Short Story
Number of words : 4700
Percent of complex words : 8.5
Average syllables per word : 1.4
Average words per sentence : 10.5
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 7.6
Flesch : 77.0
Flesch-Kincaid : 5.1
PEOPLE
Gordon Greene
Originally Giordano Verdi. A Space Service officer.
Wallenstein
An old man.
Karl Vonderleyen
An old lieutenant of the service.
ORGANISATIONS
Space Service
Goes into the Up-and-Out.
TECHNOLOGY
Nancy
An imaginary virus created friend.
Sokta virus
Designed to be implanted in a person and released in the case of needing companionship in space.
PLANTS
Geraniums
A type of flower.
FOOD
Dago Red
A wine.
PLOT
Man cannot cope in space alone, so missions always have more than one person. However, if one dies then there is a problem. The sotka virus enables a person to experience an imaginary companion after it is triggered. In a military interview, such a story is recounted.
3.5 out of 5
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Sokta virus : Nancy - Cordwainer Smith
Designed to be implanted in a person and released in the case of needing companionship in space.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Gordon Greene : Nancy - Cordwainer Smith
Originally Giordano Verdi. A Space Service officer.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
Novelette
Number of words : 8100
Percent of complex words : 10.0
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 12.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 9.0
Flesch : 70.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 6.4
PEOPLE
Assistant
To Mr Spatz.
Mr Spatz
His boss.
Khruschev
Russian Prime Minister.
Secretary of State
USA cabinet member.
Undersecretary
Deputy to the Secretary of State.
Nelson Angerhelm
Of 2322 Ridge Drive, Hopkins, Minnesota. A 62-year-old retired poultry farmer. He had served in World I.
Colonel Plugg
A US army officer.
Lieutenant Colonel Potariskov
The Soviet Assistant Military Attache.
Colonel Tice Angerhelm
Nelson's younger brother, deceased.
Theiss Ankerhjelm
Swedish admiral a couple hundred years ago. A West Pointer in the Adjutant General's office.
Don Juan
Famous womaniser.
Soviet Ambassador
Head of the Soviet diplomatic mission.
Jensen
Angerhelm's pastor.
Mrs. Prai Jesselton
Tice's old girlfriend.
ORGANISATIONS
Department of the Army
US government department.
Signal Corps
Army intelligence gatherers.
Soviet Embassy
Diplomatic mission to the USA.
SAC base
Army facility.
FBI
Federal Bureau of Intelligence. USA national cops.
VEHICLES
Sputniks
Russian spacecraft.
CONCEPTS
Galactic clearance
Security rating. Galactic clearance came a little bit after Universal clearance.
PLACES
Minneapolis
US city.
Plattsburg
Town in New York.
Hopkins
A town in Minnesota, a diplomatic no travel zone.
VEHICLES
Chevrolet
A car.
Willys roadster
An old car.
PLOT
The intelligence communities of the USA and the Soviet Union are concerned about a message from a dead colonel to his retired brother in Minnesota. Especially as it doesn't matter what country you are in when you receive the broadcast and you can tell what it is.
3 out of 5
Number of words : 8100
Percent of complex words : 10.0
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 12.3
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 9.0
Flesch : 70.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 6.4
PEOPLE
Assistant
To Mr Spatz.
Mr Spatz
His boss.
Khruschev
Russian Prime Minister.
Secretary of State
USA cabinet member.
Undersecretary
Deputy to the Secretary of State.
Nelson Angerhelm
Of 2322 Ridge Drive, Hopkins, Minnesota. A 62-year-old retired poultry farmer. He had served in World I.
Colonel Plugg
A US army officer.
Lieutenant Colonel Potariskov
The Soviet Assistant Military Attache.
Colonel Tice Angerhelm
Nelson's younger brother, deceased.
Theiss Ankerhjelm
Swedish admiral a couple hundred years ago. A West Pointer in the Adjutant General's office.
Don Juan
Famous womaniser.
Soviet Ambassador
Head of the Soviet diplomatic mission.
Jensen
Angerhelm's pastor.
Mrs. Prai Jesselton
Tice's old girlfriend.
ORGANISATIONS
Department of the Army
US government department.
Signal Corps
Army intelligence gatherers.
Soviet Embassy
Diplomatic mission to the USA.
SAC base
Army facility.
FBI
Federal Bureau of Intelligence. USA national cops.
VEHICLES
Sputniks
Russian spacecraft.
CONCEPTS
Galactic clearance
Security rating. Galactic clearance came a little bit after Universal clearance.
PLACES
Minneapolis
US city.
Plattsburg
Town in New York.
Hopkins
A town in Minnesota, a diplomatic no travel zone.
VEHICLES
Chevrolet
A car.
Willys roadster
An old car.
PLOT
The intelligence communities of the USA and the Soviet Union are concerned about a message from a dead colonel to his retired brother in Minnesota. Especially as it doesn't matter what country you are in when you receive the broadcast and you can tell what it is.
3 out of 5
Galactic clearance : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
Security rating. Galactic clearance came a little bit after Universal clearance.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Theiss Ankerhjelm : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
Swedish admiral a couple hundred years ago. A West Pointer in the Adjutant General's office.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Colonel Tice Angerhelm : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
Nelson's younger brother, deceased.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Lieutenant Colonel Potariskov : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
The Soviet Assistant Military Attache.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Nelson Angerhelm : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
Of 2322 Ridge Drive, Hopkins, Minnesota. A 62-year-old retired poultry farmer. He had served in World I.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Cordwainer Smith's Universe Timeline - J. J. Pierce
"Timeline From The Instrumentality of Mankind, Compiled by J.J. Pierce.
Note: With Smith's own notebooks lost, chronology is largely a matter of guesswork, based on internal evidence. But the order of stories and surounding events can be fairly well established."
4 out of 5
http://www.theweebsite.com/ragnar/smith_time.html
Note: With Smith's own notebooks lost, chronology is largely a matter of guesswork, based on internal evidence. But the order of stories and surounding events can be fairly well established."
4 out of 5
http://www.theweebsite.com/ragnar/smith_time.html
Monday, October 18, 2010
Planet Buyer and the Catmaster: A Critical Future for Transference
In: -
Empire Burlesque: The Fate of Critical Culture in Global America
Author(s): Daniel T. O'Hara
Published: 2003
Pages: 392
Series: New Americanists
Unseen. Small piece of at google books :- http://books.google.com.au/books?id=LEto7uIGCcQC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=Planet+Buyer+and+the+Catmaster:+A+Critical+Future+for+Transference&source=bl&ots=FPRiKOxt3s&sig=UTndEyXf9zj7dTFYEkCIpTbTck8&hl=en&ei=k8u7TNSyEoSecObp7eoM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Planet%20Buyer%20and%20the%20Catmaster%3A%20A%20Critical%20Future%20for%20Transference&f=false
http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=8340&viewby=series&categoryid=33&sort=title%C3%83%C3%9C
Empire Burlesque: The Fate of Critical Culture in Global America
Author(s): Daniel T. O'Hara
Published: 2003
Pages: 392
Series: New Americanists
Unseen. Small piece of at google books :- http://books.google.com.au/books?id=LEto7uIGCcQC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=Planet+Buyer+and+the+Catmaster:+A+Critical+Future+for+Transference&source=bl&ots=FPRiKOxt3s&sig=UTndEyXf9zj7dTFYEkCIpTbTck8&hl=en&ei=k8u7TNSyEoSecObp7eoM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Planet%20Buyer%20and%20the%20Catmaster%3A%20A%20Critical%20Future%20for%20Transference&f=false
http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=8340&viewby=series&categoryid=33&sort=title%C3%83%C3%9C
Cordwainer Smith and the Soushenji: Comparative Perspectives on the Boundaries of Humanity - Lisa Raphals
“Cordwainer Smith and the Soushenji: Comparative Perspectives on the Boundaries of ‘Humanity’” (in Dream Weavers: Globalization, Science Fiction, and the Cybernetic Revolution)
Unseen.
http://complitforlang.ucr.edu/people/faculty/bio.html?page=raphals.html
Unseen.
http://complitforlang.ucr.edu/people/faculty/bio.html?page=raphals.html
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Tripping Cyborgs and Organ Farms: The Fictions of Cordwainer Smith - Steve Silberman
"Calling a magazine “off-trail” may not be the most felicitous way for an aspiring author to introduce himself, but it was understandable if the boyish professor at Johns Hopkins University — who coyly described his work for the Pentagon as being “a visitor to small wars” — felt defensive about his novelette. Three years earlier, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, the most literary-minded of the pulps, had rejected Scanners, calling it “too extreme” for a periodical that regularly featured marauding robots, exploding spaceships, and alien reptile overlords on its cover. Other editors seemed to agree.
It’s not hard to see why. Fifteen years before the word cyborg was invented, and with no preliminary exposition, the story plunged the reader into the passions, intimacies, and life-and-death conflicts of cybernetically augmented human beings. Man-machine hybrids had appeared before in fiction (including a celebrated tin woodman whose total-body prosthesis lacked a heart, and the robotically resurrected actress in C. L. Moore’s groundbreaking feminist sci-fi tale “No Woman Born”), but Linebarger’s central character — a courageous cyborg named Martel — was both a sleeker machine and a more acutely rendered human character than readers of the pulps were used to. Martel and his fellow cyborgs, known as “Scanners,” had their own lexicon of shop talk, expressive body language, code of ethics, professional guild, rousing songs, and finely honed sense of discipline. They were more like Marines than robots."
4 out of 5
http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/09/21/tripping-cyborgs-and-organ-farms-the-fictions-of-cordwainer-smith/
It’s not hard to see why. Fifteen years before the word cyborg was invented, and with no preliminary exposition, the story plunged the reader into the passions, intimacies, and life-and-death conflicts of cybernetically augmented human beings. Man-machine hybrids had appeared before in fiction (including a celebrated tin woodman whose total-body prosthesis lacked a heart, and the robotically resurrected actress in C. L. Moore’s groundbreaking feminist sci-fi tale “No Woman Born”), but Linebarger’s central character — a courageous cyborg named Martel — was both a sleeker machine and a more acutely rendered human character than readers of the pulps were used to. Martel and his fellow cyborgs, known as “Scanners,” had their own lexicon of shop talk, expressive body language, code of ethics, professional guild, rousing songs, and finely honed sense of discipline. They were more like Marines than robots."
4 out of 5
http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/09/21/tripping-cyborgs-and-organ-farms-the-fictions-of-cordwainer-smith/
Monday, June 21, 2010
Lecture 6 Onward and Outward: The 1950s, Space Travel, Apocalypticism, and the Beautiful Weirdness of Cordwainer Smith - Michael Drout
In : From Here to Infinity: An Exploration of Science Fiction Literature
by Michael Drout
SFF audio says most of this lecture is devoted to Cordwainer Smith.
Unseen.
http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=822
by Michael Drout
SFF audio says most of this lecture is devoted to Cordwainer Smith.
Unseen.
http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=822
Monday, June 14, 2010
Cordwainer Smith - Frank Northern Magill
Critical Survey of Short Fiction: Current writers. Index By Frank Northen Magill
"Book overviewThis series contains 515 essays, revolving around authors of short fiction. Essays are arranged alphabetically by author and provide in-depth overviews of short-story writers. Each essay contains full birth and death data, substantial listings of literary works by genre, and an analysis and survey of the major themes and techniques in the writer's work, using specific titles for examples. Finally, there is a list of other publication by genre, and an annotated bibliography.
Snippet view - Item notes: v. 7 - 1981 - 2901 pages -"
Unseen.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=cAgnAAAAMAAJ&q=cordwainer+smith&dq=cordwainer+smith&lr=&cd=124
"Book overviewThis series contains 515 essays, revolving around authors of short fiction. Essays are arranged alphabetically by author and provide in-depth overviews of short-story writers. Each essay contains full birth and death data, substantial listings of literary works by genre, and an analysis and survey of the major themes and techniques in the writer's work, using specific titles for examples. Finally, there is a list of other publication by genre, and an annotated bibliography.
Snippet view - Item notes: v. 7 - 1981 - 2901 pages -"
Unseen.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=cAgnAAAAMAAJ&q=cordwainer+smith&dq=cordwainer+smith&lr=&cd=124
A Cordwainer Smith Checklist - Mike Bennett
Title A Cordwainer Smith Checklist
Issue 37 of Booklet Series
Drumm booklet
Author Mike Bennett
Publisher Chris Drumm Books, 1991
ISBN 0936055499, 9780936055497
Length 28 pages
Unseen.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=EenIPAAACAAJ&dq=cordwainer+smith&lr=&cd=92
Issue 37 of Booklet Series
Drumm booklet
Author Mike Bennett
Publisher Chris Drumm Books, 1991
ISBN 0936055499, 9780936055497
Length 28 pages
Unseen.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=EenIPAAACAAJ&dq=cordwainer+smith&lr=&cd=92
Friday, May 28, 2010
Cordwainer Smith - Don D'Ammassa
From his Encyclopedia of Science Fiction :
"Cordwainer Smith was the pseudonym of Paul Linebarger, a specialist in political science who spent extensive time in Asia and who wrote three mainstream novels under other pen names. Al-though his first science fiction story appeared in 1928, he would not return to that form until the appearance of “SCANNERS LIVE IN VAIN” (1948),
the first of his stories of the Instrumentality, a complex future history in which star travel is dangerous because of the existence of discorporate and malevolent intelligences. Space travel is achieved in safety only after humans learn to enhance the intelligence of certain lower animals and develop their own psi powers. Smith began to develop the concept in more detail with a series of short stories during the 1950s, including excellent tales like “THE GAME OF RAT AND DRAGON” (1955).
Smith hit his stride as a short story writer during the 1960s, producing one classic tale after an-other, most of them set in the Instrumentality universe. The Instrumentality begins as a rigid dictatorship. The uplifted animals are virtually slaves, and the repressive rulers tighten their grip by discovering and monopolizing the secret of immortality. Opposed to the rule of the Instrumentality are the Underpeople, an amorphous rebel group consisting of humans and uplifted animals. Smith never directly resolves this conflict, although some of his stories appear to be set in a distant future in which the inequities of the Instrumentality have been largely overcome. Stories like “The Lady Who Sailed the Soul” (1960), “A Planet Named Shayol” (1961), “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” (1962), and “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” (1964) expanded and embellished Smith’s universe while telling distinct and often emotionally moving stories. His first collection, You Will Never Be the Same (1963), mixed Instrumentality stories with others not in the series.
The Planet Buyer (1964) was the first Instrumentality novel. The protagonist has literally purchased the Earth, but when he sets out to visit his new property, he discovers that various people would much prefer it if he failed to arrive. It was meant to be published jointly with the collection, The Underpeople (1968). Eventually they did appear in one volume as Norstrilia (1975). Several other collections followed including Space Lords (1965), Under Old Earth and Other Explorations (1970), and Stardreamer (1971), which in combination reprinted virtually all of Smith’s short fiction. Virtually the same contents were later recombined as The Best of Cordwainer Smith (1975, also published as The Rediscovery of Man) and The Instrumentality of Mankind (1979). A subset of stories set in the latter days of the Instrumentality formed the quasi-novel, Quest of Three Worlds (1966). An even more comprehensive omnibus volume, also titled The Rediscovery of Man, appeared in 1993.
The proliferation of titles disguises the fact that Smith’s actual output was quite small, which makes his high stature among genre writers even more impressive. He had a distinct narrative style that often makes the reader accept a situation that might otherwise seem ludicrous, like a love affair between a human and a semi-intelligent cat. Many of his characters seem to have stepped out of a legend, although without losing their human qualities. Images from genuine legends, like the Trojan Horse, occur periodically in his work. Although there is an element of satire in most of the stories, it is subtle and never approaches parody. We always care about what is happening because he makes even the most bizarre situations seem real. Smith was one of a handful of writers whose literary sensibilities dramatically transformed science fiction during the 1960s, and the fact that he is rarely imitated is an indication of the uniqueness of his talent and not of a lack of influence on his fellow writers."
4.5 out of 5
"Cordwainer Smith was the pseudonym of Paul Linebarger, a specialist in political science who spent extensive time in Asia and who wrote three mainstream novels under other pen names. Al-though his first science fiction story appeared in 1928, he would not return to that form until the appearance of “SCANNERS LIVE IN VAIN” (1948),
the first of his stories of the Instrumentality, a complex future history in which star travel is dangerous because of the existence of discorporate and malevolent intelligences. Space travel is achieved in safety only after humans learn to enhance the intelligence of certain lower animals and develop their own psi powers. Smith began to develop the concept in more detail with a series of short stories during the 1950s, including excellent tales like “THE GAME OF RAT AND DRAGON” (1955).
Smith hit his stride as a short story writer during the 1960s, producing one classic tale after an-other, most of them set in the Instrumentality universe. The Instrumentality begins as a rigid dictatorship. The uplifted animals are virtually slaves, and the repressive rulers tighten their grip by discovering and monopolizing the secret of immortality. Opposed to the rule of the Instrumentality are the Underpeople, an amorphous rebel group consisting of humans and uplifted animals. Smith never directly resolves this conflict, although some of his stories appear to be set in a distant future in which the inequities of the Instrumentality have been largely overcome. Stories like “The Lady Who Sailed the Soul” (1960), “A Planet Named Shayol” (1961), “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” (1962), and “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” (1964) expanded and embellished Smith’s universe while telling distinct and often emotionally moving stories. His first collection, You Will Never Be the Same (1963), mixed Instrumentality stories with others not in the series.
The Planet Buyer (1964) was the first Instrumentality novel. The protagonist has literally purchased the Earth, but when he sets out to visit his new property, he discovers that various people would much prefer it if he failed to arrive. It was meant to be published jointly with the collection, The Underpeople (1968). Eventually they did appear in one volume as Norstrilia (1975). Several other collections followed including Space Lords (1965), Under Old Earth and Other Explorations (1970), and Stardreamer (1971), which in combination reprinted virtually all of Smith’s short fiction. Virtually the same contents were later recombined as The Best of Cordwainer Smith (1975, also published as The Rediscovery of Man) and The Instrumentality of Mankind (1979). A subset of stories set in the latter days of the Instrumentality formed the quasi-novel, Quest of Three Worlds (1966). An even more comprehensive omnibus volume, also titled The Rediscovery of Man, appeared in 1993.
The proliferation of titles disguises the fact that Smith’s actual output was quite small, which makes his high stature among genre writers even more impressive. He had a distinct narrative style that often makes the reader accept a situation that might otherwise seem ludicrous, like a love affair between a human and a semi-intelligent cat. Many of his characters seem to have stepped out of a legend, although without losing their human qualities. Images from genuine legends, like the Trojan Horse, occur periodically in his work. Although there is an element of satire in most of the stories, it is subtle and never approaches parody. We always care about what is happening because he makes even the most bizarre situations seem real. Smith was one of a handful of writers whose literary sensibilities dramatically transformed science fiction during the 1960s, and the fact that he is rarely imitated is an indication of the uniqueness of his talent and not of a lack of influence on his fellow writers."
4.5 out of 5
Cordwainer Smith - John Clute
From the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited with Peter Nicholls
"Most famous pseudonym of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (1913-1966), US writer, political scientist, military adviser in Korea and Malaya (though not Vietnam). A polyglot, he spent many of his early years in Europe, Japan and China, in the footsteps of his father, Paul M.W. Linebarger, a sinologist and propagandist for Sun Yat-sen. He was a devout High Anglican, deeply interested in psychoanalysis and expert in "brainwashing" techniques, on which he wrote an early text, Psychological Warfare (1948; rev 1954). Right-wing in politics, he played an active role in propping up the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China before the communist takeover.His
interest in China was profound - he studied there, and there edited his father's The Gospel of Chuang Shan (1932 chap France), writing as well several texts of his own, beginning with Government in Republican China (1938); the style of some of his later stories reflects his attempts to translate a Chinese narrative and structural style into his sf writing, not perhaps with complete success, as the fabulist's voice he assumed (FABULATION) verged towards the garrulous when opened out into English
prose. He began to publish sf with "War No. 81-Q" as by Karloman Jungahr for The Adjutant - a high-school journal - in 1928; the tale bore some relationship to the Instrumentality of Mankind Universe into which almost all his mature work fitted. Before beginning to write that mature work, however, CS served with the US Army Intelligence Corps in China during WWII and published 3 non-sf novels: Ria (1947) and Carola (1948), both as by Felix C. Forrest, and Atomsk: A Novel of Suspense (1949) as by Carmichael Smith. After that date he published fiction only as CS.His
first CS story, and one of the finest of his mature tales, "Scanners Livein Vain" (1950), appeared obscurely in FANTASY BOOK 5 years after it had been rejected by the more prestigious sf journals (although John W. CAMPBELL Jr had penned an encouraging rejection note from ASF), perhaps because its foreboding intensity made the editors of the time uneasy, perhaps because it plunges in medias res into the Instrumentality
Universe, generating a sense that much remains untold beyond the dark edges of the tale. Scanners are space pilots; the rigours of their job entail the functional loss of the sensory region of their brains. The story deals with their contorted lives and with the end of the form of space travel necessitating the contortions: it is clear that much has happened in the Universe before the tale begins, and that much will ensue. The Instrumentality dominated the rest of CS's creative life, which lasted 1955-66, with individual stories making up the bulk of several collections
- including You Will Never Be the Same (coll 1963), Space Lords (coll 1965), Under Old Earth and Other Explorations (coll 1970 UK) and Stardreamer (coll 1971) - before being re-sorted into 2 definitive vols, The Best of Cordwainer Smith (coll 1975; vt The Rediscovery of Man 1988 UK) ed John J. PIERCE and The Instrumentality of Mankind (coll 1979); and subsequently resorted again, this time definitively, as The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Fiction of Cordwainer Smith (coll 1993). A similar complexity obscured the publication of his only full-scale sf novel,
Norstrilia (1975), which first appeared as 2 separate novels - each in fact an extract from the original single manuscript - as The Planet Buyer (1964 Gal as "The Boy who Bought Old Earth"; rev 1964) and The Underpeople (1964 Worlds of If as "The Store of Heart's Desire"; rev 1968). Along with Quest of the Three Worlds (coll of linked stories 1966), the 2 re-sorted collections and Norstrilia assemble all of CS's sf.The Instrumentality of Mankind covers several millennia of humanity's uncertain progress into a FAR-FUTURE plenitude. Before the period of "Scanners Live in Vain" a shattered Earth is dubiously revitalized by the family of a Nazi scientist
who awake from SUSPENDED ANIMATION to found the Instrumentality, a hereditary caste of rulers, under whose hegemony space is explored by scanners, then by ships which sail by photonic winds, then via planoforming, which is more or less instantaneous. Genetically modified animals are bred as slaves ( GENETIC ENGINEERING). On the Australian colony planet of Norstrilia, an IMMORTALITY drug called stroon is
discovered, making the planet very rich indeed and granting the oligarchy on Earth eternal dominance, with no one but Norstrilians and members of the Instrumentality being permitted to live beyond 400 years. (Norstrilia deals with a young heir to much of the planet's wealth who travels to Earth, which he has purchased, discovering en passant a great deal about the animal-descended Underpeople.) Human life becomes baroque, aesthetical, decadent. But a fruitful concourse of Underpeople and aristocrats generates the Rediscovery of Man - as witnessed in tales like
"The Dead Lady of Clown Town" (1964), "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" (1961) and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (1962), which embodies a sympathetic response to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s - through which disease, ethnicity and strife are deliberately reintroduced into the painless world. Much later an adventurer makes a Quest through Three Worlds in a Universe seemingly benign.The Instrumentality of Mankind remains, all the same, a fragment - as, therefore, does CS's work as a whole - for the long conflict between Underpeople and Instrumentality, the details of which are recounted by CS with what might be called oceanic sentiment, is never resolved; and CS's habitual teasing of the reader with implications of a fuller yet never-told tale only strengthens the sense of an almost coy incompletion. This sense is also reinforced by the Chinese ancestry of some of CS's devices, which inspired in him a narrative voice that, in ruminating upon a tale of long ago, seemed to confer, both with the reader and with general tradition, about the tale's meaning. Alfred Doblin (1878-1957) ( GERMANY) has also been suggested as a significant influence, both for his early expressionist work set in China, like Die drei Sprunge
des Wang-Lun ["The Three Leaps of Wang-Lun"] (1915), and for his surreal metamorphic sf novels - none translated - like Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfmaschine ["Wadzek's Struggle with the Steam-Machine"] (1918) and Berge, Meere und Giganten ["Mountains, Sea and Giants"] (1924; rev vt Giganten ["Giants"] 1931). CS's best later stories glow with an air of complexity and antiquity that, on analysis, their plots do not not always sustain. Much of the structuring of the series is lyrical and incantatory
(down to the literal use of rather bad poetry, and much internal rhyming) but, beyond stroon, and Norstrilia, and Old Earth and the absorbingly described SPACESHIPS, much of the CS Universe remains only glimpsed. Whether such a Universe, recounted in such a voice, could ever be fully seen is a question which, of course, cannot be answered."
4.5 out of 5
"Most famous pseudonym of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (1913-1966), US writer, political scientist, military adviser in Korea and Malaya (though not Vietnam). A polyglot, he spent many of his early years in Europe, Japan and China, in the footsteps of his father, Paul M.W. Linebarger, a sinologist and propagandist for Sun Yat-sen. He was a devout High Anglican, deeply interested in psychoanalysis and expert in "brainwashing" techniques, on which he wrote an early text, Psychological Warfare (1948; rev 1954). Right-wing in politics, he played an active role in propping up the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China before the communist takeover.His
interest in China was profound - he studied there, and there edited his father's The Gospel of Chuang Shan (1932 chap France), writing as well several texts of his own, beginning with Government in Republican China (1938); the style of some of his later stories reflects his attempts to translate a Chinese narrative and structural style into his sf writing, not perhaps with complete success, as the fabulist's voice he assumed (FABULATION) verged towards the garrulous when opened out into English
prose. He began to publish sf with "War No. 81-Q" as by Karloman Jungahr for The Adjutant - a high-school journal - in 1928; the tale bore some relationship to the Instrumentality of Mankind Universe into which almost all his mature work fitted. Before beginning to write that mature work, however, CS served with the US Army Intelligence Corps in China during WWII and published 3 non-sf novels: Ria (1947) and Carola (1948), both as by Felix C. Forrest, and Atomsk: A Novel of Suspense (1949) as by Carmichael Smith. After that date he published fiction only as CS.His
first CS story, and one of the finest of his mature tales, "Scanners Livein Vain" (1950), appeared obscurely in FANTASY BOOK 5 years after it had been rejected by the more prestigious sf journals (although John W. CAMPBELL Jr had penned an encouraging rejection note from ASF), perhaps because its foreboding intensity made the editors of the time uneasy, perhaps because it plunges in medias res into the Instrumentality
Universe, generating a sense that much remains untold beyond the dark edges of the tale. Scanners are space pilots; the rigours of their job entail the functional loss of the sensory region of their brains. The story deals with their contorted lives and with the end of the form of space travel necessitating the contortions: it is clear that much has happened in the Universe before the tale begins, and that much will ensue. The Instrumentality dominated the rest of CS's creative life, which lasted 1955-66, with individual stories making up the bulk of several collections
- including You Will Never Be the Same (coll 1963), Space Lords (coll 1965), Under Old Earth and Other Explorations (coll 1970 UK) and Stardreamer (coll 1971) - before being re-sorted into 2 definitive vols, The Best of Cordwainer Smith (coll 1975; vt The Rediscovery of Man 1988 UK) ed John J. PIERCE and The Instrumentality of Mankind (coll 1979); and subsequently resorted again, this time definitively, as The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Fiction of Cordwainer Smith (coll 1993). A similar complexity obscured the publication of his only full-scale sf novel,
Norstrilia (1975), which first appeared as 2 separate novels - each in fact an extract from the original single manuscript - as The Planet Buyer (1964 Gal as "The Boy who Bought Old Earth"; rev 1964) and The Underpeople (1964 Worlds of If as "The Store of Heart's Desire"; rev 1968). Along with Quest of the Three Worlds (coll of linked stories 1966), the 2 re-sorted collections and Norstrilia assemble all of CS's sf.The Instrumentality of Mankind covers several millennia of humanity's uncertain progress into a FAR-FUTURE plenitude. Before the period of "Scanners Live in Vain" a shattered Earth is dubiously revitalized by the family of a Nazi scientist
who awake from SUSPENDED ANIMATION to found the Instrumentality, a hereditary caste of rulers, under whose hegemony space is explored by scanners, then by ships which sail by photonic winds, then via planoforming, which is more or less instantaneous. Genetically modified animals are bred as slaves ( GENETIC ENGINEERING). On the Australian colony planet of Norstrilia, an IMMORTALITY drug called stroon is
discovered, making the planet very rich indeed and granting the oligarchy on Earth eternal dominance, with no one but Norstrilians and members of the Instrumentality being permitted to live beyond 400 years. (Norstrilia deals with a young heir to much of the planet's wealth who travels to Earth, which he has purchased, discovering en passant a great deal about the animal-descended Underpeople.) Human life becomes baroque, aesthetical, decadent. But a fruitful concourse of Underpeople and aristocrats generates the Rediscovery of Man - as witnessed in tales like
"The Dead Lady of Clown Town" (1964), "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" (1961) and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (1962), which embodies a sympathetic response to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s - through which disease, ethnicity and strife are deliberately reintroduced into the painless world. Much later an adventurer makes a Quest through Three Worlds in a Universe seemingly benign.The Instrumentality of Mankind remains, all the same, a fragment - as, therefore, does CS's work as a whole - for the long conflict between Underpeople and Instrumentality, the details of which are recounted by CS with what might be called oceanic sentiment, is never resolved; and CS's habitual teasing of the reader with implications of a fuller yet never-told tale only strengthens the sense of an almost coy incompletion. This sense is also reinforced by the Chinese ancestry of some of CS's devices, which inspired in him a narrative voice that, in ruminating upon a tale of long ago, seemed to confer, both with the reader and with general tradition, about the tale's meaning. Alfred Doblin (1878-1957) ( GERMANY) has also been suggested as a significant influence, both for his early expressionist work set in China, like Die drei Sprunge
des Wang-Lun ["The Three Leaps of Wang-Lun"] (1915), and for his surreal metamorphic sf novels - none translated - like Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfmaschine ["Wadzek's Struggle with the Steam-Machine"] (1918) and Berge, Meere und Giganten ["Mountains, Sea and Giants"] (1924; rev vt Giganten ["Giants"] 1931). CS's best later stories glow with an air of complexity and antiquity that, on analysis, their plots do not not always sustain. Much of the structuring of the series is lyrical and incantatory
(down to the literal use of rather bad poetry, and much internal rhyming) but, beyond stroon, and Norstrilia, and Old Earth and the absorbingly described SPACESHIPS, much of the CS Universe remains only glimpsed. Whether such a Universe, recounted in such a voice, could ever be fully seen is a question which, of course, cannot be answered."
4.5 out of 5
Monday, May 24, 2010
Think Blue, Count Two - Cordwainer Smith
Seiun Award for Best Foreign Short Fiction 1990.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Sunday, May 23, 2010
You Will Never Be the Same - Cordwainer Smith
A collection containing these stories :
You Will Never Be The Same : No No Not Rogov! - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : The Lady Who Sailed The Soul - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Scanners Live In Vain - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : The Game Of Rat And Dragon - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : The Burning Of The Brain - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Golden The Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh! - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Alpha Ralpha Boulevard - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Mark Elf - Cordwainer Smith
4.5 out of 5
You Will Never Be The Same : No No Not Rogov! - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : The Lady Who Sailed The Soul - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Scanners Live In Vain - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : The Game Of Rat And Dragon - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : The Burning Of The Brain - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Golden The Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh! - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Alpha Ralpha Boulevard - Cordwainer Smith
You Will Never Be The Same : Mark Elf - Cordwainer Smith
4.5 out of 5
When the People Fell - Cordwainer Smith
A collection containing these stories :
When the People Fell : No No Not Rogov! - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : War No. 81-Q - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Mark Elf - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Queen of the Afternoon - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Scanners Live in Vain - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Lady Who Sailed The Soul - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : When the People Fell - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Think Blue Count Two - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Game of Rat and Dragon - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Burning of the Brain - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : From Gustible's Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Himself in Anachron - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Golden the Ship Was—Oh! Oh! Oh! - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Drunkboat - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : A Planet Named Shayol - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : On the Gem Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : On the Storm Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : On the Sand Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Three to a Given Star - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Down to a Sunless Sea - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : War No. 81-Q - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Western Science Is So Wonderful - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Nancy - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Fife of Bodidharma - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Good Friends
4.5 out of 5
When the People Fell : No No Not Rogov! - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : War No. 81-Q - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Mark Elf - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Queen of the Afternoon - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Scanners Live in Vain - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Lady Who Sailed The Soul - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : When the People Fell - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Think Blue Count Two - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Game of Rat and Dragon - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Burning of the Brain - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : From Gustible's Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Himself in Anachron - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Golden the Ship Was—Oh! Oh! Oh! - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Drunkboat - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : A Planet Named Shayol - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : On the Gem Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : On the Storm Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : On the Sand Planet - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Three to a Given Star - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Down to a Sunless Sea - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : War No. 81-Q - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Western Science Is So Wonderful - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Nancy - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Fife of Bodidharma - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : Angerhelm - Cordwainer Smith
When the People Fell : The Good Friends
4.5 out of 5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)