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Although my heavy scifi reading occurred many years ago, during the 60s and 70s, I must admit I've never heard of any of those authors. Granted, I focused on a

Although my heavy scifi reading occurred many years ago, during the 60s and 70s, I must admit I've never heard of any of those authors. Granted, I focused on a smallish group of the more well-known authors, its still a bit surprising that I'd never come across at least some of these people.

ghaff 8y ago
Olaf Stapledon I've heard of and gave First and Last Men a try at one point and gave up as I recall. Ambitious but a real slog. My most intensive SF reading was more in the 70s through 80s/90s but I likewise don't recognize any of the names other than Stapledon's.
- walterbell 8y ago
  After reading Last and First Men (1930), many news stories seem familiar. > as time passed the mental difference between the two classes increased. Superior intelligence became rarer and rarer among the proletariat; the governors were recruited more and more from their own offspring, until finally they became an hereditary caste. The gulf widened. The governors began to lose all mental contact with the governed. They made a mistake which could never have been committed had their psychology kept pace with their other sciences. Ever confronted with the workers' lack of intelligence, they came to treat them more and more as children, and forgot that, though simple, they were grown men and women who needed to feel themselves as free partners in a great human enterprise. > Formerly this illusion of responsibility had been sedulously encouraged. But as the gulf widened the proletarians were treated rather as infants than as adolescents, rather as well-cared-for domestic animals than as human beings. Their lives became more and more minutely, though benevolently, systematized for them. At the same time less care was taken to educate them up to an understanding and appreciation of the common human enterprise. Under these circumstances the temper of the people changed. Though their material condition was better than had ever been known before, save under the First World State, they became listless, discontented, mischievous, ungrateful to their superiors. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html
- stesch 8y ago
  The book is racist and antisemitic. In the book: African scientists were experts in breeding humans and apes. The Jews were responsible themselves for being hated. And in the long run both groups didn't make it into the next round, the next mankinds. So you can be sure all the following humans had no black or Jewish blood.
  - EthanHeilman 8y ago
    I've read it twice and I didn't remember any of that, however I looked it up and you are correct the book does use antisemitic tropes. >And in the long run both groups didn't make it into the next round, the next mankinds. So you can be sure all the following humans had no black or Jewish blood. I'm not sure what you are referring to. Do you mean at the end of World State? I don't see any specific exclusion of African or Jewish people from the next chapter of history but the book covers so much I may be missing something. In the long run no present racial groups make it into the next round.
    - stesch 8y ago
      The blacks (Africans?) kept to themselves and weren't included in the later societies ans biological changes.
      - EthanHeilman 8y ago
        I'm rereading the first few chapters and I can't find it. After the fall of the world state it it is said that the next civilization comes from the indigenous Peruvian. Pretty much every group but Peruvians is excluded. "It happened also that in South America the racial conditions were more favourable than elsewhere. After the fall of the First World State the European element in this region had dwindled, and the ancient "Indian" and Peruvian stock had come into dominance. Many thousands of years earlier, this race had achieved a primitive civilization of its own. After its ruin at the hands of the Spaniards, it had seemed a broken and negligible thing; yet it had ever kept itself curiously aloof in spirit from its conquerors. Though the two stocks had mingled inextricably, there remained ever in the remoter parts of this continent a way of life which was foreign to the dominant Americanism. Superficially Americanized, it remained fundamentally "Indian" and unintelligible to the rest of the world. Throughout the former civilization this spirit had lain dormant like a seed in winter; but with the return of barbarism it had sprouted, and quietly spread in all directions. From the interaction of this ancient primitive culture and the many other racial elements left over in the continent from the old cosmopolitan civilization, civil life was to begin once more. Thus in a manner the Incas were at last to triumph over their conquerors. Various causes, then, combined in South America, and especially in the new and virgin plains of Patagonia, to bring the First Dark Age to an end." -Last and First Men [0]: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html
- EthanHeilman 8y ago
  Olaf Stapledon is amazing but he isn't writing adventures or even narrative in the traditional sense. He is very well known among science fiction authors because they use his material heavily [0]. I often wonder if there is some secret argument among some scifi authors never to speak of Stapledon. For instance one interesting line was that C.S. Lewis was inspired heavily by Stapledon to write "That Hideous Strength" which in turn inspired George Orwell's 1984. If in one thousand years one science fiction author will be remembered from our time there is a decent chance it will be Olaf Stapledon. [0]: http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-communion-and-the-marriage-of-minds-olaf-stapledon-in-context.html http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-com...
  - fractallyte 8y ago
    Arthur C Clarke wrote frequently of him, crediting Stapledon as one of his earliest influences!
- deepnet 8y ago
  Stapledon's Sirius, the awakening of a pet dog retrofitted with emerging sentience completely freaked me out when I was tween - brilliant stuff - relevant to the AI debate, but a new angle: enhanced animal minds ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_(novel)
- black6 8y ago
  I read First and Last Men after listening to the bartender in Hong Kong wax poetical to JC Denton about nanotechnology bringing about the Second Man. It was, indeed, a real slog.
clear_dg 8y ago
You may have stuck to novels then, Fredric Brown was a big name in SF short stories. Most anthologies of the time have at least one of his stories. He was one of my favorites as a kid, for his humor and his mastery of the very short format (which is in an art in itself).

ghaff 8y ago

Olaf Stapledon I've heard of and gave First and Last Men a try at one point and gave up as I recall. Ambitious but a real slog. My most intensive SF reading was more in the 70s through 80s/90s but I likewise don't recognize any of the names other than Stapledon's.

walterbell 8y ago
After reading Last and First Men (1930), many news stories seem familiar. > as time passed the mental difference between the two classes increased. Superior intelligence became rarer and rarer among the proletariat; the governors were recruited more and more from their own offspring, until finally they became an hereditary caste. The gulf widened. The governors began to lose all mental contact with the governed. They made a mistake which could never have been committed had their psychology kept pace with their other sciences. Ever confronted with the workers' lack of intelligence, they came to treat them more and more as children, and forgot that, though simple, they were grown men and women who needed to feel themselves as free partners in a great human enterprise. > Formerly this illusion of responsibility had been sedulously encouraged. But as the gulf widened the proletarians were treated rather as infants than as adolescents, rather as well-cared-for domestic animals than as human beings. Their lives became more and more minutely, though benevolently, systematized for them. At the same time less care was taken to educate them up to an understanding and appreciation of the common human enterprise. Under these circumstances the temper of the people changed. Though their material condition was better than had ever been known before, save under the First World State, they became listless, discontented, mischievous, ungrateful to their superiors. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html
stesch 8y ago
The book is racist and antisemitic. In the book: African scientists were experts in breeding humans and apes. The Jews were responsible themselves for being hated. And in the long run both groups didn't make it into the next round, the next mankinds. So you can be sure all the following humans had no black or Jewish blood.
- EthanHeilman 8y ago
  I've read it twice and I didn't remember any of that, however I looked it up and you are correct the book does use antisemitic tropes. >And in the long run both groups didn't make it into the next round, the next mankinds. So you can be sure all the following humans had no black or Jewish blood. I'm not sure what you are referring to. Do you mean at the end of World State? I don't see any specific exclusion of African or Jewish people from the next chapter of history but the book covers so much I may be missing something. In the long run no present racial groups make it into the next round.
  - stesch 8y ago
    The blacks (Africans?) kept to themselves and weren't included in the later societies ans biological changes.
    - EthanHeilman 8y ago
      I'm rereading the first few chapters and I can't find it. After the fall of the world state it it is said that the next civilization comes from the indigenous Peruvian. Pretty much every group but Peruvians is excluded. "It happened also that in South America the racial conditions were more favourable than elsewhere. After the fall of the First World State the European element in this region had dwindled, and the ancient "Indian" and Peruvian stock had come into dominance. Many thousands of years earlier, this race had achieved a primitive civilization of its own. After its ruin at the hands of the Spaniards, it had seemed a broken and negligible thing; yet it had ever kept itself curiously aloof in spirit from its conquerors. Though the two stocks had mingled inextricably, there remained ever in the remoter parts of this continent a way of life which was foreign to the dominant Americanism. Superficially Americanized, it remained fundamentally "Indian" and unintelligible to the rest of the world. Throughout the former civilization this spirit had lain dormant like a seed in winter; but with the return of barbarism it had sprouted, and quietly spread in all directions. From the interaction of this ancient primitive culture and the many other racial elements left over in the continent from the old cosmopolitan civilization, civil life was to begin once more. Thus in a manner the Incas were at last to triumph over their conquerors. Various causes, then, combined in South America, and especially in the new and virgin plains of Patagonia, to bring the First Dark Age to an end." -Last and First Men [0]: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html
EthanHeilman 8y ago
Olaf Stapledon is amazing but he isn't writing adventures or even narrative in the traditional sense. He is very well known among science fiction authors because they use his material heavily [0]. I often wonder if there is some secret argument among some scifi authors never to speak of Stapledon. For instance one interesting line was that C.S. Lewis was inspired heavily by Stapledon to write "That Hideous Strength" which in turn inspired George Orwell's 1984. If in one thousand years one science fiction author will be remembered from our time there is a decent chance it will be Olaf Stapledon. [0]: http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-communion-and-the-marriage-of-minds-olaf-stapledon-in-context.html http://www.nyrsf.com/2013/11/thomas-f-bertonneau-contact-com...
- fractallyte 8y ago
  Arthur C Clarke wrote frequently of him, crediting Stapledon as one of his earliest influences!
deepnet 8y ago
Stapledon's Sirius, the awakening of a pet dog retrofitted with emerging sentience completely freaked me out when I was tween - brilliant stuff - relevant to the AI debate, but a new angle: enhanced animal minds ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_(novel)
black6 8y ago
I read First and Last Men after listening to the bartender in Hong Kong wax poetical to JC Denton about nanotechnology bringing about the Second Man. It was, indeed, a real slog.

clear_dg 8y ago

You may have stuck to novels then, Fredric Brown was a big name in SF short stories. Most anthologies of the time have at least one of his stories. He was one of my favorites as a kid, for his humor and his mastery of the very short format (which is in an art in itself).