Normally detached from the galaxy's turmoil, they intervene in a deus ex machina to end the threat of a civilization dedicated to forcing its mentality onto one stellar civilization after another.

A key idea is the formation of collective minds from many telepathically linked individuals, on the level of planets, galaxies, and eventually the cosmos itself.Ī symbiotic species, each individual composed of two species, both non-humanoid, is discussed in detail. These include many imaginative descriptions of species, civilizations and methods of warfare, descriptions of the multiverse, and the idea that the stars and pre-galactic nebulae are intelligent beings, operating on vast time scales. The disembodied travelers encounter many ideas that are interesting from both science-fictional and philosophical points of view. This snowballing process is paralleled by the expansion of the book's scale, describing more and more planets in less and less detail. After exploring a civilization on another planet in our galaxy at a level of development similar to our own that existed millions of years ago thousands of light years from Earth (the 'Other Earth') in some detail, his mind merges with that of one of its inhabitants, and as they travel together, they are joined by still more minds or group-minds. He realizes he is able to explore space and other planets. Plot Ī human narrator from England is transported out of his body via unexplained means.

Aldiss called it 'the one great grey holy book of science fiction'. Clarke considered Star Maker to be 'probably the most powerful work of imagination ever written', and Brian W. Some of the elements and themes briefly discussed prefigure later fiction concerning genetic engineering and alien life forms. A pervading theme is that of progressive unity within and between different civilizations. Star Maker tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and creator. The book describes a history of life in the universe, dwarfing in scale Stapledon's previous book, Last and First Men (1930), a history of the human species over two billion years. Star Maker is a science fiction novel by British writer Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937.

Starmaker olaf