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Star Maker

Front Cover
Olaf Stapledon, Patrick A. McCarthy
26 Reviews
Wesleyan University Press, May 24, 2004 - Fiction - 314 pages
Widely regarded as one of the true classics of science fiction, Star Maker is a poetic and deeply philosophical work. The story details the mental journey of an unnamed narrator who is transported not only to other worlds but also other galaxies and parallel universes, until he eventually becomes part of the "cosmic mind." First published in 1937, Olaf Stapledon's descriptions of alien life are a political commentary on human life in the turbulent inter-war years. The book challenges preconceived notions of intelligence and awareness, and ultimately argues for a broadened perspective that would free us from culturally ingrained thought and our inevitable anthropomorphism. This is the first scholarly edition of a book that influenced such writers as C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke and which Jorge Luis Borges called "a prodigious novel."
  

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Review: Star Maker

User Review  - Mark Peters - Goodreads

Can't believe I've been reading sci-fi (on and off it must be said) for over twenty years and never read this genre defining work by Stapledon. On the blurb KSRobinson says that plots that could be ... Read full review

Review: Star Maker

User Review  - Adrian Sherlock - Goodreads

One of the most brilliant things I've ever read, Olaf Stapledon leaves the rest of the science fiction genre in the shade, he was really something else. Pure speculative imagination, with doses of ... Read full review

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Contents

Preface
3
Interstellar Travel
16
Travel Again
60
Intimations of the Star Maker
94
Concerning the Explorers
131
The Community of Worlds
137
A Vision of the Galaxy
177
Stars and Vermin
187
A Stunted Cosmical Spirit
210
The Myth of Creation
232
Back to Earth
258
Glossary
271
Notes
281
Bibliography
307
Copyright

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About the author (2004)

OLAF STAPLEDON (1886-1950) served as Lecturer in Psychology and Philosophy at Liverpool University. PATRICK A. MCCARTHY is Professor of English at the University of Miami, author of Olaf Stapledon (1982) and editor of The Legacy of Olaf Stapledon (1989). FREEMAN J. DYSON is Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ. He conceived the Dyson Sphere, has designed nuclear reactors and writes on the relationship of science to literature and theology.

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