/lit/ - Literature

[Ezra !36PjEKSxqo No.3697427]

I knew I was in trouble when the first line of the foreward said: 'Star Maker is the most wonderful novel I have ever read', raising serious questions about how many books the foreward's writer has read.

The skepticism continued when I realized the novel was written in the first person. I'm generally not a fan of first person writing; I think it's a cheap gimmick.
The 'I' of the novel becomes an unembodied consciousness exploring the stars. This is an interesting idea, but all likeability is sucked out of it within the first 30 pages.

The consciousness comes to a planet exactly like Earth, but it's not Earth. The consciousness finds intelligent beings there, exactly like humans, but they aren't humans. The 'I' somehow inhabits one of these alien's minds and communicates with it. Instead of exploring the possibilities of potentially schizophrenic aliens, the novel's alien just accepts that an off-world consciousness can communicate with it. Suspiciously, the other world has all of the same technologies and philosophies as Earth: railways, skyscrapers, agriculture, communism, and capitalism. Great ideas fo' a unique alien culture, huh?

So the aliens find a way to disconnect their consciousness from their bodies as well, and they become a traveling group of souls through the universe looking for life. They come across many worlds and species that are stunningly uninspired. The problem with aliens in science-fiction novels is they're always over-described. The more ambiguity in description the better. Apparently Olaf Stapledon never got that lesson.

The rest of the novel is just a future history. What is meant by that is the book goes on to describe future events as if they just happened. The problem with this approach is that he doesn't set up any characters that we connect with, it's just 'recording' events that supposedly happened. This approach is incredibly boring and tedious. Anyone can write this shit.

Overall, this is a shitty book and should be avoided.

[Anonymous No.3697477]

>>3697427
>I'm generally not a fan of first person writing; I think it's a cheap gimmick.

wot

[Anonymous No.3697674]

>foreward

[Anonymous No.3697852]

>>3697427
>I'm generally not a fan of first person writing; I think it's a cheap gimmick.
Thanks for writing that. It let me know I didn't need to take any of your opinions even remotely seriously. :)

[Anonymous No.3697873]

>trashing stapledon
>tripfag
>bad opinions

3 strikes

[j No.3699287]

This is a fantastic book. You are very wrong!

[Anonymous No.3699302]

Why would you even think this could be good?

[j No.3699465]

It is good because it is a fantastic work of imagination written by a genius. Some of us on Earth like to think beyond the confines our small world. It is wonderful to imagine what different species live on other planets. Starmaker does this for us in such a magical and interesting way. Everything is witnessed from the viewpoint of a pin prick of human consciousness flying though an infinite and beautiful cosmos.Truly a wonderful book.

[Anonymous No.3699468]

>>3697427

Written in 1937.
If you can't understand that books written in times before your short existence may not be written in a style you like because the style you like did not exist until those authors had built the foundation, then grow up.

>>3697873
Also this.