Star Maker
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Star Maker
Narrated by:
Andrew Wincott
Buy Now for £15.99
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Narrated by:
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Andrew Wincott
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By:
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Olaf Stapledon
About this listen
One moment a man sits on a suburban hill, gazing curiously at the stars. The next, he is whirling through the firmament, and perhaps the most remarkable of all science fiction journeys has begun. Even Stapledon's other great work, Last and First Men pales in ambition next to Star Maker which presents nothing less than an entire imagined history of life in the universe, encompassing billions of years.
©2012 Olaf Stapledon (P)2012 Audible LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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Andrew Wincott may have some responsibility for my feelings about attention, or it could be that he did his best with what he had. I shall spend more time researching Stapledon's novels before risking another one. As such, there is nothing wrong with Star Maker, it just wasn't what I'd expected, even from its' descriptions. I couldn't really begin to relate this novel in a cover blurb. I got it because I'd come across a recommendation elsewhere as it being an early example of the genre. It has little in the way of what I think of as plot development, but that may suit other people. If you fancy this, I hope it suits you; it wasn't really my cup of sci-fi coffee.
Not what I'd expected.
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by the end I was struggling though: it comes over as a little pretentious in places.
simply because of the style, I found that I had to listen to this one over a long period of time: weeks rather than days. It's such heavy going and contains such formal and dry language that I found my attention drifting during some of the more in depth passages, some of which come across more like lectures than passages from fiction.
Even with the long reading / listening time, it's worth the effort ultimately, if you're a science fiction fan that is. I discovered the embryo of many other stories hidden within this epic. If you've read a lot of sci fi, I suspect you'll identify at least a dozen concepts here that form the basis of some very famous books.
As a catalyst for contemplation of existence it's masterful, and while certain scientific aspects have since been disproved, when you consider the year it was written, I think the science has stood up well. The majority of the ideas discussed are still valid, which makes one wonder how much of the 'fiction' could be accurate too... just imagining the scales of space and time involved makes my stomach lurch; I can't help wondering what the minds of its readers were thinking back when it was released, when science wasn't as prevalent or accessible as it is now. It must have been frightening!
If you prefer Lovecraft or Poe's writing style to Steven King, Neil Gaiman's, you'll love this. Even if you don't like the overly formal and unnecessarily complicated language, the ideas this story contains are well worth the effort.
interesting theory and superbly thought out
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