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Title: Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord. by William Olaf, Stapledon ISBN: 0-14-001999-5 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: May, 1964 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $0.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Important novel about an intelligent non-human
Comment: Olaf Stapledon is best known for his big-picture future histories, _Last and First Men_ and _Star Maker_. These non-novels imagined the rise and fall of alien and human civilizations on a canvas that spanned galaxies and billions of years of time.
By contrast, _Sirius_, written during World War II and published in 1944, is a story on a much more human scale, despite (as the title suggests) being about a dog. It is a also a far more mature and insightful story than Stapledon's earlier works. It is also a really _sad_ story. . . a genuine tragedy.
Sirius, a mastiff / alsatian / border collie mix with a brain enlarged by _in utero_ hormone treatments, is as smart as an above-average human, but retains the senses and instincts of a dog. His life is not an easy one, despite having loving human step parents and siblings. The novel follows his childhood and education in Wales, his experiences as an anonymous social observer in 1940s London, and his career as a sheep farmer. (What better job for a dog?) We also learn about an affair with his human step-sister, and his painful brooding about his place in the world and the meaning of his strange life.
Science fiction usually does not age well. _Sirius_, by contrast, has become even more important and relevant in today's world, where sheep actually get cloned, and mice have been given larger and more convoluted brains through genetic engineering.
Contrast _Sirius_ with Kirsten Bakis's _Lives of the Monster Dogs_, which was slicker and brighter but is nowhere near as realistic, insightful, or involving.
Rating: 5
Summary: A super-intelligent dog searches for happiness and meaning
Comment: A British scientist creates a dog of human intelligence, and the scientist and his wife raise the dog as another one of their children. The story centers on the relationship between Sirius the dog and his human sister Plaxy. There are interesting details about how being a dog is different from being a human, but essentially this is a story about basic human issues of acceptance, love, identity, purpose, happiness, meaning--issues that are especially difficult for Sirius, as the only one of his kind.
"Sirius" is out of print as a separate novel but is in print paired with another Stapledon novel as "Odd John and Sirius."
"Sirius" and Stapledon's "Last and First Men" are two of the best science fiction books I've ever read. I wonder why Stapledon's work isn't better known.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sirus is a poingnant portrait of alienation.
Comment: Isolated among us, Sirius is the archetype of alienation and is at the same time a more human protagonist than most. He is an intelligent dog, a singular creature resulting from an experiment. He faces his limitations, the physiologically limited form lacking hands, the lonlieness of a singular existance, without peers, serparated by species from the human society around him, separated by his sentience from the species from which he sprang. Yet he is no Frankenstein's monster, his life is not a remonstration of man's quest for knowledge, it is instead directed to understanding himself and the world around him. He studies humankind's best and faces mankinds worst and ultimately the reader realizes that his struggle is also our own
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Title: Odd John and Sirius by William Olaf Stapledon, Olaf Stapledon ISBN: 0486211339 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1972 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Last and First Men and Star Maker : Two Science Fiction Novels by Olaf Stapledon ISBN: 0486219623 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1968 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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