Last and First Men

Man is Music - now that's a moral that I can get behind.

Written in 1930, this book covers two Billion years of history, which is far more sweeping than any other epic sci-fi novel. I especially enjoyed the tribulations of the First Men, with quite a few scary parallels to recent history.

After that, the book slows down a bit, despite the narrator apologizing for not covering things in detail. Wikipedia has a nice breakdown of all the descendents of men; suffice it to say it is quite a collection, living on three planets. Alien invasion, natural cataclysms, global warming - this book has it all.

Yet it wasn't ideal. I felt I was missing some message here, something more than sweeping history. Perhaps a bit of pondering will help. Until then, I want to rate this somewhere between 3 and 4 stars - rounding up to four as I think back on the stories of the First Men.