Star Maker and Parallel Worlds
I won’t review Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. I will only make one critique: the entire story is a narration. There is no immediate drama and no dialogue. If you are like me, you will trudge through the first several chapters because you aren’t used to the writing style. But be patient. This book is a classic and you will learn why.
Star Maker, written in 1937, should make every science fiction writer proud and frustrated at their craft. Stapledon’s vision is infinite. His books are a testament to the ideas that the genre can produce. And we writers will always be frustrated at coming in second to his ideas.
But not only writers. Physicists must also tip their hats to him. In the 50th Anniversary Edition of Star Maker, on page 243, we read:
In one inconceivable complex cosmos, whenever a creature was faced with several possible courses of action, it took them all, thereby creating many distinct temporal dimensions and distinct histories of the cosmos. Since in every evolutionary sequence of the cosmos there were very many creatures, and each was constantly faced with many possible courses, and the combinations of all their courses were innumerable, an infinity of distinct universes exfoliated from every moment of every temporal sequence in this cosmos.
Wow. That’s a mouthful. And that is just one paragraph. Now look closely at what he is saying at the end of the paragraph: an infinity of distinct universes exfoliated from every moment of every temporal sequence in this cosmos. That is the Many-Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. In the book, the creature consciously takes all of the possible paths. In the Many-Worlds interpretation, it is a quantum mechanical process that occurs. Despite the difference, it is prescient.
Writers, remember this. Ideas are important. Star Maker is now 70 years old. Its ideas are just as important today as they were then. They are timeless. Yes, other elements of storytelling are important too. But ideas are the stuff that makes science fiction unique. Characterization, the oft-touted requirement of good storytelling, is important. But it is not the raison d’etre of science fiction. If it were, we’d all be writing Jane Eyre In Space.
I doubt that would ever be a science fiction classic.
