Star Maker
Science fiction novel of prodigious scope, or work of speculative philosophy,
by Olaf Stapledon1 (1937). Unlike
its predecessor, Last and First Men,
it presents a panoply of intelligent alien life across the Galaxy with each
race striving toward the common goal of achieving "a more awakened state."
The physical repositories of intelligence prove to be astonishingly diverse
and Stapledon's human protagonist encounters sentient arachnoids, nautiloids,
echinoderms, fish-like creatures, plant men, and many others. All these
species, however, are ultimately engaged in the same struggle: to evolve
to new levels of mental capacity, a progression which Stapledon overtly
equates with spiritual development. Only a tiny minority of civilizations
survive the "familiar crisis" now facing modern man, achieve a well-organized,
utopian world-order, and evolve to become part of a growing community of
linked minds. Over vast epochs of time, individual creatures and races,
and even planets, stars, and galaxies, expand in consciousness and merge
telepathically until, in the far future, the Universe as a whole becomes
aware – and aware of its creator, the Star Maker. Thus Stapledon arrives
at a scenario strangely reminiscent of that envisaged, decades later, by
the more enthusiastic proponents of the anthropic
principle. Moreover, his imagination is broad enough to encompass numerous
universes, each with subtle variations, some sterile, others with life,
again presaging late 20th century thought on this issue (see chaotic
inflationary theory and many-worlds hypothesis).
Star Maker's influence, and that of its predecessor, are
difficult to gauge or overestimate. Arthur C. Clarke
and C. S. Lewis are just two of the many writers
who continued, in different ways, its cosmic quest for truth using a variety
of extraterrestrial life-forms as players. Less obviously, the entire SETI
movement represents, in a sense, a Stapledonian attempt to make contact
with a cosmos-wide community of intelligence and so enable mankind to become
an integral part of a larger adventure.
Reference
- Stapledon, Olaf. StarMaker. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher
(1987).
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