Stapledon

W. Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) was a visionary author who occupies a uniquely foundational position in the genres of both Science Fiction and Futures Studies (SF and FS).  The mythologist, Joseph Campbell called Stapledon “the dean of visionary science fiction writers;” and Arthur C. Clarke said about Stapledon’s two principal SF/FS works, Last and First Men (1932) that “No book before or since has ever had such an effect on my imagination;” and of Starmaker (1938) that this is “the finest work of SF ever written”.

The Winter 2015 issue of the Journal of Futures Studies focused on the intersection of SF and FS.  For this special issue,  I was delighted to contribute ““ (Vol. 20, No. 2, 2015, pp.123-132 ).

An Expanded Preprint links to a variety of additional sources in the “consciousness literature” that support my conjecturing about cosmic inspiration in FS.