Far Future Calling

Science fiction has its immortals -- authors whose impact was so tremendous that they belong in a class by themselves. Olaf Stapledon extended the boundaries of science fiction to the infinite, and there are few of the major authors who do not directly or indirectly owe him a great debt. This volume of his uncollected short science fiction and fantasy (only one having previously appeared in the United States) includes in addition to the five stories, an uncollected radio script from which this volume takes its title and an uncollected 1948 address to the British Interplanetary Society. To this collection Sam Moskowitz has contributed an authorized biography of Olaf Stapledon from prime sources that make it the most definitive and authentic to date.

Science fiction has its immortals - authors whose impact was so tremendous that they belong in a class by themselves. Olaf Stapledon extended the boundaries of science fiction to the infinite, and there are few of the major authors who do not directly or indirectly owe him a great debt. This volume of his short science fiction and fantasy includes in addition to the five stories, an uncollected radio script from which this volume takes its title and an uncollected 1948 address to the British Interplanetary Society.

While others gamble for their lives, Jason Jouval is gambling his away... In a far future dystopian world where the chips are heavy and the House always wins, citizens of the Mid-Eastern Cone roll the dice for their very lives. Honing his skills in order to extend his lackluster life, Jason hits big and becomes famous overnight as the longest living man in history. But what does a man with no passion for life do with all of that time? What is the point of the chips when they neither have value nor meaning? For one wayward, lost soul, the gambling floor becomes a stage on which his altered state of being plays out for the world to see. Under the watchful eyes of the shadowy soldiers of the Patriarchy government, Jason retraces the missteps of a man who's quite unsure if he's ready to fold. Can a man ever truly win when the cards are stacked against him? Is there any way to escape from the glittering lights of the gambling floor? With a hot hand and an eye for Lady Luck, Jason Jouval doubles down on the bet of a lifetime. Orrin Jason Bradford's stories have been compared to the early works of Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz. Pick up your copy of this Sci-Fi thriller today and enter a world where nothing is as it seems. ​

Science fiction has its immortals - authors whose impact was so tremendous that they belong in a class by themselves. Olaf Stapledon extended the boundaries of science fiction to the infinite, and there are few of the major authors who do not directly or indirectly owe him a great debt. This volume of his short science fiction and fantasy includes in addition to the five stories, an uncollected radio script from which this volume takes its title and an uncollected 1948 address to the British Interplanetary Society.

Whereas modernist writers lauded the consecrated realm of subjective interiority, mid-century writers were engrossed by the materialization of the collective mind. An obsession with group thinking was fuelled by the establishment of academic sociology and the ubiquitous infiltration of public opinion research into a bevy of cultural and governmental institutions. As authors witnessed the materialization of the once-opaque realm of public consciousness for the first time, their writings imagined the potentialities of such technologies for the body politic. Polling opened new horizons for mass politics. Public Opinion Polling in Mid-Century British Literature traces this most crucial period of group psychology's evolution—the mid-century—when "psychography," a term originating in Victorian spiritualism, transformed into a scientific praxis. The imbrication of British writers within a growing institutionalized public opinion infrastructure bolstered an aesthetic turn towards collectivity and an interest in the political ramifications of meta-psychological discourse. Examining works by H.G. Wells, Evelyn Waugh, Val Gielgud, Olaf Stapledon, Virginia Woolf, Naomi Mitchison, Celia Fremlin, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Elizabeth Bowen, this book utilizes extensive archival research to trace the embeddedness of writers within public opinion institutions, providing a fresh explanation for the new "material" turn so often associated with interwar writing.

Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950), philosopher, novelist, educator, and social activist had an imagination unlike that of any other figure in modernist literature. Along with H.G. Wells he is remembered as one of the most original and influential pioneers of twentieth-century science fiction. This first broadly inclusive anthology of Stapledon’s work offers a generous sampling of his fictional gems, including sections of his best known novels, Last and First Men, Odd Men, and Star Maker, and the complete text of two novellas, now back in print for the first time in fifty years, The Flames and Old Man in New World, as well as a selection of other writings, some previously unpublished, including essays, poems, and letters. These writings reveal the prophetic vision and utopian convictions that run through Stapledon’s work, and provide the broad context readers need to grasp the scope of his vision and to appreciate his great epic works, which are classics of science fiction.