3 or so for style. One of the most absorbing and thought-provoking novels I have ever had the grand pleasure to read. This is a pure, and devastatingly potent Gnostic experience in prose form; and, without a shadow of a doubt, all copies of 'Last & First Men' should come with a clearly visible health warning: as this journey is certainly NOT for the emotionally squeamish. So, take care eager cosmonauts, as once read, your world view is likely to be altered irrevocably!!! The use of language is sublime, and Mr Stapldon's expansive ideas are positively vertiginous! In my (still reeling) mind 'Last & First Men' feels to be the apogee of profoundly philosophical speculative fiction, and, clearly, Olaf Stapledon is one of the finest minds to have ever put pen to paper and extrapolate the vainglorious industry of this imperfect beast called man. This is a leviathan of psychedelic world-building; and I had little choice but to read this somewhat malefic opus in two lengthy, brain-warping sittings, as the usually calm and reflective nature of reading was wholly usurped by Mr. Stapledon's fiercely dispassionate exegesis of mankind's coruscating ascent into the icy, funereal voids of a brutal cosmos. Even now, one remains giddy when contemplating the infinite scope, and celestial reach of 'Last & First Men'. From my understanding his 'Star Maker' is said to eclipse 'Last & First Men', but just at this moment that almost sounds like literary heresy; but once the effervescing memory of this exemplary work cools, I plan to gird what mental loins remain and take another heady leap into the gloriously incendiary mind of Olaf Stapledon, a true literary magus. Somehow he manages to 'fathom' the unfathomable; which gives 'Last & First Men' a genuinely unnerving frisson, far beyond anything I have read before.
What do You think about Last And First Men (1930)?
At first I hesitated to give this a 5, perhaps it deserved a 4 or even 3 as some sections lost my attention entirely, but realizing that this was written in 1930 and contains perhaps the most epic scope and most profound cosmology of any book I have ever read I would be remiss not to recognize that this is no ordinary novel and is deserving of the highest praise. It is of course fairly dated, but that does not mean that this should not be read by all who have stared at the stars in utter awe imagining the fullness of time and space forever beyond their physical reach but tantalizingly expressible by the powerful facilities of their imaginations. The final chapter of this book furthermore is one of the most beautiful and tragic epilogues ever written, the epitaph for 10 billion years of human life...
—Kika45
If you love "science fiction as prognostication," then you might like this book — if you can follow it. With idea after idea after idea, it certainly is intelligent and thoughtful. But it's empty. No characters, no plot, nothing worth rooting for. It's like a broad-brush history class in which you know all the history is fiction, all connections are as shallow as a single mind, and any lessons to be learned are just the opinions of the author.If you, like me, love "science fiction as an exploration of being human," then you, like me, may stop reading just a few chapters in.
—JoelJosh
Ambitious and imaginative but at the same time naive, oversimplified and inconsistent.
—graizzaro
