Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (The Garland Library of Science Fiction)

Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly strange
Review: The main character learns to talk as a baby and his first utterance surprises his parents. From then on he develops many superior abilities. He goes forth into the world on his life's odyssey and meets other superhumans, including one evil one, a superior mind utterly filled with malice (which is terrifying to read about). Another is seen as mad and lives in an asylum, showing that these mutants don't always have an easy ride.

While some say Stapledon's style is dry (it's always been fashionable to accuse sci fi writers of a geeky inability to depict humans and moods), i find it very easy to read and you can zip through Odd John quickly and effortlessly.

The full title - "Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest" implies that Stapledon may have felt much of the story carries an irony. Each reader must let this mysterious work perform its alchemy on them and make their own mind up.

Rating:
Summary: A first-rate superman novel
Review: This is one of the first superman novels, and still, by all that is holy, simply the best. John Wainwright, born in England of mixed ancestry parentage has super abilities, a very slow maturation rate, extreme longevity, and amazing mental powers, among other things. He is to Homo sapiens as Homo sapiens is to Australopithecus. How does John cope in a world of what, to him, are hardly more than savage apes?

I can't tell of course; that would be unsporting. Prepare to say that your sense of what is moral may receive a long-overdue examination upon completion of this absolutely fascinating book about how a superior being would cope with early 20th century mores, technology, politics, and social convention. You will never forget the book, or John's answer to his plight.

Rating:
Summary: A first-rate superman novel
Review: This is one of the first superman novels, and still, by all that is holy, simply the best. John Wainwright, born in England of mixed ancestry parentage has super abilities, a very slow maturation rate, extreme longevity, and amazing mental powers, among other things. He is to Homo sapiens as Homo sapiens is to Australopithecus. How does John cope in a world of what, to him, are hardly more than savage apes?

I can't tell of course; that would be unsporting. Prepare to say that your sense of what is moral may receive a long-overdue examination upon completion of this absolutely fascinating book about how a superior being would cope with early 20th century mores, technology, politics, and social convention. You will never forget the book, or John's answer to his plight.