<div><div>Olaf Stapledon's previous science-fiction novel, <I>Last and First Men,</I> envisioned 2 billion years of history, from the 1930s forward. In this companion piece, a superintelligent narrator from the remote future investigates 20th-century life, entering a subject's mind to observe his childhood, his service during World War I, and his life afterward.</DIV></DIV> <div> </DIV> <div> </DIV>