Olaf Stapledon was born in 1886 in Seacombe, England. He earned a BA in modern history and, after he had taught at various places for a while, he served in World War I as a conscientious objector, which meant he drove an ambulance in France and Belgium, where he received a medal for bravery. After the war, he earned a PhD in philosophy, specializing in Ethics. In 1930, he published a fictional work, Last and First Men, a far-future history that ended up being surprisingly popular, and earned enough that Stapledon mostly began devoting himself to writing fiction and essays. He became very active in the pacifist movement and, later, the anti-apartheid movement, until he died of a heart attack in 1950.
He is most famous for being one of the most influential science fiction writers of the first half of the twentieth century; indeed, arguably only Jules Verne and H. G. Wells have exerted more influence across the entire genre. For the next fortnightly 'book' I will be re-reading three works by Stapledon.
Odd John, published in 1935, is subtitled, A Story Between Jest and Earnest, and is an Overman story about a young man who, physically stunted, has superhuman intelligence; he tries to build a colony of 'supernormals', which will end in disaster.
Star Maker, published in 1937, is a far-future history, attempting to do on a larger scale what he had done in Last and First Men. All science fiction involves world-building; Star Maker is a work that is almost all world-building, the ultimate science fiction attempt to make a universe.
Sirius, published in 1944, is subtitled, A Fantasy of Love and Discord, and is the story of a dog who through a series of scientific experiments develops human intelligence. Of course, to be a dog that can think like a human being is to be preeminently alone in the universe, and thus the tale is a tragic one. Sirius is a candidate for being the second greatest science fiction novel of all time (after A Canticle for Leibowitz), so it will be nice to get back to it.
