Rating: 
Summary: A humbling experience
Review: My Sci Fi reading days were long gone. By chance I picked up "Last and First Men". What an absolutely profound experience. I now know my place in space and time - and it doesn't mean boo to a goose. And yet at the same time the book filled me with an almost religious sense of wonder. Read it for yourself. You might not like it - but on the other hand you may decide you have read one of the best books ever written!
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Summary: A most mindstretchingly vast future human history
Review: Olaf Stapledon, oxford philosophy department head, see's Hitlers mad march and what he fears will be WW2.Presient scientifically and historically: a future nostradamus of cosmic scale unfoldings. He questions how in the face of such a present danger he can respond with such a work as Starmaker? Find out, unmmask your great Voyager man within. Be ready to be in the presence of a chammpionsip mind, at its best wrestling with itself and with a historic projection of Man's possibilities. Here in a growing sequence of mind mergers he finds himself swimming up the stream of creation to that supreme moment to confront the Starmaker. His way of describing his feeling of limitation by using only words-when no one has ever used them better-is truly touching. A great use of a great mind; awe has been struck into words. Bless this world which even in its agonies can birth such noble truthful singers.
Rating: 
Summary: worthless
Review: Re: "On one hand there is his thick, turgid prose coupled with lack of characters - a boggy philosopher's novel if there ever was one." Then there never was one. Sorry, Mr. Stapledon was NOT a professional philosopher and is not widely esteemed as an amateur philosopher. The novels of philosophers are no more likely to be devoid of characters than the novels of anyone else. Think of Jean-Paul Sartre: His "The Age of Reason", "The Reprieve", and "Troubled Sleep" are full of memorable characters, well-plotted, and very gripping. Think of Albert Camus's "The Stranger". I could go on.
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Summary: self-indulgent ranting
Review: Re: "The stength of the US empire is tied to fossil fuels, which are beginning to run out according to 'peak oil' researchers....If you want to explore the deepest ideas ever discussed in SF..." Western economies have utterly depended on fossil fuels since the first industrial revolution in the early nineteenth century. This was hardly news in 1930 when "The First and Last Men" was published. As it happens, it has been predicted many times that they would shortly run out, and each time new sources have been discovered. Of course, there is only a finite amount on the planet, and they WILL eventually run out. You didn't have to be prescient in 1930 to foresee THAT. (In any case, the object of science-fiction, very much including science-fiction that takes place in the future, is not to predict, but to illuminate.) Are these among "the deepest ideas discussed in SF"? If you think so, I'll wager you've not read "Brave New World", a single work of Stanislaw Lem, or even "Planet of the Apes" (don't judge it by the awful movie). Certainly, the author is more sophisticated and better educated than someone like Philip K. Dick and, for that matter, countless other science-fiction writers whose names are remembered only by hardcore devotees, but it seems to me we have two choices: Either we judge this work by how well it succeeds as 1) light entertainment or by how well it succeeds as 2) literature. Even its fiercest apologists admit it fails dismally as entertainment. If on the other hand, we're maintaining it succeeds as literature, then we need to compare it to literary works, not pulp science-fiction. Its proponents are unwilling to do that because it so obviously falls short.
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Summary: Stapledon got more right that we realized.
Review: Stapledon's books are two-sided. On one hand there is his thick, turgid prose coupled with lack of characters - a boggy philosopher's novel if there ever was one. These books are not easy reads - if you're looking for that check out his later novels "Odd John" and "Sirius" which read more like regular novels. On the other hand, this writer's vision is beyond amazing. True, in the short term, he missed the rise of Nazism. However, look at the long term predictions in the first book: England is replaced by America as the world power. China rises later as the next new superpower as Europe slowly fades. America conquers not by military force but by the force of its entertainment media and business skills. Europe represents "old" values against the "new" American and China. America and China form the ultimate superpower based on business trade. The ultimate survival of the new world civilization is tied to fossil fuels, and civilization collapses when they are exhausted. Hmmm, today we see America the superpower (as England was in the 19th century) with China rising fast. America has an huge military arm, but the real story is cultural imperalism via US media - which has created a one-sided world culture trumpeting the crasser American values (which might map to the "worship of motion" Stapledon describes). Ties between America and China are being forged ever deeper via "globalization" trade. Despite the EU, Europe has a rapidly aging population combined with ultra-low birthrates - which will give west Europe an "old" perspective by 2020. The stength of the US empire is tied to fossil fuels, which are beginning to run out according to "peak oil" researchers. Not bad shooting across an ocean and 3/4 of a century. In short, if you want novel styling and pace, this isn't for you. If you want to explore the deepest ideas ever discussed in SF (Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke all cite Stapledon for ideas) check out these books.
Rating:
Summary: These are works of transcendent genuis
Review: These books are ideational gems. The imagination and spiritual vision of the writer are truly great. I know of no other work of speculative fiction that even approaches the cosmic grandeur of the writers vision of the Universe and mans place in it. An absolute must read.
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Summary: What real Science Fiction is all about.
Review: Within these two works, Stapleton dares to speculate on some of the most fundamental and unanswerable questions to ever occur to the mind of man, whilst at the same time presenting two original, innovative and captivating tales which draw the reader on and upward, litterally taking ones breath away with their majesty. Last and First Men is the story of us, and how we could develop and evolve, a tale of our future, which, despite being over sixty years old, has dated very little, largely due to the sheer scale upon which it is set. Whilst initialy hard going, once the reader becomes use to the style, the content more than makes up for this and one is soon lost in man's struggle for survival, and for his own mind and what it could be come, a prevailing theme through out this and the sequel, Star Maker. Star Maker takes the ideas from Last and First Men one step further, following the development of the mind beyond mankind, though alien evolutions, up to the end of the uni! verse itself, a daunting concept. Both these tales are challenging ones, questioning what is known and what could be, and are possibly some of the most thought provoking works of Science Fiction, Cosmology and Philosophy you are likely to come across.
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