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For whatever reason, I found I just couldn't get into this book. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was about it, yet I found myself just largely indifferent to proceedings. Which is surprising as I am actually quite into a lot of vintage science fiction from HCM Watson's The Decline and Fall of the British Empire which was written in 1890 to the classics of 1950-60 and more modern stories such as those by Niven. So it's not just that Last Men In London is an early scifi book written in 1932. There's just something about it that, was frankly, dull. Perhaps it was the absence of relatable (or even fleshed our characters), or the strange circumstances or setting of the novel.

I read in one review after having finished this book that the reviewer thought 'There are serious problems with the book and at times it's virtually unreadable.' as well as stating 'I wouldn't recommend you read this without reading the other first, mainly because Last and First Men is an amazing book but this novel will put you off Stapledon for life.' and I can say he's spot on in those respects, and now having read this I have absolutely no desire at all to pick up another Stapledon book.

Overall, unless you're a really die hard scifi fan I'd avoid it. If you're really wanting to dive in perhaps take the above quoted reviewers tip and read Last and First Men first. ( )

There are serious problems with the book and at times it's virtually unreadable. It' the sequel to Last and First Men. You can read that without reading this, but I wouldn't recommend you read this without reading the other first, mainly because Last and First Men is an amazing book but this novel will put you off Stapledon for life.

There are good things about it: those sections that deal with Paul are well done. There's some nice satire when, after a failed love affair he turns to religion and promptly falls in love with his priest. There's a great scene where, during a religious experience, the priest touches Paul's knee. "'At last I feel Jesus'" says Paul.

Also the section on Paul's experiences during the war. Stapledon himself was a pacifist ambulance driver and I think we must have more than a little autobiography here.

The problem is the long section in the middle of the book where Stapledon in the guise of the Neptunian rants for ages about the war. I don't care how intellectual he is, nor how well he constructs his sentences: there's no place for this sort of thing outside a London taxi ( )

Some of us might have gazed up at the stars in the night sky and wondered what was out there and a few of us free of religious dogma might imagine that there are life forms that are beyond our capabilities to know or understand. British Philosopher Olaf Stapledon let his imagination invent a human species far far in the future that had the ability to project back to our time in it's efforts to understand man in crisis. It was a representative from the eighteenth and last species of humans whose task was to write a history of the first species as it battled to come to terms with a Europe battered by the first world war. He chose to lodge himself within the brain of a prescient man with a talent to observe the people around him. This man Paul is a thinly disguised version of Stapledon himself who uses this mechanism to write a biography/autobiography of his life and times. An audacious idea that would have fallen flat from many a writer les talented than Stapledon.

The point of view is expressed through the representative from the future referred to as the parasite, who introduces himself, "so that you (the reader) might have some idea of the being who is communicating with you," The eighteenth species have developed to such an extent that they have learned to be and think as one unit. Through telepathy and universal mind melding they have achieved a sort of Utopia, but their very existence on Neptune is under threat from a rogue star entering the galaxy and it is their task to create their history before they are annihilated. This first part of Stapledon's book reads like a passage from Arthur Koestler's [Janus : A summing up] or perhaps some of Doris Lessing's science fiction, beautiful writing that expresses a sense of wonder, which is such an essential ingredient of most science fiction writing. Paul is chosen to be the host because he epitomises in his character the spiritual crisis of his age and the doom of his species. The Parasite is able to influence Paul to some extent and stays with him throughout his life: from his birth, through the years of the first world war, his teaching career afterwards, his attempts to awaken his fellow men to their predicament and finally to his lapse into senility.

The parasite is appalled by the state in which he finds the first men, but is also fascinated by their total lack of empathy towards each other. He observes:

Inevitably their chief concern was private fulfilment and it essentially means money. National affairs, racial affairs, cosmical events were of interest to them only in their economic bearing........ and he reflects that If they could begin to outgrow their limitations of will, if they could feel beyond their self regard, their tribal jealousies, and their constant puerile obsessions then they could begin not only to construct a Utopia of happy individuals, but to make of their planet a single and most potent instrument of the spirit capable of music hitherto unconsciensed.

The effects of the World War have destroyed any possibility of the human race developing beyond their present status which is a constant battle between their animal (simian) and their emerging humanism. Through the parasites observations Stapledon can indulge his thoughts concerning the human condition and it is no surprise to see that it reeks of existentialism.

The parasite stays with Paul (Olaf) through his youthful development, his struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, his pacifism throughout the war, where he becomes a volunteer for a private ambulance service. The reader now views the world through Pauls eyes as he experiences the horror of war, but this view is always subject to the observations and commentary of the parasite. Following the war the parasite nudges Paul towards an attempt to influence his peers into seeking a unity among people and nations, a task that Paul (Olaf) feels he lacks the talent to achieve. He is constantly rebuffed and eventually wears himself out in his attempts to make a better world. He is hampered also by having no clear idea what he is trying to accomplish; his vision at the crucial moment always fails to come into focus.

During Paul's time as a teacher he comes across one of a rare breed of superhumans as one of his pupils; they have enlarged brains and an intelligence that places them far beyond their fellows. The pupil Humpty suffers from being the odd boy out and even though he is recognised by Paul and the parasite they cannot save him from persecution and mental deterioration. This section of the book feels like an add-on and makes the whole a little disjointed. Stapledon would take up this idea in his excellent novel [Odd John] and in my opinion it would have been better to have left it out of Last men in London.

After Paul's death the parasite returns to his own planet where he calmly faces his and his races extinction, but suffers the inevitable loss of spirit and humanism as they are reduced to a fight for survival. The wheel in a way has come full circle and the tone of the book reflects the pessimism of the inter war years.

Overall this is a fine book, part science fiction, part autobiography, part philosophy that Stapledon on the whole manages to shape into a unified piece of writing. It bulges at the seams in places but does hold together in the end. Published in 1932 it is not as well known as his [Last and First men], but I think it is the better book.

"There is of course in both of us and in all men and all living things, and all sub-vital beings the one universal miracle of spontaneous doing, which is the essential life of all existence. Through the aid or the limitations of circumstances, some may do much others little. What matters which of us does which? All the tones of the music are needed for the musical perfection. And it is the music alone that matters. not the glorification of this instrument or that."

Stapledon's theme of the self regard and the self aggrandisement that continually hinders our development is a theme that he repeatedly sets to a musical figure, which I find particularly effective. A four star read ( )

My reactions to reading this novel in 1996. Spoilers follow.

“Introduction”, Curtis C. Smith and Harvey J. Satty -- Introduction to the 1976 edition of the novel. It talks of Stapledon’s vision that inspired his Last and First Men and Last Men in London. It also speaks of the generally harsh criticism of this sequel to Last and First Men and this novel’s obscurity. The authors also note many similarities between character Paul and Stapledon.

Last Men in London, Olaf Stapledon -- In many ways, this sequel to Stapledon’s Last and First Men is very different. It is much lacking in the speculative wonders of natural and social evolution of the latter novel. The only new things in that regard are the society of philosophical lemurs which predate man. Their territory is invaded by primitive man who wipes the lemurs out because, though they are philosophically and morally advanced, they’re lacking in practical knowledge, skill, and curiosity. This notion that man must have intellectual curiosity, scientific learning, dispassion and detachment, a comfortable sensuality, a morality that emphasizes community, and a sense of cosmic purpose is emphasized again and again. Every species before the near-perfect 18th Man is lacking at least one of these virtues, and, therefore, doomed. Of course, even the 18th men are doomed and revert to primitive, near-animals.

This novel starts before the epilogue in Last and First Men and concludes after the events of that novel. Essentially, this novel uses that old technique of a stranger/traveler commenting on contemporary politics, society, and mores. Here the traveler is a Neptunian inhabiting the body of Paul. The narrator observes – and manipulates – Paul’s life to cultivate an 18th man perspective in his mind. Paul is also something of a Stapledon stand-in since both served as ambulance corpsman in WWI and both cultivate an outsider prospective of various groups and both are devoted Marxists). Thus the narrator observes Paul’s first sexual longings and experimentations and eventual consummation in a sort of casual menage á trois with an old and married lover.

Of course, Marxist Stapledon has plenty to say of the individualistic competition for riches and glory in a capitalist society. Lenin, to Stapledon, is a near-saint though he seems somewhat disappointed the Soviet Union hadn’t advanced further in creating a better order. Most interesting is the stuff on WWI not only as a partial glimpse into Stapledon’s life in the ambulance corps, but the import the war is afforded. The Neptunian narrator marks the fall of 1st Man with WWI. Paul is troubled by the horrible sights, and the Neptunian narrator talks about the various motives of the Europeans who go to war; though most have reservations, few are conscientious objectors like Paul. Even his fellow objectors don’t have unsullied ideals of pacificism and internationalism. Stapledon talks about the pervasive guilt in Europe after the war. All this makes the novel an interesting historical document on European psychic reactions to the Great War. (It makes me wonder how horrified Stapledon was at World War Two.). I have no idea, given my ignorance of WWI inspired fiction, how it stacks up to other fictional accounts of WWI by veterans. The narrator mentions that WWI showed that man’s command of nature and technology had not been matched by moral progress. I doubt that Stapledon was the first to utter this truism.

It strikes me that this novel echoes themes of H. G. Wells’ sf in two ways. First, there is the revulsion of the intellect for the body. This is most blatant for Wells in The Island of Dr. Moreau. 18th Man is held out as the ideal reconciliation between sensuality and intellect. Paul’s vision of Neptunian sex helps him view sex in a detached way – accepting sexual longings and not ascetically denying them but not being ruled by them anymore than hunger and its satiation should rule life. Both Stapledon and Wells view man as living in a flawed society, both accept a sort of collectivism (either economic or, in Stapledon’s Spirit of Man, psychological) as a solution, and both view man burdened by his bestial mind and potentially saved by one of his numerous World States. Stapledon doesn’t inherently deride the bestial side – after all, his philosophic lemurs lack it and die – of man. He wants to add other qualities to it.

Stapledon seeks a more radical physical evolution of man as the key to his survival. (Another aspect of this novel is the detailed explanation of mental time travel used by the Neptunians.) Wells’ vision of a new society in The Food of the Gods is also echoed here. Wells sees a new breed of physically different children as the creators of a new order. Stapledon’s mutants are both idiots and geniuses in relation to other humans. However, they are unable to work together to create a new order. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia makes the remark that Stapledon’s works show the inability of man to fully know the cosmos and his purpose (assuming there is one) in it. Like Last and First Men, Stapledon frequently uses the metaphor of music to describe the strivings and shameful betrayals of man adding to the symphony of life and the universe. In one chapter, Paul makes friends with a variety of people. Each profession has some special virtue in the way they approach life but many deficiencies. The narrator sees man’s duty as twofold: to constantly move himself and his society to a more perfect state and to dispassionately view himself and his life – even tragedies of an individual or racial nature are but tones in a great symphony being played. However, the hopeful preaching of the Neptunian narrator takes a dark tone as humanity reverts to brutish savagery and degenerate mentalities dimly aware of their past glory. The attempt to spread human seed elsewhere seems to have failed. Whereas the narrator of Last and First Men valiantly says the 18th Man will put “a fair end to the brief music that is man.”, the last messages from the end of man seem to be music “screaming out of tune”. Stapledon also includes some of his early poetry.

All in all, I find this novel richer in philosophical implications and social satire than Last and First Men. However, the latter novel is richer in pure sf speculative ideas. ( )