Underrated Books: Sirius

When I first told Megan that I wanted to review Sirius for our Underrated Books feature, her immediate reaction was "Oh heavens, Olaf Stapledon? Really? You like him?"

Ouch.

For desultory students of classic science fiction, the name Olaf Stapledon means pretty much one thing: Cubic density. Stapledon's two most well-known works, Last and First Men (a history of the human species over two billion years) and Star Maker (a history of life in the universe), are not so much novels as they are fictional history textbooks. Very interesting, highly thought-provoking, and thoroughly boring. As I like to put it, very chewy books.

Sirius, however, while still well-written and worth thinking about, is decidedly a scifi novel, and a romantic tragedy at that. The book is the story of a genetically-engineered, super-intelligent dog in Wales during World War II, and how he struggles to live in a human world from within the limits of his canine frame.

Raised from a pup with the daughter of the scientist who created him, Sirius grows up as part of the Trelone family. He learns to read and to write, even to speak English after a fashion. He comes to understand politics and religion, and he has a special relationship with his human foster-sister, Plaxy. But Sirius is the only one of his kind in the world, neither truly canine nor truly human, and he constantly struggling under the weight of the fear and hatred he encounters throughout his life.

A very moving story all on its own, this book owes a great deal to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It is the story of a being created by humans who are then unprepared for the enormity of what they have made.

Why do I consider this to be an underrated book? There are two reasons:

1) Stapledon's other works (see above) tend to overshadow his less overwhelming fiction. Last and First Men and Star Maker are considered to be important, ground-breaking works in science fiction. Meanwhile, Sirius doesn't even warrent its own printing. (That pictures above is of the only current edition.)

2) This book has the potential to make people uncomfortable. There are hints throughout the story, often implied but never declared, that Sirius and Plaxy have a sexual relationship. The book's narrator neither approves nor condemns this rumor, and it is left to the reader to decide whether or not such a relationship, because of Sirius's intelligence and in spite of his species, is right.

This is a very very thinky book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.