Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (1937)
1972 cover by David Pelham
This deeply philosophical novel was written in 1937 which puts it right on the cusp of the Golden Age of science fiction, a dense precursor to many science fiction themes ever since. During moments of prose Stapledon mimics the earthbound introspections of Keats and Whitman, taking their influence into space coupled with a scientific approach to cosmology. Admittedly, there were times when I found it difficult to stay engaged (no dialogue in this one) but the scope and genius of this book were never under question.
Stapledon was a conscientious objector during WWI, had a PhD in philosophy and also spent time as an ambulance driver. If that’s not enough, for all the dog lovers out there he’s the author of Sirius, the quintessential sci-fi novel (in my mind) about a dog who gains human intelligence. In Star Maker, he gives human intelligence to the micro and macro elements of the universe. I knew this book had to be good upon reading the back cover blurbs on the 2021 edition:
“A prodigious novel…Stapledon’s literary imagination was boundless”
-Jorge Luis Borges
“Probably the most powerful work of imagination ever written”
-Arthur C. Clarke
I guess you’re doing OK if these two particular individuals say this about your book…
2021 cover Tears of Orpheus by Jean Cocteau
Star Maker calmly begins with a man on a hill overlooking and contemplating his life in rural England. He slowly finds himself levitating and hovering over the land, rising beyond the earth’s atmosphere and continuing through the universe as a disembodied, wandering viewpoint with no eyes. The further he goes the more he ruminates on his life on earth and if/when he’ll ever return. The more he dwells on the attachments of home his ‘self pity and earthward-yearning’ seem to inhibit his ability to travel farther and faster through the galaxy, spending incalculable time floating in the void of space in a stagnant mental stasis until he comes to terms with the fact that the opportunity he has been given outweighs the importance of home, thus regaining the ability to move deeper into the unknown.
“The appalling desert of darkness and barren fire, the huge emptiness so sparsely pricked with scintillations, the colossal futility of the whole universe, hideously oppressed me.”
1979 cover by Jean-Michel Nicollet
As he encounters worlds with similar human intelligence he makes mental contact with those who are spiritually awake/advanced enough to recognize his presence, a galactic mind meld happens and a universal community of beings share their histories, telepathically united and moving deeper into the galaxy in the hope of discovering a point of origin, or creator. They visit thousands of worlds, most of which meet similar ends due to war, depletion of planetary resources and even the collapse local stars. Some worlds have reached a stage so advanced that they’ve achieved a state of utopia for many ages. The political dysfunction witnessed on many worlds share similarities to our current Trump era shit show of evolutionary decay:
“The affairs of the world were increasingly connected under the sway of the spreading mania of super-tribalism; conduct, in fact, not intelligently but according to the relative emotional compulsions of almost meaningless slogans”.
1979 Cover by Peter Goodfellow
The fantastical sci-fi aspect of the novel is revealed in Stapledon’s creation of the galaxy's many inhabitants. The travelers only connect with worlds that are on a similar level of human consciousness but the possibilities are vast. There are the Nautiloids, beings who have evolved into giant, organic seafaring boats. Insectoid hive mind species, planets inhabited by flocks of birds who can only function as a group and the recurring ‘plant men’ (a literary precursor to Tolkien’s Ents). There are worlds where crustaceans and arachnids form a mental symbiosis to telepathically reach other galaxies and build industrial civilizations, microscopic worms that can live on the surface of the sun and planets so advanced that they have the ability to move their worlds to more habitable parts of the galaxy when their local star achieves supernova status. Stapledon was able to incorporate the events of his time (in particular, WWII’s Hitler Youth) in the following passage:
“ I wondered, too, whether the tyrant races of insects would have had greater success and imposing their culture on the invaded country if there had been a distinct generation of juvenile malleable swarms for them to educate”.
1961 cover art by Richard M. Powers
As the traveler probes farther into the cosmos the descriptions of his experience become more obscure, he is now witnessing stars and nebulae who have their own group consciousness, aware of desire and mortality and describing this in totality becomes as vague as the concept itself. Upon meeting the Star Maker, which is only a brief moment of blinding light, he is conflicted that something so all powerful could allow their creations to contain so much strife and futility with no hope of ever realizing a greater truth. The traveler makes it very clear that it would be doing his experience a disservice by trying to put it into words, much like my review. Is there anything he learns or takes away from it all? One thing he is sure of…“A living man is worth more than a lifeless galaxy”.
