4 out of 5
http://www.collectorshowcase.fr/images2/intgy_5510.jpg
Saturday, April 17, 2010
The Game Of Rat and Dragon - Mel Hunter
Interior illustration for the story :-
4 out of 5
http://www.collectorshowcase.fr/images2/intgy_5510.jpg
4 out of 5
http://www.collectorshowcase.fr/images2/intgy_5510.jpg
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Story Cycles of Future History: Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind - David Seed
‘Story Cycles of Future History: Cordwainer Smith’s Instrumentality of Mankind’, in Yearbook of English Studies 31 (2001), pp.133-143.
The first part you can see at Jstor, here :-
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3509380
Will see if I can find it in a database.
The first part you can see at Jstor, here :-
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3509380
Will see if I can find it in a database.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Stroon - Unreasonable Software
A site with a few quotes and links, and this :-
"Unreasonable Books will be publishing an original art and prose book, entitled Stroon, devoted to Paul Linebarger and to the worlds he created as Cordwainer Smith. Stroon will be edited by sf writer David Lubkin."
3 out of 5
http://stroon.net/index.html
"Unreasonable Books will be publishing an original art and prose book, entitled Stroon, devoted to Paul Linebarger and to the worlds he created as Cordwainer Smith. Stroon will be edited by sf writer David Lubkin."
3 out of 5
http://stroon.net/index.html
Cordwainer Smith and Cat - Rosana Hart
Link to a picture of the author.
4 out of 5
http://www.noosfere.org/images/auteurs/Smith-Cordwainer.jpg
4 out of 5
http://www.noosfere.org/images/auteurs/Smith-Cordwainer.jpg
Yesterday's Tomorrows: Cordwainer Smith - Graham Sleight
"Strangeness, said John Gardner, is the one thing in fiction that cannot be faked. Strangeness is, famously, the defining characteristic of Cordwainer Smith's science fiction, and a good deal of ink is expended in the introductions of the books explaining where that strangeness comes from. (I may be about to do the same.) But strangeness, like newness or transgression, is something cultures are often able to adapt too quickly. So I was very curious, as I reread Smith's first published story, "Scanners Live in Vain" (1950), to see how distinctive it remained."
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/10/yesterdays-tomorrows-cordwainer-smith.html
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/10/yesterdays-tomorrows-cordwainer-smith.html
Cats cruelty and children: Idealism and morality in the Instrumentality of Mankind - Angus McIntyre
"The science-fiction writings of Cordwainer Smith consist of some twenty-odd short stories and two novels, which chart the history of an evolving civilisation over some fifteen thousand years. The history is internally consistent, and each story contributes to a coherent picture of the technological, social and spiritual development of the future described.
In real life, Smith was Dr Paul Linebarger, Professor in Asiatic Studies at Johns Hopkins university and colonel in US military intelligence, accomplished linguist and foreign policy adviser to the state department. His writing style, partly inspired by Chinese narrative techniques, more closely resembles poetry than the conventional dry prose of science-fiction, and his stories are dense with literary and historical references and more or less complex linguistic puns. Running through the entire work is a consistent morality and outlook, whose principal themes recur again and again in stories often written many years apart."
http://www.raingod.com/angus/Writing/Essays/Literary/Smith.html
In real life, Smith was Dr Paul Linebarger, Professor in Asiatic Studies at Johns Hopkins university and colonel in US military intelligence, accomplished linguist and foreign policy adviser to the state department. His writing style, partly inspired by Chinese narrative techniques, more closely resembles poetry than the conventional dry prose of science-fiction, and his stories are dense with literary and historical references and more or less complex linguistic puns. Running through the entire work is a consistent morality and outlook, whose principal themes recur again and again in stories often written many years apart."
http://www.raingod.com/angus/Writing/Essays/Literary/Smith.html
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Cordwainer Smith - Chris Roberson
On being a slow thickie :-
"Cordwainer Smith
As I've mentioned elsewhere, I tend to be something of a late adopter, when it comes to writers. I didn't read any Fritz Lieber until I was in my early twenties, didn't read any Philip K. Dick until I was 28, and didn't read any Alfred Bester until I was 33. And every time I "discover" one of these writers that everyone has been telling me for years to read, my reaction is a forehead-slapping, "How long has this been going on?" kind of moment.
Well, I've just added another to the list. I picked up Cordwainer Smith's The Rediscovery of Man and Norstrilia last month, additions to my space opera reading list. On Friday, having just finished Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon (which I thought was a gas), and with a little time to kill, I picked up the former of the two books and started to read.
The top of my head blew off, and has been buffeted on a pillar of astonished steam ever since."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.chrisroberson.net/2006/02/cordwainer-smith.html
"Cordwainer Smith
As I've mentioned elsewhere, I tend to be something of a late adopter, when it comes to writers. I didn't read any Fritz Lieber until I was in my early twenties, didn't read any Philip K. Dick until I was 28, and didn't read any Alfred Bester until I was 33. And every time I "discover" one of these writers that everyone has been telling me for years to read, my reaction is a forehead-slapping, "How long has this been going on?" kind of moment.
Well, I've just added another to the list. I picked up Cordwainer Smith's The Rediscovery of Man and Norstrilia last month, additions to my space opera reading list. On Friday, having just finished Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon (which I thought was a gas), and with a little time to kill, I picked up the former of the two books and started to read.
The top of my head blew off, and has been buffeted on a pillar of astonished steam ever since."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.chrisroberson.net/2006/02/cordwainer-smith.html
No No Not Rogov! - David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Introduction to the story from The Ascent of Wonder
" Cordwainer Smith was the pseudonym of Paul Linebarger, a mysterious and colorful figure who was an expert on psychological warfare (he wrote a standard text) and spent his career in the Intelligence community. He went to college with L. Ron Hubbard, the famous pulp science fiction writer who later invented Scientology, and they published in the same literary magazine. There was apparently some real competitiveness in Linebarger, for he wrote an entire book manuscript (never published) in the late 1940s on the science of mental health. In typical hard sf fashion, both Linebarger and Hubbard were trying to raise psychology to the status of a "real" science.
Nearly all of Smith's science fiction takes place in a consistent future history, "The Instrumentality of Mankind," comprising many stories and one novel, Norstrilia (1975). The series chronicles events in the millennia-long struggle between the human Instrumentality and the Underpeople, intelligent animals biologically transformed into humanlike forms. A devout High Anglican, Smith built complex levels of religious allegory into his series.
As is evident from the foregoing, he was not characteristically an hard sf writer, but he did occasionally explore hard sf territory, although always in an highly ornamented style at the furthest remove from the traditional unornamented prose of scientific reportage normally identified with the "hard stuff."
"No, No, Not Rogov!" is his only sf story set in contemporary times. It is in the mode of invention fiction, but is set in the Soviet Union during the 1940s and beyond. It explores the work of science under totalitarian political conditions, a subject that Linebarger knew well. The setting reflects the ambiguous attitude toward the linkage of the military and scientific establishments that has characterized post-atomic bomb sf. The political/psychological portraits may be assumed to be accurate. It is also a link between the present and his visionary future of the Instrumentality.
The portrayal of experimental science is a chilling parallel to Tiptree's "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats." And the portrait of the scientist as a partly-willing political prisoner is an ironic contrast to Kornbluth's "Gomez." It is a work that explodes into something visionary and transcendent and shows Cordwainer Smith's distinctive and unusual voice in sf."
3.5 out of 5
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/exper/kcramer/anth/Rogov.html
" Cordwainer Smith was the pseudonym of Paul Linebarger, a mysterious and colorful figure who was an expert on psychological warfare (he wrote a standard text) and spent his career in the Intelligence community. He went to college with L. Ron Hubbard, the famous pulp science fiction writer who later invented Scientology, and they published in the same literary magazine. There was apparently some real competitiveness in Linebarger, for he wrote an entire book manuscript (never published) in the late 1940s on the science of mental health. In typical hard sf fashion, both Linebarger and Hubbard were trying to raise psychology to the status of a "real" science.
Nearly all of Smith's science fiction takes place in a consistent future history, "The Instrumentality of Mankind," comprising many stories and one novel, Norstrilia (1975). The series chronicles events in the millennia-long struggle between the human Instrumentality and the Underpeople, intelligent animals biologically transformed into humanlike forms. A devout High Anglican, Smith built complex levels of religious allegory into his series.
As is evident from the foregoing, he was not characteristically an hard sf writer, but he did occasionally explore hard sf territory, although always in an highly ornamented style at the furthest remove from the traditional unornamented prose of scientific reportage normally identified with the "hard stuff."
"No, No, Not Rogov!" is his only sf story set in contemporary times. It is in the mode of invention fiction, but is set in the Soviet Union during the 1940s and beyond. It explores the work of science under totalitarian political conditions, a subject that Linebarger knew well. The setting reflects the ambiguous attitude toward the linkage of the military and scientific establishments that has characterized post-atomic bomb sf. The political/psychological portraits may be assumed to be accurate. It is also a link between the present and his visionary future of the Instrumentality.
The portrayal of experimental science is a chilling parallel to Tiptree's "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats." And the portrait of the scientist as a partly-willing political prisoner is an ironic contrast to Kornbluth's "Gomez." It is a work that explodes into something visionary and transcendent and shows Cordwainer Smith's distinctive and unusual voice in sf."
3.5 out of 5
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/exper/kcramer/anth/Rogov.html
The Rosy Gloom of Cordwainer Smith - John Robinson
"There is a rosy gloom in the stories of Cordwainer Smith. They take place in a candy apple universe where the candy is sometimes hard to find. Whether the picture he creates is painted over the gloom or the gloom painted over the picture is difficult to determine. There seems to be (as the cover of the paperback, The Planet Buyer) a borscht-red tinge of death; a shrouding, damning end to man as we know him and a new man living on afterward in an ever expanding universe."
4 out of 5
http://fanac.org/fanzines/Monster/Monster5-19.html
4 out of 5
http://fanac.org/fanzines/Monster/Monster5-19.html
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Cordwainer Smith - Virgil Finlay
A couple of magazine pieces scanned here:-
4 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/virgil_finlay.htm
4 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/virgil_finlay.htm
Cordwainer Smith - Craig Moore
Some great stuff there. Going to get that Mother Hitton piece sometime in some format.
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/craig-moore.htm
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/craig-moore.htm
Illustrations Of Cordwainer Smith Stories - Pierre Lacombe
"Pierre Lacombe was the illustrator of the very first, 3-volume French hardcover edition of INSTRUMENTALITY published by Editions Opta in 1974. His work is similar enough to that of Virgil Finlay that I mistakenly had put these pictures on the Finlay page until someone set me straight. Here are some of his striking illustrations."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/pierrelacombe.htm
4.5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/pierrelacombe.htm
The Universe Of Cordwainer Smith - Corby Waste
A lot of computer artwork from different stories.
4 out of 5
http://www.fourth-millennium.net/cordwainer-vr/cs-index.html
4 out of 5
http://www.fourth-millennium.net/cordwainer-vr/cs-index.html
The Limits Of Humanity in Comparative Perspective Cordwainer Smith and the Soushenji - Lisa Raphais
In World weavers: globalization, science fiction, and the cybernetic revolution By Kin-yuen Wong, Gary Westfahl, Amy Kit-sze Chan
Unseen.
Unseen.
Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award
Named after the man. Well worth looking up and seeing if you have read anything by the authors named. Includes some of the greats.
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/foundation.htm
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/foundation.htm
Cordwainer Smith's Cruelty and Madness: or Jacque Lacan on a Planetary and Universal Scale - Pawel Stachura
"Paul M.A. Linebarger was a military expert in Far Eastern politics and in psychological warfare, active in many countries during World War Two and two post-war decades. At the same time, under different pseudonyms, he published two remarkable psychological novels and many acclaimed science fiction stories. The present paper focuses on thematic similarities between Linebarger’s politics, psychology, and fiction. Importantly, Linebarger’s treatment of barbarism, madness, bodily mutilation and disfigurement is uncannily similar to certain tenets of Jacques Lacan’s psychology. Given Linebarger’s incredible biography, wide travelling, excellent education, and insider knowledge of American special operations, his imaginative fiction can be treated as a philosophy of world supremacy, or at least a mad gloss to American power politics in the early decades of the cold war.
Cordwainer Smith, science fiction, psychological warfare
This is a discussion of more and less exact similarities between three bodies of writing: Cordwainer Smith’s science fiction, Felix C. Forrest’s mainstream psychological novels, Paul M.A. Linebarger’s works on international politics and psychological warfare. These texts were written in the two decades after World War 2, are all thematically related to American hegemony in the world, and were written by the same person: Smith and Forrest are two pseudonyms of Linebarger, a political scientist, intelligence and propaganda expert, who wrote highly original science fiction, published mostly in the 1950s and the 1960s. Even a superficial reading of Smith’s and Forrest’s fiction is enough to see the influence of Linebarger’s incredibly interesting biographical background, including his work for the American military. The intention of the paper is not to psychoanalyze the fiction, or the work for the military, but to show striking similarities between the vocabulary used by the American writer and the paradigm developed by Lacan at the same time.1"
4 out of 5
Cordwainer Smith, science fiction, psychological warfare
This is a discussion of more and less exact similarities between three bodies of writing: Cordwainer Smith’s science fiction, Felix C. Forrest’s mainstream psychological novels, Paul M.A. Linebarger’s works on international politics and psychological warfare. These texts were written in the two decades after World War 2, are all thematically related to American hegemony in the world, and were written by the same person: Smith and Forrest are two pseudonyms of Linebarger, a political scientist, intelligence and propaganda expert, who wrote highly original science fiction, published mostly in the 1950s and the 1960s. Even a superficial reading of Smith’s and Forrest’s fiction is enough to see the influence of Linebarger’s incredibly interesting biographical background, including his work for the American military. The intention of the paper is not to psychoanalyze the fiction, or the work for the military, but to show striking similarities between the vocabulary used by the American writer and the paradigm developed by Lacan at the same time.1"
4 out of 5
From Canberra to Norstrilia: The Australian Adventures of Cordwainer Smith - Alan C. Elms
Journal title FOUNDATION -DAGENHAM-
Bibliographic details 2000, ISSU 78, pages 44-57
Unseen.
Bibliographic details 2000, ISSU 78, pages 44-57
Unseen.
Cordwainer Smith in Japan - Alan C. Elms
Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3, Japanese Science Fiction (Nov., 2002), p. 529
Short note on Japanese translations and work.
3 out of 5
Short note on Japanese translations and work.
3 out of 5
The Creation of Cordwainer Smith - Alan C. Elms
Science-Fiction Studies, 1984, 1J, 270-279
A biographical highly detailed overview.
"The eye destroyed in childhood had been replaced by a non-organic prosthesis, a glass shell covering a metal ball. Linebarger wore that prosthesis in his eye-socket for the rest of his life, just as the scanners wore a kind of prosthesis embedded in their chests, their control boxes. Linebarger's glass eye was less trouble-some that his remaining "good" eye (which continued to be an intermittent focus of disease and anxiety). But getting that glass eye necessitated a loss of sensory input, as with the pain-free but non-functioning sensory organs in "Scanners."
An interesting defensive reversal occurs in the story: instead of being blinded when their other sensory connections are severed, the scanners retain only the use of their eyes. For Linebarger, the loss of one eye had increased the importance of the other, and of vision generally. (According to his widow, "That was the one great fear of his life, to go blind. He would rather have been dead than blind. ") A similar defensive reversal involves the fact that Linebarger's eye had been pierced by a wire thrown at him. In the story, the scanners' senses are temporarily restored during "cranching" by a wire with a small sphere at one end, which must be tossed into the air to be activated.
Linebarger's experience of losing his eye as a child does not appear to have been solely responsible for the central theme of "Scanners" (and certainly not for the similar themes of his mainstream novels). But it may well have offered him a powerful set of metaphors and defensive reverse-metaphors to represent another sort of disaster in his life, his "cutting off' or restriction of ordinary human pleasures and social interactions as a means of controlling anxiety and maintaining self-esteem."
5 out of 5
A biographical highly detailed overview.
"The eye destroyed in childhood had been replaced by a non-organic prosthesis, a glass shell covering a metal ball. Linebarger wore that prosthesis in his eye-socket for the rest of his life, just as the scanners wore a kind of prosthesis embedded in their chests, their control boxes. Linebarger's glass eye was less trouble-some that his remaining "good" eye (which continued to be an intermittent focus of disease and anxiety). But getting that glass eye necessitated a loss of sensory input, as with the pain-free but non-functioning sensory organs in "Scanners."
An interesting defensive reversal occurs in the story: instead of being blinded when their other sensory connections are severed, the scanners retain only the use of their eyes. For Linebarger, the loss of one eye had increased the importance of the other, and of vision generally. (According to his widow, "That was the one great fear of his life, to go blind. He would rather have been dead than blind. ") A similar defensive reversal involves the fact that Linebarger's eye had been pierced by a wire thrown at him. In the story, the scanners' senses are temporarily restored during "cranching" by a wire with a small sphere at one end, which must be tossed into the air to be activated.
Linebarger's experience of losing his eye as a child does not appear to have been solely responsible for the central theme of "Scanners" (and certainly not for the similar themes of his mainstream novels). But it may well have offered him a powerful set of metaphors and defensive reverse-metaphors to represent another sort of disaster in his life, his "cutting off' or restriction of ordinary human pleasures and social interactions as a means of controlling anxiety and maintaining self-esteem."
5 out of 5
Re-mythologizing Outer Space With C. S. Lewis and Cordwainer Smith - Robert Grosbach
In Space and beyond: the frontier theme in science fiction By Gary Westfahl
Unseen.
Unseen.
The Lever of Life: Winning and Losing in the Fiction of Cordwainer Smith - Terry Dowling
Science Fiction 10 (1982)
Unseen.
Unseen.
The Rediscovery of Cordwainer Smith - Carol McGuirk
Essay in Science Fiction Studies, July 2001.
"Smith's stories are often framed as fragmentary tales of long-ago events. "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is set, according to Pierce's chronology, around 13,000 AD; yet the viewpoint of its narrator is firmly retrospective: "You already know the end-the immense drama of the Lord Jestocost.... But you do not know the beginning, how the first Lord Jestocost got his name" (223). Smith's readers look far forward, his narrators far back. His heroes, however, experience their story's crisis as urgently present, forcing choices and events that may (like Martel's rescue of Adam Stone or the cruel burning of D'joan) change the world. Smith abandons popular sf's futuristic narrative tone and unilaterally forward-facing plots, achieving full freedom (looking backward, forward, and inward) to express his horrified fascination with time, "which tricks man while it shapes him" (143). His preoccupation with human time goes along with a preoccupation with death that may seem extravagant to critics because it goes against the grain of sf's utopian heritage, its emphasis on progress and change: in mortality, Smith selects a human problem that can be palliated but hardly solved by technological or social innovations. It is at any rate unsurprising that religion is so often touched upon in these stories, with their emphasis on time and mortality and their frequent representation of painful or ecstatic separations of spirit and body ("Scanners Live in Vain," "Drunkboat," "No! No! Not Rogov!" [1959]). Allusion does not in itself,"
4.5 out of 5
"Smith's stories are often framed as fragmentary tales of long-ago events. "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is set, according to Pierce's chronology, around 13,000 AD; yet the viewpoint of its narrator is firmly retrospective: "You already know the end-the immense drama of the Lord Jestocost.... But you do not know the beginning, how the first Lord Jestocost got his name" (223). Smith's readers look far forward, his narrators far back. His heroes, however, experience their story's crisis as urgently present, forcing choices and events that may (like Martel's rescue of Adam Stone or the cruel burning of D'joan) change the world. Smith abandons popular sf's futuristic narrative tone and unilaterally forward-facing plots, achieving full freedom (looking backward, forward, and inward) to express his horrified fascination with time, "which tricks man while it shapes him" (143). His preoccupation with human time goes along with a preoccupation with death that may seem extravagant to critics because it goes against the grain of sf's utopian heritage, its emphasis on progress and change: in mortality, Smith selects a human problem that can be palliated but hardly solved by technological or social innovations. It is at any rate unsurprising that religion is so often touched upon in these stories, with their emphasis on time and mortality and their frequent representation of painful or ecstatic separations of spirit and body ("Scanners Live in Vain," "Drunkboat," "No! No! Not Rogov!" [1959]). Allusion does not in itself,"
4.5 out of 5
Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger Biographical Summary - Alan C. Elms
[Note: This is a partial working summary, based in large part on Paul Linebarger's own autobiographical lists. I will add to it and further correct it as I continue to work on his biography. For additional biographical information and many photographs of PMAL, see the website maintained by his daughter, Rosana Hart: http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/]
4 out of 5
http://www.ulmus.net/ace/csmith/linebargerbiography.html
4 out of 5
http://www.ulmus.net/ace/csmith/linebargerbiography.html
Smith/Linebarger Archives - Alan C. Elm
"There are two major archives of the papers of Paul M. A. Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith). The bulk of his fiction manuscripts, including his science fiction, is held by the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. The bulk of his papers dealing with China, psychological warfare, and other topics connected with his academic and military careers can be found in the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California. A few items are in other archives: e.g., the edited manuscript of his short story, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," is in the editorial archives of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. Syracuse University also holds some of his manuscripts of stories that were published in Galaxy Science Fiction."
5 out of 5
5 out of 5
Cordwainer Smith - Gary K. Wolfe and Carol T. Williams
Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 8: Twentieth Century American Science-Fiction Writers, part 2, published by the Gale Research Company in 1981.)
Unseen.
Unseen.
The Majesty of Kindness: The Dialectic of Cordwainer Smith - Gary K. Wolfe and Carol T. Williams
Published in a book edited by Tom Clareson, Voices for the Future, volume 3 (Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1984)
Unseen.
Unseen.
Mythic Structures in Cordwainer Smith's Game of Rat and Dragon - Gary K. Wolfe
In Science-Fiction Studies, in 1977
"All three themes are evident in the short and widely anthologized story "The Game of Rat and Dragon." While this story on one level is a highly imaginative treatment of conventional themes of romance and heroism, it is also a revealing treatment of science fiction as a codification, perhaps "mythification," of contemporary beliefs and concerns. There are four principal sets of actors in the tale: "pinlighters," or telepathic humans; "partners," or intelligent cats used to assist the pinlighters in their dangerous duties; "dragons" or "rats," primeval interstellar beings that destroy or drive mad humans in space; and the ordinary humans whom 'the pinlighters and their cats serve to protect from the dragons. Each set of actors plays a particular symbolic role in the antinomy of known-unknown. The known is represented by the ordinary humans and their planetary environments-the "`same old ticking world,"' says the pinlighter protagonist Underhill. "`Down here with the hot sun around us, it feels so good and quiet. You can feel everything spinning and turning. It's nice and sharp and compact. It's sort of like sitting around home."' The unknown is clearly the realm of the dragons, which Smith de-scribes in images of elemental chaos: "entities something like the dragons of ancient human lore, beasts more clever than beasts, demons more tangible than demons, hungry vortices of aliveness and hate compounded by unknown means out of the thin, tenuous matter between the stars." When telepaths try to read the minds of those damaged by dragons, they find only "vivid spouting columns of fiery terror bursting from the primordial id itself, the volcanic source of life.""
3.5 out of 5
"All three themes are evident in the short and widely anthologized story "The Game of Rat and Dragon." While this story on one level is a highly imaginative treatment of conventional themes of romance and heroism, it is also a revealing treatment of science fiction as a codification, perhaps "mythification," of contemporary beliefs and concerns. There are four principal sets of actors in the tale: "pinlighters," or telepathic humans; "partners," or intelligent cats used to assist the pinlighters in their dangerous duties; "dragons" or "rats," primeval interstellar beings that destroy or drive mad humans in space; and the ordinary humans whom 'the pinlighters and their cats serve to protect from the dragons. Each set of actors plays a particular symbolic role in the antinomy of known-unknown. The known is represented by the ordinary humans and their planetary environments-the "`same old ticking world,"' says the pinlighter protagonist Underhill. "`Down here with the hot sun around us, it feels so good and quiet. You can feel everything spinning and turning. It's nice and sharp and compact. It's sort of like sitting around home."' The unknown is clearly the realm of the dragons, which Smith de-scribes in images of elemental chaos: "entities something like the dragons of ancient human lore, beasts more clever than beasts, demons more tangible than demons, hungry vortices of aliveness and hate compounded by unknown means out of the thin, tenuous matter between the stars." When telepaths try to read the minds of those damaged by dragons, they find only "vivid spouting columns of fiery terror bursting from the primordial id itself, the volcanic source of life.""
3.5 out of 5
Christianity and Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith - James Jordan
"Discovering the writings of Corwainer Smith in the early 1970's was a life-changing revelation. At that time, neither his one novel, Norstrilia, nor any comprehensive compilation of his incredible short stories were in print. For years, I would scour used bookstores in search of his stories, finding one of his stories in this or that compilation, in print, not in print, whatever. Needless to say, his writing had a profound effect on me and I have striven to create worlds, in music and art and words, as strange, as haunting, and, I hope, as full of love as his works, amidst the weirdness. Not that I come close in that regard: but one must aim high. Smith's stories do not grow old. Interestingly, although he was almost unknown 25 years ago, he is regularly deemed the most influential science fiction writer of all time now. I recommend his books, Norstrilia and The Rediscovery of Man without hesitation."
4 out of 5
http://www.sunpopblue.com/Music-Art-Books/Cordwainer-Smith.html
4 out of 5
http://www.sunpopblue.com/Music-Art-Books/Cordwainer-Smith.html
Remembering Paul M. A. Linebarger, who was Cordwainer Smith: A Daughter's Memories
A remembrance article by his daughter, Rosana.
"I have quite a few memories of his writing science fiction. It was fun for him, something he did on the side. He would tell me with some glee what some obscure reference meant... too bad I don't remember most of those. I do remember his saying that his story title "Drunkboat" was from the French poem, "Bateau Ivre," by Rimbaud.
I asked him why he didn't want people to know that he was Cordwainer Smith. As I remember it, he said he didn't want to be bothered by fans. Also, he thought it might make some of his professional colleagues think less of him."
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/remember.htm
"I have quite a few memories of his writing science fiction. It was fun for him, something he did on the side. He would tell me with some glee what some obscure reference meant... too bad I don't remember most of those. I do remember his saying that his story title "Drunkboat" was from the French poem, "Bateau Ivre," by Rimbaud.
I asked him why he didn't want people to know that he was Cordwainer Smith. As I remember it, he said he didn't want to be bothered by fans. Also, he thought it might make some of his professional colleagues think less of him."
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/remember.htm
Cordwainer Smith Scholarly Corner - Alan C. Elms
"I'll use this space to note contributions to the scholarly literature I'm most familiar with: what I'll call the scholarly Smith scholarship. I call it that not because it's more serious than the fannish scholarship (some of which is very serious), but because it's done by people who make their living (or a good part of their living) as scholars."
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/scholarly.htm
5 out of 5
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/scholarly.htm
Behind the Jet-Propelled Couch: Cordwainer Smith & Kirk Allen - Alan C. Elms
"Though I have yet to come across solid documentary evidence, I think the circumstantial evidence (including but extending well beyond Leon Stover’s recollections) is strong: Paul Linebarger was Kirk Allen, or at least a substantial component of Kirk Allen. It’s still possible that Robert Lindner combined two patients who suffered from apparently similar symptoms, better to conceal the identities of both and to make his main points about therapeutic technique more strongly. That other patient may yet pop up, and I’d like to hear about him if any reader knows him (or is him). Meanwhile, I’m working to finish my biography of Paul Linebarger. With or without the help of Robert Lindner, he became a great science fiction writer and a remarkable, fascinating man."
4 out of 5
http://www.ulmus.net/ace/csmith/behindjetcouch.html
4 out of 5
http://www.ulmus.net/ace/csmith/behindjetcouch.html
Cordwainer Smith Pronunciation Guide - Alan C. Elms
"Norstrilia: Readers often pronounce the name of this planet with a short "i" in the middle, but you should keep in mind that its settlers were Australians. Australians often jokingly (or sometimes seriously) pronounced the word "Australian" as "Strine," and Paul Linebarger pronounced "Norstrilia" (short for "Old North Australia") as Nor - STRILE - ya."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.ulmus.net/ace/csmith/cspronunciation.html
4.5 out of 5
http://www.ulmus.net/ace/csmith/cspronunciation.html
An Introduction to The Ruined Queen of Harvest World - Damien Broderick
"It’s as if I’d always lived part of my dream life—these memories of the future—in the strange, terrible universe of the Instrumentality of Man, with its animal-derived Underpeople and laminated robot brains, its enigmatic Lords and Ladies, ancient Daimoni, planoforming ships crossing the terrors of the Up and Out, Viola Siderea, the vast mushroom tower of Earthport rising from fabled Meeya Meefla."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=50231
4.5 out of 5
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=50231
Arlington National Cemetery - Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
"Major, United States Army
Colonel, United States Army Reserve
Science Fiction Writer: Cordwainer Smith"
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/linebarg.htm
Also with a photograph of his tombstone, here :- http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/pmline2.jpg
5 out of 5
Colonel, United States Army Reserve
Science Fiction Writer: Cordwainer Smith"
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/linebarg.htm
Also with a photograph of his tombstone, here :- http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/pmline2.jpg
5 out of 5
Forest Of Incandescent Bliss - Bud Webster
"And you know what? Most of these — check that, all of these — pale beside the finest writer the field has ever seen, the one against whom all others are never measured because it would be demonstrably unfair: Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, known to his illustrious godfather (I'll get to it, don't worry) as Lin Bah Loh, or Forest of Incandescent Bliss, AKA Cordwainer Smith.
If I wanted to be all clever and post-modern, I'd deconstruct that pseudonym and tell you that "cord" not only refers to a woven strand, but a fabric made up of woven strands; that a "wain" is a wagon; and that a "smith" is a maker of things. I'd get one of those totally smug and supercilious little smiles on my mug and stretch those already-thin definitions to say something like "Cordwainer Smith wrote a wagon-load of intricately plaited and elaborately plotted stories." I might even get a grant.
But you don't need to pick apart the man's pen-name to know that. All you have to do is read any of the Instrumentality of Mankind stories, or his lone sf novel, Norstrillia, or, well, just about anything he wrote, really. But — and I'm not but about 12% facetious here — you do have to read him. There'll be a quiz even if I have to track you all down and come to your house."
4 out of 5
http://www.philsp.com/PastMasters/pastmasters_06.html
If I wanted to be all clever and post-modern, I'd deconstruct that pseudonym and tell you that "cord" not only refers to a woven strand, but a fabric made up of woven strands; that a "wain" is a wagon; and that a "smith" is a maker of things. I'd get one of those totally smug and supercilious little smiles on my mug and stretch those already-thin definitions to say something like "Cordwainer Smith wrote a wagon-load of intricately plaited and elaborately plotted stories." I might even get a grant.
But you don't need to pick apart the man's pen-name to know that. All you have to do is read any of the Instrumentality of Mankind stories, or his lone sf novel, Norstrillia, or, well, just about anything he wrote, really. But — and I'm not but about 12% facetious here — you do have to read him. There'll be a quiz even if I have to track you all down and come to your house."
4 out of 5
http://www.philsp.com/PastMasters/pastmasters_06.html
Exploring Cordwainer Smith - Andrew Porter
"An anthology of articles about Cordwainer Smith in a 1975 booklet, Exploring Cordwainer Smith, edited and published by Andrew Porter has some interesting bits in it. I thought so several years ago when I read it, but I don't have my copy with me at present. I think it's of greatest interest to scholars and serious CS fans.
It includes articles by John Foyster, Arthur Burns, John Bangsund, and several other writers in its 33 pages, which also include a bibliography (as of that date, of course), and some background and chronology."
Unseen.
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/exploring-cordwainer-smith.htm
It includes articles by John Foyster, Arthur Burns, John Bangsund, and several other writers in its 33 pages, which also include a bibliography (as of that date, of course), and some background and chronology."
Unseen.
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/exploring-cordwainer-smith.htm
The Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith - Karen Hellekson
"The paperback book is 158 pages long: that's 104 pages of the text itself, followed by a glossary of CS terms, a bibliography, a list of manuscripts at the Spencer Research Library in Lawrence, Kansas, and an index. Its $35 price tag seems steep to me, but I suppose academic books tend to cost more than general interest ones, due to the smaller readerships. As a librarian myself, I can't help reminding you that your public or academic library may be able to get it for you on interlibrary loan. And there's a good chance you can get a used copy online; I have links at the bottom of this page."
Unseen.
Unseen.
Baen - Cordwainer Smith
Publisher of the two volume paperback complete SF works.
5 out of 5
http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=csmith
5 out of 5
http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=csmith
Baen - Cordwainer Smith
Publisher of the two volume paperback complete SF works.
5 out of 5
http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=csmith
5 out of 5
http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=csmith
Webscriptions - Cordwainer Smith
Publication of a two-volume set of his complete SF work.
5 out of 5
http://www.webscription.net/s-95-cordwainer-smith.aspx
5 out of 5
http://www.webscription.net/s-95-cordwainer-smith.aspx
Concordance To Cordwainer Smith - Tony Lewis
"Hundreds of entries, arranged alphabetically, answer such questions as:
What characters, besides the famous girlygirl C'Mell and the heroine D'Joan, have names beginning with C' or D'?
Who is the E-telekeli and why is his name not said aloud?
What did Lord Jestocost do, and in what language does his name mean "cruelty?"
How is Scanners Live in Vain related to an Anglican hymn?"
Unseen.
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/concordance.htm
What characters, besides the famous girlygirl C'Mell and the heroine D'Joan, have names beginning with C' or D'?
Who is the E-telekeli and why is his name not said aloud?
What did Lord Jestocost do, and in what language does his name mean "cruelty?"
How is Scanners Live in Vain related to an Anglican hymn?"
Unseen.
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/concordance.htm
Carola - Cordwainer Smith
Variant Titles:
Carola (1948) - Felix C. Forrest
Publications:
Carola, (1948, Felix C. Forrest, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, vii+307pp, hc)
Unseen.
Carola (1948) - Felix C. Forrest
Publications:
Carola, (1948, Felix C. Forrest, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, vii+307pp, hc)
Unseen.
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