I'm enjoying the general writing style I've found in my survey of the psionic books of Silverberg, Bester, Brunner, Sturgeon, yadda yadda. I read Stapledon's Odd John, because it was mentioned by Silverberg. I like Stapledon's style, even if the book wasn't developed enough to be among my favorites. I saw his Last and First Men at the used store, and it looked interesting enough. A search here brings up this post:William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) — known as Olaf Stapledon — was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.
Only 20+ pages in at the moment, but it's certainly enough to know it is, indeed, good. A human from the veeeeeeeeeery distant future (I don't yet know how distant, but "aeons" is used) gives an account of the changes in humanity between WWI and that very distant future. Published in 1930, so it's immediately inaccurate, since Stapledon didn't know about WWII. But what he follows WWI with is thought out in very interesting and detailed ways.Loremaster wrote:Best science fiction book ever.hue of bone wrote:Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
I'll keep you posted, but wondered who else might have anything to say.