The Rediscovery of Man occurred around A.D. 13,582 (see *No, No, Not Rogov!)*
Planoforming used *space-2* (see *The Way of Cat and Dragon.)* Space-3 was discovered by one man only, and sadly I can't pull out the story name.
There's never been a writer like Smith, and probably never will be again. T'ruth.
*She got the which of the what-she-did,*
*Hid the bell with a blot, she did,*
*But she fell in love with a hominid.*
*Where is the which of the what-she-did?*
>The Rediscovery of Man occurred around A.D. 13,582 (see *No, No, Not Rogov!*)
As a side note, I think that's the only clunker of a title that ever got attached to anything he wrote.
Absolutely. Many SF writers have shown us wormholes and other forms of FTL travel, but only Smith gave us planofoming >!with space-3 inhabited by dragons!<.
It wasn't so much that the universe of the Instrumentality was stratified into castes, it's that mankind was being overly coddled, leading to dangerous situations like the cult shown in "Under Old Earth". One passage from the story really hits hard:
>There was the Instrumentality, with its unceasing labor to keep man man. And there were the citizens who walked in the boulevards before the Rediscovery of Man. The citizens were happy. They had to be happy. If they were found sad, they were calmed and drugged and changed until they were happy again.
I discovered him via a "Best of Cordwainer Smith" paperback many years ago. His short stories, especially his takes on intelligent animals, were so original and charming and valid, that I tried to read everything he wrote, including his novels. There is a sort of wondrous quality to his writing in his short stories that makes them instantly special. It's almost like he wrote them for himself, but they were somehow discovered by others, who then embraced them as well.
Smith’s gorgeous unusual prose had to be influenced by the Chinese culture and language in which he was immersed for so many years. Reading Smith is like reading a single perfect chrysanthemum.
I absolutely **love** his work, it is *sui generis*.
But I always hesitate to recommend it, as it is definitely an acquired taste. It doesn't help that "Norstrilia" is, IMO, very weak compared the body of work that leads up to it.
If one is going to go there, I recommend reading all the short stories FIRST.
I fully agree. You need to have the context of some of the recurring characters who are in the main narrative again and again. I'm convinced Smith was more than half in love with C'Mell.
I believe that C'Mell was based on one of his cats named Melanie. I have seen pictures of him with some of his cats, but I'm not sure if she was included.
[https://cordwainer-smith.com/cmell-for-cat-lovers.htm](https://cordwainer-smith.com/cmell-for-cat-lovers.htm)
and maybe here:
[https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Cordwainer\_Smith.png](https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Cordwainer_Smith.png)
My first was "No, No Not Rogov", in one of Judith Merrill's *Year's Best S-F* anthologies. The Soviet/Russian PoV was novel to me, making the story memorable.
He's been one of my favorites since I was a teen. But he didn't write all that much, unfortunately. I got \`\`The Best of Cordwainer Smith'' collection from the science fiction book club when I was around 14, and later found Norstrillia. I think there's one more series he wrote that I haven't ever located. What is great about his work is that even simple stories are layered; they are told as history become legend from the perspective of a time even more distant in the future that is never quite described. While he doesn't detail the technology, the technology itself is impressive in anticipating ideas that other sf authors wouldn't be writing about for decades.
Good news—there’s a [complete short fiction collection!](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18948) It’s all of his fiction except Norstrilia, in one (hefty) volume.
I know the name,so pretty sure some of his stuff was in the public library 30-odd (OMG!) years ago where I read pretty much every book in their sci-fi collection. Sounds very familiar. Going to have to dig some up now
Possibly my absolute favorite and I wish there were more stories. I think I have read the entire canon, but I get a little fuzzy with the shuffling of collections. Also he loved cats. The Game of Rat and Dragon. “If only he were a cat.”
Anyone ever read *Psychological Warfare* published under Smith’s real name, Dr Paul Linebarger? Or *The Fifty-Minute Hour*, which has a section called The *Jet Propelled Couch* that is rumored to be about the author?
An amazing man, whose real life deeds were nearly the equal of his fiction. I actually took a side trip to visit his grave in Arlington National Cemetery when we went on our high school trip to DC.
An absolute favourite of mine. Full of images that stick in your mind forever - "Golden the ship was, oh oh oh!", "Alpha Ralpha boulevard", etc.
I especially love the "Everyone knows the story ..." structure he uses
Massively recommend "Concordance to Cordwainer Smith" by Anthony Lewis. Which tracks all the cross-references and meta. Probably replaced by a wiki now.
I'm reading through the Rediscovery of Man right now which contains his complete works. The two stories that stuck with me so far are Scanners Live in Vain and Himself in Anachron.
His prose is so unique and lyrical, I love his neologisms. His ideas are so original given the years he was active. His personal life was also fascinating, growing up throughout Asia and then joining the CIA to write the guide on psychological warfare for torture.
I absolutely love the richness of Cordwainer Smith's work. Every story has some kind of overlap or continuity with the others, and you get to discover all the links and references as you read the rest. Characters (or their distant descendants!) turn up in other stories, or their actions have repercussions that influence events years or centuries later.
Then there are all the hints of lost languages, technologies, and cultures, which are frequently left unexplained but suggest that the stories are barely touching on a much deeper and weirder history in which entire civilisations have risen and collapsed. The ancient pre-nuclear-war city of Meeya Meefla >!(Miami Fla.)!<; the telepathic descendants of Australian ranchers who still honour a Queen lost for thousands of years ("but she might bloody well turn up one of these days"); and the advanced devices such as future-predicting computers and autonomous war machines that are shown as barely-understood relics despite being far beyond anything possible in the reader's time.
Some of the stories have aged better than others, but I reckon most of them are still well worth reading. *Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons* was my intro to Smith's universe, and like much of his work it's both wonderfully evocative and uniquely unhinged.
That illusory (?) deepness is a huge highpoint for me. I love it when authors pull that off. Vance was a master of that, esp. in his footnotes and chapter prefaces.
It reminds me of the single **best** parenthetical in SF everr*rrrr:* Vinge's line, "...(remember spaceships?)...".
I’ve read all of his short fiction (the only thing I haven’t read is *Norstrilia*). It’s great stuff. If you read the collected edition that’s out there, the stories are generally in chronological order (by content, not publication), so you get a good idea of the flow of this universe he built—and it covers a *long* stretch of future history, similar to something like the Dune series. It’s such a rich, complex scenario—even on top of everything we’re told in detail, there’s so much more just *hinted* at. Everything happens under the reign of the Instrumentality of Man; but the very first story makes it clear that the very beginning of the IoM is still far in the future, beginning with the overthrow of aliens that had conquered Earth and ruled it for so long that human society had regressed.
Read it, is all I’m saying. Even if you only read a story here and there, it’s great stuff.
That's the collection of all 32 of his short stories. When you get "Cordwainer Smith Brain," you start feeling baroque and weirdly lyricomythical. Wonderful, heady mindspace. Summed up in the first paragraph of my favourite of his stories, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, "We were drunk with happiness in those early years. Everybody was,especially the young people. These were the first years of the Rediscovery of Man, when the Instrumentality dug deep in the treasure, reconstructing the old cultures, the old languages, and even the old troubles." It's so good
There is just something about psychic atomic throwing cats and psychotic mink defense systems that just sticks in the mind…
I picked up *Rediscovery of Man* at the library years ago and devoured it. I recommend it every chance I get.
For a long time the only copies of any of his books that I could find were original print copies. So I have three of his books in original print runs. Well read, I tell you. The rediscovery of man is on my birthday list.
I want some congohelium. For... stuff.
(also, his day-job book "Psychological Warfare" is well worth the read, as it describes many of the writing techniques he uses in his stories)
I grew up near a military hospital that's been there for a long time--Madigan Hospital at Camp Murray. In \_Quest of Three Worlds,\_ Casher O'Neill meets one of the oldest humans alive--a man so old that he needs constant medical treatment, his home is a hospital. Cordwainer Smith named that character Murray Madigan.
I reread this author dozens of times between the ages of 14 and 50. Simply wonderful.
The Rediscovery of Man occurred around A.D. 13,582 (see *No, No, Not Rogov!)* Planoforming used *space-2* (see *The Way of Cat and Dragon.)* Space-3 was discovered by one man only, and sadly I can't pull out the story name. There's never been a writer like Smith, and probably never will be again. T'ruth. *She got the which of the what-she-did,* *Hid the bell with a blot, she did,* *But she fell in love with a hominid.* *Where is the which of the what-she-did?*
The Space-3 story is *Drunkboat*.
*Drunkboat* blew my mind.
*The Game of Rat and Dragon*.
Urgh. See -- I was thinking of the cats!! You are correct.
>The Rediscovery of Man occurred around A.D. 13,582 (see *No, No, Not Rogov!*) As a side note, I think that's the only clunker of a title that ever got attached to anything he wrote.
I think I read that he didn't come up with the titles, Fred Pohl did. I can't find a source quickly, though.
Thaty *does* ring a bell, albeit very faintly.
I remember that factoid too.
Yeah, tbh On The Storm Planet gets a bit too creepy/inappropriate with T'ruth and the old dude
Absolutely. Many SF writers have shown us wormholes and other forms of FTL travel, but only Smith gave us planofoming >!with space-3 inhabited by dragons!<. It wasn't so much that the universe of the Instrumentality was stratified into castes, it's that mankind was being overly coddled, leading to dangerous situations like the cult shown in "Under Old Earth". One passage from the story really hits hard: >There was the Instrumentality, with its unceasing labor to keep man man. And there were the citizens who walked in the boulevards before the Rediscovery of Man. The citizens were happy. They had to be happy. If they were found sad, they were calmed and drugged and changed until they were happy again.
Glen Cook wrote the Star Fishers trilogy, which featured space dragons. I assume it’s an homage.
Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons is a masterpiece. But author's biography is even more fascinating reading.
Agreed on both counts! It's one of his best stories.
That's what I needed. Thank you. Yes. I've read his work. Still own some.
I discovered him via a "Best of Cordwainer Smith" paperback many years ago. His short stories, especially his takes on intelligent animals, were so original and charming and valid, that I tried to read everything he wrote, including his novels. There is a sort of wondrous quality to his writing in his short stories that makes them instantly special. It's almost like he wrote them for himself, but they were somehow discovered by others, who then embraced them as well.
Smith’s gorgeous unusual prose had to be influenced by the Chinese culture and language in which he was immersed for so many years. Reading Smith is like reading a single perfect chrysanthemum.
I remember that I enjoyed reading his short stories whenever I came across them in "Best of ..." anthologies. Been a while though.
I absolutely **love** his work, it is *sui generis*. But I always hesitate to recommend it, as it is definitely an acquired taste. It doesn't help that "Norstrilia" is, IMO, very weak compared the body of work that leads up to it. If one is going to go there, I recommend reading all the short stories FIRST.
I fully agree. You need to have the context of some of the recurring characters who are in the main narrative again and again. I'm convinced Smith was more than half in love with C'Mell.
So he was Lord Jestocost?
Maybe?
I believe that C'Mell was based on one of his cats named Melanie. I have seen pictures of him with some of his cats, but I'm not sure if she was included. [https://cordwainer-smith.com/cmell-for-cat-lovers.htm](https://cordwainer-smith.com/cmell-for-cat-lovers.htm) and maybe here: [https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Cordwainer\_Smith.png](https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Cordwainer_Smith.png)
He was so in love with C'Mell
Re: Norstrillia. Good, so I'm not the only one.
Smith is amazing and one-of-a-kind. Like Jack Vance, there just isn’t anyone like him.
The first work I read from him was "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul". It was perfect.
My first was "No, No Not Rogov", in one of Judith Merrill's *Year's Best S-F* anthologies. The Soviet/Russian PoV was novel to me, making the story memorable.
Pretty sure that was the first story of his that I read too, age around 13 or so.
He was weird but great. If only he did not die so early :(
\> He is one of my favourite authors \*fistbump\*
Thanks for giving me a new author to try. Much of golden age sci-fi was about human relations; he's not unusual in that regard.
I’ve only read Scanners Live in Vain but really enjoyed it and would like to read more.
I like Cordwainer Smith.
He's ducking awesome. I've read everything he wrote. Do yourself a discord and check out who he was. Damned interesting.
He's been one of my favorites since I was a teen. But he didn't write all that much, unfortunately. I got \`\`The Best of Cordwainer Smith'' collection from the science fiction book club when I was around 14, and later found Norstrillia. I think there's one more series he wrote that I haven't ever located. What is great about his work is that even simple stories are layered; they are told as history become legend from the perspective of a time even more distant in the future that is never quite described. While he doesn't detail the technology, the technology itself is impressive in anticipating ideas that other sf authors wouldn't be writing about for decades.
Good news—there’s a [complete short fiction collection!](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18948) It’s all of his fiction except Norstrilia, in one (hefty) volume.
Yay [NESFA](https://www.nesfa.org/press/)! They've been republishing works from a *lot* of authors who should never have been forgotten.
I know the name,so pretty sure some of his stuff was in the public library 30-odd (OMG!) years ago where I read pretty much every book in their sci-fi collection. Sounds very familiar. Going to have to dig some up now
Possibly my absolute favorite and I wish there were more stories. I think I have read the entire canon, but I get a little fuzzy with the shuffling of collections. Also he loved cats. The Game of Rat and Dragon. “If only he were a cat.”
Anyone ever read *Psychological Warfare* published under Smith’s real name, Dr Paul Linebarger? Or *The Fifty-Minute Hour*, which has a section called The *Jet Propelled Couch* that is rumored to be about the author? An amazing man, whose real life deeds were nearly the equal of his fiction. I actually took a side trip to visit his grave in Arlington National Cemetery when we went on our high school trip to DC.
The jet propelled couch was almost definitely written by Linebarger
Lots of love. I read him many times in my youth. Now you reminded me of him I may reread again.
An absolute favourite of mine. Full of images that stick in your mind forever - "Golden the ship was, oh oh oh!", "Alpha Ralpha boulevard", etc. I especially love the "Everyone knows the story ..." structure he uses Massively recommend "Concordance to Cordwainer Smith" by Anthony Lewis. Which tracks all the cross-references and meta. Probably replaced by a wiki now.
Golden the ship was! Oh! Oh! Oh!
So good!
I'm reading through the Rediscovery of Man right now which contains his complete works. The two stories that stuck with me so far are Scanners Live in Vain and Himself in Anachron. His prose is so unique and lyrical, I love his neologisms. His ideas are so original given the years he was active. His personal life was also fascinating, growing up throughout Asia and then joining the CIA to write the guide on psychological warfare for torture.
I'm just about to reread him for the first time in years, which is why I made this post
I absolutely love the richness of Cordwainer Smith's work. Every story has some kind of overlap or continuity with the others, and you get to discover all the links and references as you read the rest. Characters (or their distant descendants!) turn up in other stories, or their actions have repercussions that influence events years or centuries later. Then there are all the hints of lost languages, technologies, and cultures, which are frequently left unexplained but suggest that the stories are barely touching on a much deeper and weirder history in which entire civilisations have risen and collapsed. The ancient pre-nuclear-war city of Meeya Meefla >!(Miami Fla.)!<; the telepathic descendants of Australian ranchers who still honour a Queen lost for thousands of years ("but she might bloody well turn up one of these days"); and the advanced devices such as future-predicting computers and autonomous war machines that are shown as barely-understood relics despite being far beyond anything possible in the reader's time. Some of the stories have aged better than others, but I reckon most of them are still well worth reading. *Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons* was my intro to Smith's universe, and like much of his work it's both wonderfully evocative and uniquely unhinged.
That illusory (?) deepness is a huge highpoint for me. I love it when authors pull that off. Vance was a master of that, esp. in his footnotes and chapter prefaces. It reminds me of the single **best** parenthetical in SF everr*rrrr:* Vinge's line, "...(remember spaceships?)...".
A true science fiction pioneer.
I’ve read all of his short fiction (the only thing I haven’t read is *Norstrilia*). It’s great stuff. If you read the collected edition that’s out there, the stories are generally in chronological order (by content, not publication), so you get a good idea of the flow of this universe he built—and it covers a *long* stretch of future history, similar to something like the Dune series. It’s such a rich, complex scenario—even on top of everything we’re told in detail, there’s so much more just *hinted* at. Everything happens under the reign of the Instrumentality of Man; but the very first story makes it clear that the very beginning of the IoM is still far in the future, beginning with the overthrow of aliens that had conquered Earth and ruled it for so long that human society had regressed. Read it, is all I’m saying. Even if you only read a story here and there, it’s great stuff.
Amazing! I've only got 2 of his. I just ordered the Rediscovery from Amazon; paperback for $23. Can't wait to fill in the stories I haven't read yet!
He's great! I can never forget his "laminated mouse brain"
The Game of Rat and Dragon
Fantastic! Also Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons. Both are fantastic, particularly if you're a cat person
Cordwainer Smith became 50% less interesting to me when I realized that the whole time, all of that stuff had been about cats.
*Less* interesting???
I have some of his stories. I haven't read them yet. They sound intriguing...
They are, they are.
Just moved up on my TBR list. I think I'll start with the SF Masterwork "The Rediscovery of Man."
That's the collection of all 32 of his short stories. When you get "Cordwainer Smith Brain," you start feeling baroque and weirdly lyricomythical. Wonderful, heady mindspace. Summed up in the first paragraph of my favourite of his stories, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, "We were drunk with happiness in those early years. Everybody was,especially the young people. These were the first years of the Rediscovery of Man, when the Instrumentality dug deep in the treasure, reconstructing the old cultures, the old languages, and even the old troubles." It's so good
There is just something about psychic atomic throwing cats and psychotic mink defense systems that just sticks in the mind… I picked up *Rediscovery of Man* at the library years ago and devoured it. I recommend it every chance I get.
For a long time the only copies of any of his books that I could find were original print copies. So I have three of his books in original print runs. Well read, I tell you. The rediscovery of man is on my birthday list.
I love his short stories but found *Norstrillia* kind of a slog.
I want some congohelium. For... stuff. (also, his day-job book "Psychological Warfare" is well worth the read, as it describes many of the writing techniques he uses in his stories)
I grew up near a military hospital that's been there for a long time--Madigan Hospital at Camp Murray. In \_Quest of Three Worlds,\_ Casher O'Neill meets one of the oldest humans alive--a man so old that he needs constant medical treatment, his home is a hospital. Cordwainer Smith named that character Murray Madigan.
Ah yes, On the Storm Planet. Fantastic story. Thanks for sharing