Cosmic Perspectives

Olaf Stapledon was at home in realms that other writers do not know about:

the hypertime in which the Star Maker experiments with spatiotemporal creations;

universes composed only of sounds;

the conscious nebulae before they condensed into galaxies;

the galactic mind reviewing in one sentence the history of the Solar System, thus the entire contents of a previous volume;

the Solar System after orbits have been disrupted, planets have been destroyed and later human species have colonized Neptune -

- as was Poul Anderson, e.g., intergalactic space and a cosmic cycle.

In "In Memoriam," in the post-human future:

some octopodidae live longer and care for their young;
later, they work rock, shell, bone and coral with their tentacles;
their language is gestures and color changes;
they learn from their elders and experience;
they practice art and religious rituals;
confined to salt water, they remain in their Stone Age;
their cultures adapt to local conditions and stop innovating;
castes congeal and predetermine individual lives;
intelligence atrophies;
the species loses its ability to cope with environmental changes;
but it survives for twelve million years, much longer than humanity;
it is described in a single paragraph.