# Can anyone Identify this collection of three sci fi stories **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 6, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408 "2011-02-06T17:06:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sincere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sincere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sincere)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/1 "2011-02-06T17:06:33Z")
The first story describes something like 2 million years of human evolution. I remember the earth is destroyed by the factories they were using for power and they expanded outward. Constantly evolving into post human creatures. The next dealt with a small group of children who were more “wide awake” than others. Kind of like Savants. I think they formed their own island nation. With a lord of the flies feel. I think the last story may involve a super intelligent dog that a woman develops a relationship with. I read this collection YEARS ago, and my memories are very faint. Was just wondering if anyone could remember the title. I’m especially interested in the first story. Thanks All! ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/2 "2011-02-06T17:39:51Z")
> [@Sincere](#): > > I think the last story may involve a super intelligent dog that a woman develops a relationship with. This one sounds like [Olaf Stapledon’s “Sirius,”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_%28novel%29) but I’m not familiar enough with the author’s other works to tell you if it was collected anywhere, or if those other stories are his, too. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/3 "2011-02-06T17:51:09Z")
> [@Sincere](#): > > The first story describes something like 2 million years of human evolution. I remember the earth is destroyed by the factories they were using for power and they expanded outward. Constantly evolving into post human creatures. > > The next dealt with a small group of children who were more “wide awake” than others. Kind of like Savants. I think they formed their own island nation. With a lord of the flies feel. > > I think the last story may involve a super intelligent dog that a woman develops a relationship with. > > I read this collection YEARS ago, and my memories are very faint. Was just wondering if anyone could remember the title. I’m especially interested in the first story. Thanks All! There’s a collection of 4 novels by Olaf Stapleton - “Odd John” about a superintelligent child (and the others that he met), “Sirius” about a superintelligent dog (as Ranclhoth indicates), and “Last and First Men” and “Starmaker” both of which are about extremely long periods of history (first about mankind and its successors, second, about intelligent life in the universe as a whole). Sounds like this collection is what you read. ---
**Author:** ![Sincere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sincere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sincere)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/4 "2011-02-06T17:54:04Z")
Bingo **Andy L**! thanks so much! ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/5 "2011-02-06T17:57:08Z")
> [@Sincere](#): > > Bingo **Andy L**! thanks so much! I appreciate your “Sincere” thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/6 "2011-02-06T17:59:30Z")
It’s clear that you read a collection of fiction by Olaf Stapledon, but I can’t figure out which collection. The novels you’re describing are _Last and First Men_, _Odd John_, and _Sirius_. The problem is that there is no collection with just those three novels: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Olaf\_Stapledon](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Olaf_Stapledon) Are you saying, perhaps, that these were just three of the novels in the collection that you read, but there were also other novels in it? In that case you read the collection _To the End of Time_ (which I cam currently reading). ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/7 "2011-02-06T18:08:15Z")
The collection I was thinking of is “To the End of Time” ([http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?TTHNDFTM4C1953](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?TTHNDFTM4C1953)). I think Sincere conflated “Last and First Men” with “Starmaker” (I had almost completely forgotten that “The Flames” was in the book I read). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/8 "2011-02-06T18:30:37Z")
Thanks, Andy L. O.K., it’s clear then that the OP was talking about the collection _To the End of Time_. He conflated _Last and First Men_ with _Starmaker_ and left out _The Flames_ entirely (as well as the essay by Basil Davenport at the beginning of the book). Incidentally, when the OP describes the plot of _Last and First Men_ as being the next two milion years of history, he’s underestimating. It takes place over a period of two billion years. And that’s chicken feed compared to _Starmaker_, which is the history of the entire universe and various other universes as well. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/9 "2011-02-06T18:38:38Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Thanks, Andy L. O.K., it’s clear then that the OP was talking about the collection _To the End of Time_. He conflated _Last and First Men_ with _Starmaker_ and left out _The Flames_ entirely (as well as the essay by Basil Davenport at the beginning of the book). Incidentally, when the OP describes the plot of _Last and First Men_ as being the next two milion years of history, he’s underestimating. It takes place over a period of two billion years. And that’s chicken feed compared to _Starmaker_, which is the history of the entire universe and various other universes as well. Since you’ve got the book in front of you, can you confirm the memory I have that that collection left out some of the early portion of “Last and First Men” (the near-future of America), replacing it with a brief summary? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/10 "2011-02-06T18:52:49Z")
Yes, that’s right. You can read the entire thing at any of the three websites mentioned at the bottom of the webpage: > **[Last and First Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men)** > > Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years and eighteen distinct human species, of which our own is the first. The book employs a narrative conceit that, under subtle inspiration, the novelist has unknowingly been dictated a channelled text from the last hu... The one that I find easiest to read is the last one (the Australian Project Gutenberg one). The Wikipedia entry says though that that has something missing. I don’t know what’s missing. Chapter 2, which was deleted from the version in _To the End of Time_, is in the Australian online one. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-identify-this-collection-of-three-sci-fi-stories/570408/11 "2011-02-06T18:54:59Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Yes, that’s right. You can read the entire thing at any of the three websites mentioned at the bottom of the webpage: > > [Last and First Men - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men) > > The one that I find easiest to read is the last one (the Australian Project Gutenberg one). The Wikipedia entry says though that that has something missing. I don’t know what’s missing. Chapter 2, which was deleted from the version in _To the End of Time_, is in the Australian online one. Thanks.