one of the same proud lineage that had it's birth in Thomas More and John Milton. (Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon)

Member Name: jdkane

Product:	Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
Date:	14/11/00 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Imagination; overwhelming, and humane; A+

Disadvantages: Science; fuzzy, but he had faith in the future to do things barely conceivable now; C-

Let's face it; two of the above are 'SF Masterworks' and the third may well be the most lauded collection of the day. Where do I get off rating them as anything less than perfect? Well, I'll tell you. I'm a nihilist. I also have a sense of proportion. In these millennial times, the two are not necessarily contradictory. When you see the world as deeply flawed, also, 'the best there is' might not actually be that good.

Also, when all's said and done, not all SF is perfect. Anyone else who's caught on to Baxter's Godelianism (the only justification for postmodern thought that actually holds water, which is for those of us who like solid universes not a terribly good thing) should be at least theoretically aware of that.

There are many ways, furthermore, of writing SF; from the cheap-scenery potboiler pulp through the other-genre-in- costume, past any number of more or less alert and honest story modalities (following up individual technical and social assumptions) to the heights of genuine speculative fiction, wondering what if, which too few science fiction writers have ever reached, our spearpoint in the claim to serious literary merit; cosmic fantasy being a further, special case- almost theological fiction about the final shape of the universe, our justification for everything else. If we can say that one Stapledon makes up for a thousand Duanes, we can make a claim to have enriched and ennobled human existence instead of merely providing it with a cheap fix of shoddy fakery. Fortunately, I think we can. 2001 was something of the sort - the later novels not up to the same scratch- Valis , Ubik and Three Stigmata fit into the last and greatest category. So would Vacuum Diagrams, if it wasn't such an ugly shape.

Olaf Stapledon's The Star Maker is one of the same proud lineage that had it's birth in Thomas More and John Milton. Obsolete now probably- this is a cheaper, uglier age- as we
ll as largely scientifically inaccurate; a good sense of the possible on the small scale, but on the large, wonderfully optimistic. What actually happens is that a quiet academic, nameless and wandering abroad worried about his life at home, when a vision of the universe falls on him. I do not know whether Stapledon actually believed in psionics or just used it as a framing device; he was an extramural lecturer in philosophy and psychology, which could cut either way. One interesting feature about the Humean bundle-of-perceptions theory of mind is that there is no clear way to establish a boundary between minds...the theory is nonsense, of course, but beautiful nonsense.

The academic is led from world to world, watching events, usually at some point of change- and Stapledon is excellent here in his freedom from mystical nonsense. The simple fact that we are sentient beings based on intellect overlying appetite, surrounded by beings like us, and operating in a vast external universe, underlies much of our behaviour- and through that Stapledon forges an empathic link with the universe that makes us realise that simple facts like shape and life cycle are but accidental- and the differences they make in how the species perceives the primary cycle of life more alien for that underlying identity.

As he passes on- and the book really is a tour d' universe - others join him, a roving eye, a roving mind- he also passes on in time, through the growth of a universe- spanning civilisation; although not without itá'ás problems, and the passage as a whole is certainly not without tragedy, he believes almost the direct opposite of what I have come to believe myself; that it is impossible for a fundamentally get- ahead, predatory civilisation in which the weak are devoured by the strong to make any mark, because in the end it will come to devour itself. Not quite; the powerful just devour or defile anything other than themselves, and you probably need a
fairly large streak of the vicious megalomaniac to take your place among the stars. I love the writing and I wish I could believe in it, but it is literally too good to be true. We're condemned to play the role of one of the Mad Worlds, I expect.

As it really doesn't matter what I give away, I can say that the mind of the observer progresses, adding spectators and participants to it in transgenic gestalt, until it becomes a representative sample of the universe, on it's way to encounter the Star Maker.

Who, incidentally, is essentially God. I said it bordered on theology. Not necessarily a Christian God, but definitely a single, unitary deity, although not quite perfect. He creates ad allows creation to thrive, then when it fades repeats the cycle of existence, reaching towards the greatest complexity, the most alive and vital universe.

The book actually raises a very ugly question. It predates the cold war; takes attitudes that we can barely think of now; a faith in and call for the humane behaviour of humans that our predatory society can no longer even pretend it has a thorough notion of, still less room to exercise. Perhaps because of a horror of the alternative that we have keenly embraced. This is so much more fulfilling to inhabit a vision of the human condition that I have to wonder what it was that we did wrongly. Le Carre puts it adroitly; 'We've given up far too many freedoms in order to be free.á'á The need to fight governmental tyranny with corporate tyranny should be over. We have done so much so very badly wrong that, even though parts of this are clearly impossible and other parts crazy, I would much rather be there than here.

Ratings;
Imagination; overwhelming, and humane; A+
Science; fuzzy, but he had faith in the future to do things barely conceivable now; C-
Scene setting; the greatest and grandest scene of them all; A+
Characterisation; a novel of civilisations,
not individuals, but those there are are drawn well; B-

Overall; A greatness we are no longer capable of; A+

Summary: