Stefan Rostomily

Stefan Rostomily was a child during World War II. Thus, his earliest life history overlaps with ours.

"'He knew music and composed some good songs of his own - rowdy but good. They're still being sung out on Mars.'" (The Psychotechnic League, p. 114)

This puts him in the same league as Heinlein's Rhysling and Anderson's Hugh Valland.

A few of his cells were used as a chromosome source for the Rostomily Brotherhood. I have been calling the Brotherhood "clones" although that word did not yet exist when this story was written. And cloning would not have given them all an interest in Shakespeare!

Rostomily was dead at the time of "Un-Man." However, he appears in "Marius," written later but set earlier. Several sf characters, including two others in this future history, have been presented in this way: either a dead character has later been shown while still alive or an older character has later been shown while still young.

"Un-Man," about the Brotherhood, and its sequel, "The Sensitive Man," are each what I call a "proto-series," i.e., two open-ended series could have been written, one about the Un-men, the other about the sensitive men. (Indeed, they would make excellent superheroes.) Instead, Anderson wrote a future history about different aspects of society over time. Within this more comprehensive series, the Un-men and one of the sensitive men get just one instalment each.