Star Maker

Olaf Stapledon

1937

From the back garden of suburban England in the thirties to the depths of Outer Space, this book is a sweeping study of the human condition and what it means to be human and god.

The Protagonist is never named, but we know that he is unhappy with his ordinary life and the everydayness of his family life. As he sits on the ground contemplating his own condition, he is swept into the dark depths. After a period of passive acceptance of his strange mode of travel, he urgently begins searching the skies, first for Earth, but that appears to be hopelessly lost, then for any Earth like planet but it seems that such planets are a rarity in the galaxy.

Finally, he finds a planet where the conditions are remarkably like Earth so his insubstantial being flows down to the surface where it hunts out a body it can share information with. He spends many years on this planet examining its cultures and relating them to those he had left behind, finding them similar to those that he had left behind.

After a catastrophic war, he and his host learn how to bring his mental travelling under conscious control and head out into the galaxy where they learn that there are vast numbers of similar disembodied intelligences examining the galaxy and begin to coalesce into ever larger groups that enable the group as a whole comprehend an increasingly wider spectrum of intelligences.

Much of the book is made up as an encyclopaedia of the planets and intelligences these groups find.

Eventually the group becomes sophisticated enough to perceive the Star Maker; the Being behind the creation of the Galaxy and they realise that this is part of their purpose - to give meaning to the Star Maker and the Galaxy.

With this realisation, the Protagonist is finally returned to his own home in a London that is on the edge of a war that he had seen destroy many other civilisations.


This is part of the Science Fiction Masterworks series.

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