Talk:Star Maker

Great article

Great article; Star Maker goes onto my list of books to read.

…on the scale of hundreds or millions of years.

I changed or to of because the former seems illogical, but I'm not entirely sure that's what the author meant. Please confirm.

I have also moved the following comment from the article to the talk page:

Notes to editors: the above hypothesis greatly resembles the gaia hypothesis, only that precedes it by several decades. Is this valid? Moreover, does relationship exist among the collective minds described, the Pierre de Chardin work and the Dawkins memes hypothesis exist?

—Herbee 23:18, 2004 Mar 19 (UTC)

Major re-write

As well as adding more information I've substantially re-written the original article: I thought that it was a bit vague, and was praising the book rather than describing it. I've tried to keep in all the original information, but I've taken out this sentence:

"Stapledon, a committed pacifist, wrote this book shortly before the start of World War II."

I'm not sure this is relavent as I don't think it's really an anti-war book, except for the theme of progressive unity which I have mentioned.

--SpaceFrog 21:57, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

well although not explicity an antiwar book the pacifist element is quite apparent in the whole book.

spoiler

like the non-violence philoshopy of some of the destroyed civilizations. In any case it's not a really important sentence. The rewriting was a nice work, thx the original poster

Stapledon's Socialism

I was sorely tempted to alter the paragraph or two on Stapledon's influences, which clearly imply that marxism (and even Darwinism!) is/are passé -- this being a neo-liberal conceit of the present period, masquerading as fact -- making that passage completely gratuituous and partisan. But I decided instead to post my objection here, for now, as these contentions can and will get easily out of hand.

I was deeply impressed by Last an First men over 40 years ago, but have only read a few things by Stapledon since then. I am no expert on him. But I am an expert on marxism, and I do contend this (rather small, passing) slight. And fact is, it lessens the objectivity of the piece, however much the passage is 'qualified'. This implication shouldn't even have come up at all -- i.e. it is there solely for the purpose of placing doubt in the readers' minds, for purely partisan political reasons. And so that passage should be re-written.

And that wouldn't be so hard to do, AFAIC.

Pazouzou 23:07, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Star maker

I would like to suggest that a disambiguation be put onto the site, as Starmaker is also a song from Fame. I realise you can probably access this by searching for Fame, but I just think it would make life easier if people could search for the song as well.

Your views would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Dean

Fair use rationale for Image:Starmaker.JPG

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Fair use rationale for Image:Starmaker firstedition.jpg

Image:Starmaker firstedition.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Starmaker.JPG

Image:Starmaker.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Starmakersfmasterworks.JPG

Image:Starmakersfmasterworks.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

About C.S. Lewis' opinion about the book

I don't know if it is relevant enough to include in the article, or if a blog is a source that is reliable enough, but here it is if some more info is required:

From Narnia to a Space Odyssey: The War of Letters Between Arthur C. Clarke and C.S. Lewis:

Dear Mr. Clarke--

I quite agree that most scientifiction [science fiction] is on the level of cowboy boys' stories. But I think the fundamental moral assumptions in popular fiction are a very important symptom. If you found that the most popular stories were those in which the cowboy always betrayed his pals to the crooks and deserted his girl for the vamp, I don't think it would be unimportant.

I don't of course think that at the moment many scientists are budding Westons: but I do think (hang it all, I live among scientists!) that a point of view not unlike Weston's is on the way. Look at Stapledon (Star Gazer ends in sheer devil worship), Haldane's Possible Worlds and Waddington's Science and Ethics. I agree Technology is per se neutral: but a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the universe. Certainly if he goes on his present course much further man can not be trusted with knowledge.

~C.S. Lewis, Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis: Volume II, Letter to Arthur C. Clarke of Dec 7, 1943

The Window in the Garden Wall--A C.S. Lewis Blog: August 2005 84.210.60.115 (talk) 11:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• I have to say this seems ludicrously unfair. Over and over Star Maker comes back to the point that the primary evolution of a civilization is ethical, and if it lets technology get too far out in front it destroys itself. The novel actually calls species that engage in expansion for its own sake "pervert races". And I have no idea where he's seeing "devil worship". It's an un-Christian take on God to be sure, but mostly still well inside the parameters set by Abrahamism.174.119.130.152 (talk) 20:06, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Table of contents?

I've removed the table of contents section, as this is the only article on a book that I've found that has one and honestly, it's not notable.Wzrd1 (talk) 20:17, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Sources

I'm not in the mood to extract info from here; maybe you are. DS (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

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Dyson sphere

Hi, according to the article on Olaf Stapleton, this book contains the first known mention of a Dyson sphere. What is the best place to add the information on this page?

Olaf Stapledon[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20140109033551/http://meaningoflife.tv/transcript.php?speaker=dyson GridInstability (talk) 20:31, 7 March 2023 (UTC)