Olaf Stapledon, British philosopher and author of several works of science fiction.
One reviewer wrote, "What we find here is an inventive updating of Stapledon's famous Odd John (1935) in very sensitive, unsentimental terms, with the addition of a sense of community, a benefit that Stapledon's protagonist never got to fully experience. Shiras tells her story in simple yet affecting prose, a kind of blend of Sturgeon and Simak. "
Stapledon first announced his intention to write a history of the universe in his 1935 work Odd John, in which the main character, John Wainwright, has already produced such a thing (Stapledon would often mention his next literary project in the book he was currently working on - the story of "Odd John" is itself mentioned in passing in 1932's Last Men in London).
•
Probably written around 1932-33 (when Stapledon was working on Odd John, his tale of a superhuman youth), the book is essentially a first draft of the author's 1937 opus Star Maker, though there are many marked differences to the later, more polished work.
The story draws particularly from Stapledon's novels Last and First Men (1930), Last Men in London (1932), Odd John (1935) and Sirius (1944).
Weston’s plan is to usher in a new age of space colonization in order to ensure that man and his descendants will, in some form, continue to survive for all eternity (the idea was actually borrowed from Stapledon's Last and First Men).
The flame creatures themselves contribute to a "racial mind", or linked telepathic consciousness, something Stapledon's "Last Men" were shown to be capable of in Last and First Men and Last Men in London.
•
The spiritual quest of a "cosmical mind", in which the flame creatures participated, is also the backbone to Stapledon's 1937 opus, Star Maker.