British author Olaf Stapledon is not widely known but created much of the mythology behind 20th century science fiction. He was the first to imagine hiveminds, Dyson spheres, and genetic engineering, drew an eclectic fanclub including Virginia Woolf, Stanislaw Ulam, Winston Churchill, and H. G. Wells, drew the enmity of C. S. Lewis, and inspired Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) and even Freeman Dyson’s eponymous spheres.

In part of an ongoing friendly letter exchange with H. G. Wells, Stapledon distanced himself from the then-stylish utopian socialism of Wells in a cartoon he drew. He depicted Wells and his intellectual ilk as marching off in self-assured certainty towards an imagined progressive utopia, leaving behind the dogmatic bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat. Stapledon identified himself as ‘I am the jackdaw. Free, but uncertain’.

I identify myself as the jackdaw hidden on the left side, only visible to those who can see with the heart.