Cordwainer Smith
Encyclopedia
Cordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym
used by American
author
Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913–August 6, 1966) for his science fiction
works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia
scholar and expert in psychological warfare
. ("Cordwainer" is an archaic word for "A worker in cordwain or cordovan leather; a shoemaker", and a "smith" is "One who works in iron or other metals; esp. a blacksmith or farrier": two kinds of skilled workers with traditional materials.)
Linebarger also employed the literary pseudonyms "Carmichael Smith" (for his political thriller Atomsk
), "Anthony Bearden" (for his poetry
) and "Felix C. Forrest" (for the novels Ria and Carola).
and political activist
with close ties to the leaders of the Chinese revolution of 1911
. As a result of those connections, Linebarger's godfather
was Sun Yat-sen
, considered the father of Chinese nationalism.
As a child, Linebarger was blinded
in his right eye; the vision in his remaining eye was impaired by infection. His father moved his family to France
and then Germany
while Sun Yat-sen was struggling against contentious warlords in China. As a result, Linebarger was familiar with six languages by adulthood.
At the age of 23, he received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University
.
, where he began producing highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs.
While retaining his professorship at Duke after the beginning of World War II
, Linebarger began serving as a second lieutenant of the United States Army
, where he was involved in the creation of the Office of War Information
and the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section. In 1943, he was sent to China to coordinate military intelligence operations. When he later pursued his interest in China
, Linebarger became a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek
. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.
In 1947, Linebarger moved to the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where he served as Professor of Asiatic Studies. He used his experiences in the war to write the book Psychological Warfare (1948). It is regarded by many in the field as a classic text.
He eventually rose to the rank of colonel in the reserves. He was recalled to advise the British forces in the Malayan Emergency
and the U.S. Eighth Army in the Korean War
. While he was known to call himself a "visitor to small wars", he refrained from becoming involved in Vietnam
, but is known to have done undocumented work for the Central Intelligence Agency
. He traveled extensively and became a member of the Foreign Policy Association
, and was called upon to advise then–U.S. President John F. Kennedy
.
In 1950, Linebarger married again to Genevieve Collins; they had several children. They were married until his death from a heart attack in 1966, in Baltimore
, Maryland
. Linebarger had expressed a wish to retire to Australia
, which he had visited in his travels, but died at age 53.
Colonel Linebarger is buried in Arlington National Cemetery
, Section 35, Grave Number 4712. After her death, his widow, Genevieve Collins Linebarger, was interred with him on November 16, 1981.
Robert M. Lindner
's best-selling 1954 collection, The Fifty-Minute Hour. According to Cordwainer Smith scholar Alan C. Elms, this speculation first reached print in Brian Aldiss
's 1973 history of science fiction, Billion Year Spree; Aldiss, in turn, claimed to have gotten the information from Leon Stover
. More recently, both Elms and librarian Lee Weinstein have gathered circumstantial evidence to support the case for Linebarger's being "Allen," but both concede there is no direct proof that Linebarger was ever a patient of Lindner's or that he suffered from a disorder similar to that of "Kirk Allen."
Linebarger's stories are unusual, sometimes being written in narrative styles closer to traditional Chinese stories
than to most English-language fiction. The total volume of his science fiction output is relatively small, due to his time-consuming profession and his early death.
Smith's works consist of: a single novel, originally published in two volumes in edited form as The Planet Buyer, also known as The Boy Who Bought Old Earth (1964) and The Underpeople (1968), and later restored to its original form as Norstrilia
(1975); and 32 short stories (collected in The Rediscovery of Man
(1993), including two versions of the short story "War No. 81-Q").
Linebarger's cultural links to China are partially expressed in the pseudonym "Felix C. Forrest", which he used in addition to "Cordwainer Smith": his godfather Sun Yat-Sen
suggested to Linebarger that he adopt the Chinese name "Lin Bai-lo" , which may be roughly translated as "Forest of Incandescent Bliss". In his later years, Linebarger proudly wore a tie with the Chinese
characters for this name embroidered on it.
As an expert in psychological warfare, Linebarger was very interested in the newly developing fields of psychology
and psychiatry
. He used many of their concepts into his fiction. His fiction often has religious overtones or motifs, particularly evident in characters who have no control over their actions. James P. Jordan argued for the importance of Anglicanism
to Linebarger's works back to 1949. But Linebarger's daughter Rosana Hart has indicated that he did not become an Anglican until 1950, and was not strongly interested in religion until later still. The introduction to the collection Rediscovery of Man notes that from around 1960 Linebarger became more devout and expressed this in his writing. Linebarger's works are sometimes included in analyses of Christianity in fiction, along with the works of authors such as C. S. Lewis
and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Most of Smith's stories are set in an era starting some 14,000 years in the future. The Instrumentality of Mankind
rules Earth and goes on to control other planets later inhabited by humanity. The Instrumentality attempts to revive old cultures and languages in a process known as the Rediscovery of Man. This rediscovery can be seen as the initial period when humankind emerges from a mundane utopia and the nonhuman Underpeople gain freedom from slavery. It may also be viewed as part of a continuing process begun by the Instrumentality, encompassing the whole cycle, where mankind is constantly at risk of falling back into bad old ways.
Smith's stories describe a long future history
of Earth. The settings range from a postapocalyptic landscape with walled cities, defended by agents of the Instrumentality, to a state of sterile utopia, in which freedom can be found only deep below the surface, in long-forgotten and buried anthropogenic strata. These features may place Smith's works within the Dying Earth subgenre of science fiction
. They are ultimately more optimistic and distinctive.
Smith's most celebrated short story is his first-published, "Scanners Live in Vain
", which led many of its earliest readers to assume that "Cordwainer Smith" was a new pen name for one of the established giants of the genre. It was selected as one of the best science fiction short stories of the pre-Nebula Award
period by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
. It was selected for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964
.
Linebarger's stories feature strange and vivid creations, such as:
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
used by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913–August 6, 1966) for his science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
scholar and expert in psychological warfare
Psychological warfare
Psychological warfare , or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations , have been known by many other names or terms, including Psy Ops, Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds,” and Propaganda...
. ("Cordwainer" is an archaic word for "A worker in cordwain or cordovan leather; a shoemaker", and a "smith" is "One who works in iron or other metals; esp. a blacksmith or farrier": two kinds of skilled workers with traditional materials.)
Linebarger also employed the literary pseudonyms "Carmichael Smith" (for his political thriller Atomsk
Atomsk (novel)
Atomsk, first published in 1949, is a Cold War spy novel by "Carmichael Smith", one of several pseudonyms used by Paul Linebarger, who wrote fiction most prolifically as Cordwainer Smith....
), "Anthony Bearden" (for his poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
) and "Felix C. Forrest" (for the novels Ria and Carola).
Early life and education
Linebarger was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father was Paul M. W. Linebarger, a lawyerLawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and political activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
with close ties to the leaders of the Chinese revolution of 1911
Xinhai Revolution
The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...
. As a result of those connections, Linebarger's godfather
Godparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
was Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
, considered the father of Chinese nationalism.
As a child, Linebarger was blinded
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
in his right eye; the vision in his remaining eye was impaired by infection. His father moved his family to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and then Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
while Sun Yat-sen was struggling against contentious warlords in China. As a result, Linebarger was familiar with six languages by adulthood.
At the age of 23, he received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
.
Career
From 1937 to 1946, Linebarger held a faculty appointment at Duke UniversityDuke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, where he began producing highly regarded works on Far Eastern affairs.
While retaining his professorship at Duke after the beginning of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Linebarger began serving as a second lieutenant of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, where he was involved in the creation of the Office of War Information
United States Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information was a U.S. government agency created during World War II to consolidate government information services. It operated from June 1942 until September 1945...
and the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section. In 1943, he was sent to China to coordinate military intelligence operations. When he later pursued his interest in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Linebarger became a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.
He eventually rose to the rank of colonel in the reserves. He was recalled to advise the British forces in the Malayan Emergency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
and the U.S. Eighth Army in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. While he was known to call himself a "visitor to small wars", he refrained from becoming involved in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, but is known to have done undocumented work for the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. He traveled extensively and became a member of the Foreign Policy Association
Foreign Policy Association
The Foreign Policy Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring the American public to learn more about the world. Founded in 1918, it serves as a catalyst for developing awareness, understanding of, and providing informed opinions on global issues...
, and was called upon to advise then–U.S. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
.
Marriage and family
In 1936, Linebarger married Margaret Snow. They had a daughter in 1942 and another in 1947. They divorced in 1949.In 1950, Linebarger married again to Genevieve Collins; they had several children. They were married until his death from a heart attack in 1966, in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. Linebarger had expressed a wish to retire to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, which he had visited in his travels, but died at age 53.
Colonel Linebarger is buried in Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
, Section 35, Grave Number 4712. After her death, his widow, Genevieve Collins Linebarger, was interred with him on November 16, 1981.
Case history debate
Linebarger was long rumored to have been the original for "Kirk Allen," the fantasy-haunted subject of "The Jet-Propelled Couch," a chapter in psychologistPsychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
Robert M. Lindner
Robert M. Lindner
Robert M. Lindner was an American author and psychiatrist, best known as the author of the 1944 book Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis Of A Criminal Psychopath, from which the title of Nicholas Ray's 1955 film was adopted. In his book, he described a psychopath as someone who is "incapable...
's best-selling 1954 collection, The Fifty-Minute Hour. According to Cordwainer Smith scholar Alan C. Elms, this speculation first reached print in Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
's 1973 history of science fiction, Billion Year Spree; Aldiss, in turn, claimed to have gotten the information from Leon Stover
Leon Stover
Leon Eugene Stover was an anthropologist, a Sinologist, and a science fiction fan, who wrote both fiction and nonfiction. He was a scholar of the works of H. G. Wells and Robert A. Heinlein.-Scholarly career:...
. More recently, both Elms and librarian Lee Weinstein have gathered circumstantial evidence to support the case for Linebarger's being "Allen," but both concede there is no direct proof that Linebarger was ever a patient of Lindner's or that he suffered from a disorder similar to that of "Kirk Allen."
Science fiction
A notable characteristic of Linebarger's science fiction is that most of his stories are set in the same universe, with a unified chronology. Some anthologies of Linebarger's fiction include a chart, with each of his stories inserted into the appropriate slot in the timeline. All his writings suggest a rich universe developing over a long period of time, but leave much to be guessed at by the reader.Linebarger's stories are unusual, sometimes being written in narrative styles closer to traditional Chinese stories
Chinese literature
Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
than to most English-language fiction. The total volume of his science fiction output is relatively small, due to his time-consuming profession and his early death.
Smith's works consist of: a single novel, originally published in two volumes in edited form as The Planet Buyer, also known as The Boy Who Bought Old Earth (1964) and The Underpeople (1968), and later restored to its original form as Norstrilia
Norstrilia
Norstrilia is the only novel published by Paul Linebarger under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith, which he used for his science-fiction works...
(1975); and 32 short stories (collected in The Rediscovery of Man
The Rediscovery of Man
The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith is a 1993 book containing the complete collected short fiction of science fiction author Cordwainer Smith. It was edited by James A...
(1993), including two versions of the short story "War No. 81-Q").
Linebarger's cultural links to China are partially expressed in the pseudonym "Felix C. Forrest", which he used in addition to "Cordwainer Smith": his godfather Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
suggested to Linebarger that he adopt the Chinese name "Lin Bai-lo" , which may be roughly translated as "Forest of Incandescent Bliss". In his later years, Linebarger proudly wore a tie with the Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
characters for this name embroidered on it.
As an expert in psychological warfare, Linebarger was very interested in the newly developing fields of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
. He used many of their concepts into his fiction. His fiction often has religious overtones or motifs, particularly evident in characters who have no control over their actions. James P. Jordan argued for the importance of Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
to Linebarger's works back to 1949. But Linebarger's daughter Rosana Hart has indicated that he did not become an Anglican until 1950, and was not strongly interested in religion until later still. The introduction to the collection Rediscovery of Man notes that from around 1960 Linebarger became more devout and expressed this in his writing. Linebarger's works are sometimes included in analyses of Christianity in fiction, along with the works of authors such as C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Most of Smith's stories are set in an era starting some 14,000 years in the future. The Instrumentality of Mankind
Instrumentality of Mankind
In the science fiction of Cordwainer Smith, the Instrumentality of Mankind refers both to Smith's personal future history and universe and to the central government of humanity...
rules Earth and goes on to control other planets later inhabited by humanity. The Instrumentality attempts to revive old cultures and languages in a process known as the Rediscovery of Man. This rediscovery can be seen as the initial period when humankind emerges from a mundane utopia and the nonhuman Underpeople gain freedom from slavery. It may also be viewed as part of a continuing process begun by the Instrumentality, encompassing the whole cycle, where mankind is constantly at risk of falling back into bad old ways.
Smith's stories describe a long future history
Future history
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...
of Earth. The settings range from a postapocalyptic landscape with walled cities, defended by agents of the Instrumentality, to a state of sterile utopia, in which freedom can be found only deep below the surface, in long-forgotten and buried anthropogenic strata. These features may place Smith's works within the Dying Earth subgenre of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. They are ultimately more optimistic and distinctive.
Smith's most celebrated short story is his first-published, "Scanners Live in Vain
Scanners Live in Vain
"Scanners Live in Vain" is a science fiction short story by Cordwainer Smith , set in his Instrumentality of Mankind future history. It was originally published in the magazine Fantasy Book in 1950...
", which led many of its earliest readers to assume that "Cordwainer Smith" was a new pen name for one of the established giants of the genre. It was selected as one of the best science fiction short stories of the pre-Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
period by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
. It was selected for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 is a 1970 anthology of science fiction short stories, edited by Robert Silverberg. It is generally considered one of the best, if not the best, of the many science fiction anthologies...
.
Linebarger's stories feature strange and vivid creations, such as:
- The planet Norstrilia (Old North Australia), a semi-arid planet where an immortality drug called stroon is harvested from gigantic, virus-infected sheep each weighing more than 100 tons. Norstrilians are nominally the richest people in the galaxy and defend their immensely valuable stroon with sophisticated weapons (as shown in the story "Mother Hitton's Littul KittonsMother Hitton's Littul Kittons"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" is a classic science fiction short story written by Cordwainer Smith, first published in Galaxy Magazine in 1961. It is collected most recently in The Rediscovery of Man...
"). However, extremely high taxes ensure that everyone on the planet lives a frugal, rural life, like the farmers of old Australia, to keep the Norstrilians tough. - The punishment world of Shayol (cf. SheolSheolSheol |Hebrew]] Šʾôl) is the "grave", "pit", or "abyss" in Hebrew. She'ol is the earliest conception of the afterlife in the Jewish scriptures. It is a place of darkness to which all dead go, regardless of the moral choices made in life, and where they are "removed from the light of God"...
), where criminals are punished by the regrowth and harvesting of their organs for transplanting - planoforming spacecraftSpacecraftA spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
, which are crewed by humans telepathically linked with cats to defend against the attacks of malevolent entities in space, who are perceived by the humans as dragons, and by the cats as gigantic rats, in "The Game of Rat and Dragon". - the Underpeople, animals modified into human form and intelligence to fulfill servile roles, and treated as property. Several stories feature clandestine efforts to liberate the Underpeople and grant them civil rightsCivil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
. They are seen everywhere throughout regions controlled by the Instrumentality. Names of Underpeople are based on their animal species. Thus C'Mell ("The Ballad of Lost C'MellThe Ballad of Lost C'Mell"The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" is a science fiction short story by American writer Cordwainer Smith. It was first published in October 1962 in Galaxy Magazine, and since reprinted in several compilations and omnibus editions....
") is cat-derived; and D'Joan ("The Dead Lady of Clown TownThe Dead Lady of Clown Town"The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is a science fiction short story by Cordwainer Smith, set in his Instrumentality of Mankind future history. It was originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1964. It was included in the collection The Best of Cordwainer Smith and most recently in The...
"), a Joan of ArcJoan of ArcSaint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
figure, is descended from dogs. - Habermans and their supervisors, Scanners, who are essential for space travel, but at the cost of having their sensory nerveNerveA peripheral nerve, or simply nerve, is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of peripheral axons . A nerve provides a common pathway for the electrochemical nerve impulses that are transmitted along each of the axons. Nerves are found only in the peripheral nervous system...
s cut to block the "pain of space", and who perceive only by vision and various life-support implants. A technological breakthrough removes the need for the treatment, but resistance among the Scanners to their perceived loss of status ensues, forming the basis of the story "Scanners Live in Vain". - Early works in the timeline include neologisms which are not explained to any great extent, but serve to produce an atmosphere of strangeness. These words are usually derived from non-English words. For instance, manshonyagger derives from the German words "menschen" meaning, in some senses, "men" or "mankind", and "jäger", meaning a hunter; referring to war machines that roam the wild lands between the walled cities and prey on men, except for those they can identify as Germans. Another example is "Meeya Meefla", the only city to have preserved its name from the pre-atomic era: evidently Miami, Florida, from its abbreviated form (as on road signs) "MIAMI FLA".
- Character names in the stories often derive from words in languages other than English. Smith seemed particularly fond of using numbers for this purpose. For instance, the name "Lord Sto Odin" in the story "Under Old Earth" is derived from the Russian words for "One hundred and one", сто один. Quite a few of the names mean "five-six" in different languages, including both the robot Fisi (fi[ve]-si[x]), the dead Lady Panc Ashash (in Sanskrit "pañcha" [पञ्च] is "five" and "ṣaṣ" [षष्] is "six"), Limaono (lima-ono, both in Hawaiian and/or Fijian), Englok (ng5-luk6
[ 五-六] , in Cantonese), Goroke (go-roku[ 五-六] , Japanese) and Femtiosex ("fifty-six" in Swedish) in "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" as well as the main character in "Think Blue, Count Two", Veesey-koosey, which is an English transcription of the Finnish words "viisi" (five) and "kuusi" (six). Four of the characters in "Think Blue, Count Two" are called "Thirteen" in different languages: Tiga-belas (both in Indonesian and Malay), Trece (Spanish), Talatashar (based on an Arabic dialect form ثلاث عشر, thalāth ʿashar) and Sh'san (based on Mandarin 十三, shísān, where the "í" is never pronounced). Other names, notably that of Lord Jestocost (Russian Жестокость, Cruelty), are non-English but not numbers. - Remnants of contemporary culture accordingly appear as valued antiquities or sometimes just as unrecognized survivals, lending a rare feeling of nostalgia for the present to the stories.
Published non-fiction
- 1937, The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-Sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu I, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press
- 1938, Government in Republican China, London: McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-88355-081-4
- 1941, The China of Chiang K'ai-shek: A Political Study, Boston: World Peace Foundation, ISBN 0-8371-6779-5
- 1948, Psychological Warfare, Washington: Infantry Journal Press; revised second edition, 1954, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce
- 1951, Foreign milieux (HBM 200/1), Dept. of Defense, Research and Development Board
- 1951, Immediate improvement of theater-level psychological warfare in the Far East, Operations Research OfficeOperations Research OfficeThe Operations Research Office was a civilian military research center founded in 1948 by the United States Army. It was run under contract by Johns Hopkins University. The organization's offices were originally at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. They moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland in 1952...
, Johns Hopkins University - 1954, Far Eastern Government and Politics: China and Japan (with Djang Chu and Ardath W. Burks), Van Nostrand
- 1956, "Draft statement of a ten-year China and Indochina policy, 1956-1966", Foreign Policy Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania
- 1965, Essays on military psychological operations, Special Operations Research Office, American UniversityAmerican UniversityAmerican University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
External links
- Cordwainer Smith at Cordwainer-Smith.com (The Remarkable Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith, maintained by his daughter Rosana)
- Arlington National Cemetery: Linebarger
- An Introduction to “The Ruined Queen of Harvest World” by Damien BroderickDamien BroderickDamien Francis Broderick is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer. His science fiction novel The Judas Mandala is sometimes credited with the first appearance of the term "virtual reality," and his 1997 popular science book The Spike was the first to investigate the...
- Past Masters: Forest of Incandescent Bliss by Bud Webster at Galactic Central
- Carol McGuirk, The Rediscovery of Cordwainer Smith, Science-Fiction Studies, #84 28:2, July 2001.