About the book
One of the last human beings, living on Neptune two thousand million years from now, reaches back into the mind of a writer of our own time and dictates this history. It begins with the wars of Europe and goes on through eighteen human species: an Americanized world state, an invasion from Mars, giant brains kept in concrete turrets, a flight to Venus and then to Neptune. Olaf Stapledon's first novel (1930) has almost no characters. Its hero is humanity, and it shaped science fiction for a century.
Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon
Choose a chapter
1
Chapter 1: Preface
About 5 min
2
Chapter 2: Introduction, by One of the Last Men
About 5 min
3
Chapter 3: Balkan Europe
About 35 min
4
Chapter 4: Europe’s Downfall
About 20 min
5
Chapter 5: America and China
About 30 min
6
Chapter 6: An Americanized Planet
About 35 min
7
Chapter 7: The Fall of the First Men
About 35 min
8
Chapter 8: Transition
About 20 min
9
Chapter 9: The Rise of the Second Men
About 30 min
10
Chapter 10: The Martians
About 30 min
11
Chapter 11: Earth and Mars
About 30 min
12
Chapter 12: The Third Men in the Wilderness
About 30 min
13
Chapter 13: Man Remakes Himself
About 40 min
14
Chapter 14: The Last Terrestrials
About 35 min
15
Chapter 15: Humanity on Venus
About 30 min
16
Chapter 16: Neptune
About 15 min
17
Chapter 17: The Last Men
About 45 min
18
Chapter 18: The Last of Man
About 25 min