- Darkness and the Light
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Darkness and the Light Author(s) Olaf Stapledon Country United Kingdom Language English Genre(s) Science fiction novel Publisher Methuen Publication date 1942 Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback) ISBN NA Darkness and the Light (1942) is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon.
In this work written in 1941, at the most frightening point of World War II, Stapledon projects two separate futures for humanity, depending not on the outcome of that particular conflict but on the failure or success of a future "Tibetan Renaissance" to influence the temper and ideology of the militaristic Russian and Chinese empires that threaten it. One of the futures involves worldwide Chinese imperialism and subsquent degeneration and extinction of the human race, unable to defend itself against speedily evolving rats. The other ends in overthrowing the empires and creation of a worldwide socialist utopia.
Works by Olaf Stapledon Novels Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930) · Last Men in London (1932) · Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (1935) · Star Maker (1937) · Darkness and the Light (1942) · Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord (1944) · Death into Life (1946) · The Flames: A Fantasy (1947) · A Man Divided (1950) · Nebula Maker (drafts of Star Maker, 1976)
Short stories "Old Man in New World" (1944) · "Four Encounters" (1976)
Short story collections Worlds of Wonder: Three Tales of Fantasy (1949) · To the End of Time: the Best of Olaf Stapledon (ed. Basil Davenport, 1953) · Far Future Calling: Uncollected Science Fiction and Fantasies of Olaf Stapledon (ed. Sam Moskowitz 1979) · An Olaf Stapledon Reader (ed. Robert Crossley, 1997)
Poetry Latter-Day Psalms (1914)
Non-fiction A Modern Theory of Ethics: A study of the Relations of Ethics and Psychology (1929) · Waking World (1934) · Saints and Revolutionaries (1939) · New Hope for Britain (1939) · Philosophy and Living, 2 volumes (1939) · Beyond the "Isms" (1942) · Seven Pillars of Peace (1944) · Youth and Tomorrow (1946) · The Opening of the Eyes (ed. Agnes Z. Stapledon, 1954)
Categories:- 1942 novels
- 1940s science fiction novels
- Novels by Olaf Stapledon
- Science fiction novel stubs
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