Reviews

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

xosirenox's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

wickedmitch's review against another edition

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5.0

This is one of the first classic sci fi books I ever read. Happily I can say it still holds up quite well. It blends spiritual musing with outlining a myriad of potential lifeforms. I think I appreciate it even more than I did reading it nearly a decade ago.

sunnybopeep's review against another edition

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2.5

It’s not a bad book, but I didn’t like it. Once he stopped describing cool alien guys (with their suspiciously human tendencies), I stopped having fun… Sorry, Doris… I’ll never be like you.

allan_p's review against another edition

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4.0

Awe inspiring imagination, a product of it's time clearly but at certain points very gripping and unfathomably imaginative, Stapledon writes about the incomprehensible.

arf88's review against another edition

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2.0

I really wanted to like this book. Classic sci-fi that everyone seems to agree is a great book that influenced so many of the best sci-fi writers out there. But I just found the entire thing tedious and boring.

In theory I should love this book, the story of a disembodied mind traveling through time and space to meet other lifeforms. But it was like reading an encyclopaedia, nothing but "facts" regurgitated with nothing to make you care about the individuals that made up each race.

Some of the reviews of this book make it seem like it's going to be full of intelligent, life changing prose, as if simple scope of time and distance is profound on it's own. But there wasn't anything deeper in this than the unknown narrator realizing how inevitable, universal, and pointless war is. There are plenty of other books, plenty of other sci-fi, that explore the same theme without putting you to sleep.

It gets two stars and not one because there were some parts of this I enjoyed near the beginning, before the boredom set in too much.

giorvel's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

mrnorrell's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

naddie_reads's review against another edition

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DNF’d @ pg. 145. The many variations of same-same human life and nature on earth is just a backdrop to some philosophical musings which I could read elsewhere. I’d rather read nonfiction books on similar themes instead of this. 

jakob's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

angus_mckeogh's review against another edition

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3.0

Much more of a philosophical religious essay with a quasi-storyline rather than a novel. But it was spookily prescient about a lot of topics which were apparently unknown or undiscovered at the time it was written. So in that respect it was an interesting read.