Here’s how I keep up with Cordwainer Smith blogging and other news: I have google alerts that come into my email, one set for Cordwainer Smith and another set for Paul Linebarger.
Much of what I get this way isn’t very interesting, but there are often fascinating bits. Sometimes I in turn blog about those here, but not usually.
You can sign up for Google Alerts here, and here is their FAQ page.
Since I haven’t posted for a while, I just wanted to let my regular readers know that I’m fine, just very busy with some other websites, not to mention life.
I expect to write less often here. But I’ve got some good tidbits on my to-do list.
Rosana
There is an ebook edition of Cordwainer Smith’s stories and the publisher (with our agent’s permission) put several of the stories online where you can read them free. If you have never read Cordwainer Smith, this is an easy way to get started. If you are a fan already, you might like to refresh your memory. If you want to get the ebook, I expect you can get to it from the stories.
Here they are:
Sometimes my Google Alerts show me places where Cordwainer Smith or his works are on some sort of “best” science fiction list. I’m putting down the ones I know of, and hope that readers will add to this over time.
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Here’s one where Norstrilia is #46 on a list of the best 100 science fiction books from 1949 to 1984. UPDATE: I had said it was ranked #46 but Damien Broderick pointed out that they are by publication date.
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Gardner Dozois has a long list of recommended novels and short stories on his “Recommended Reading List” page at sfwa.org, the Science Fiction Writers of America site. He says its cutoff date is roughly the early 80s and he comments that the list “was devised to point younger readers toward older stuff that they might not have heard of, or long out-of-print writers whose work they might be unfamiliar with.” He lists Norstrilia in the novels, and here’s his list of anthologies for the short stories:
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More? Please add if you see something.
By Steve Davidson
I had to skip last week’s entry due to time pressures and promised that I’d be taking a look at Norstrilia this week after having just re-read it.
I’m still pressed for time but I dared not skip another post here; I’ve been stealing bits and pieces of time here and there trying to come up with a way to look at Norstrilia that was anything but a review. Doing a review would have been fairly easy, but fairly boring too.
As these thing happen, it suddenly occurred to me that there is a great deal of concision between Norstrilia and another novel that I’ve probably read twice as much over the years (though not as recently) - Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Read More
Thanks to new guest blogger Jim Black for today’s article which first appeared on his website. He says:
My interest in science fiction began in the early 70s when I read a copy of Del Rey’s The Runaway Robot. Little did I know that it would be the start of a life time of reading sf. Hundreds of books later I still enjoy reading everything from the classic through the modern authors. My reviews and comments can be found on the Science Fiction Times(http://sciencefictiontimes.blogspot.com/) site. Read More
by Steve Davidson, The Crotchety Old Fan
No, that’s not a misspelling. I’ve just re-read Norstrilia.
Unfortunately, I’ve not had time this week to write up my thoughts and have utterly failed to come up with something else appropriately Cordwainer Smith for this week’s entry.
I’ll have to copt-out this week and simply suggest that you all keep on reading his works - maybe try a re-read (or first-read) of Norstrilia yourselves and please come back next week. By then I’ll have written up the experience - or will submit myself to the Instrumentality for sentencing on Shayol.
There’s a page on my website that has a photo gallery of the science fiction art of Craig Moore, or at least his Cordwainer Smith art. I really like his work and with his permission have put some of the images onto t-shirts that you can see at my Cafepress Cordwainer Smith t-shirt store.
Recently Craig emailed me that he had done more Cordwainer Smith art,
by Steve Davidson, The Crotchety Old Fan
I’ve made no secret (elsewhere) of my gushing fanboy affliction for the science fiction author A Bertram Chandler. I’m about to inflict it upon you all here within the hallowed pages of another author who’s star burns as brightly as Chandler’s in my science fictional heaven.
I do so for two very Smith-related reasons. First, I’ll abuse my privileges a bit to mention, briefly, that I think Chandler is deserving of the Rediscovery Award Committee’s consideration. There. I said it, and I’m not ashamed to have done so. I don’t know of any place more appropriate to champion the cause of non-corporeal authors than here. I’ll close this interlude by saying that if the Committee wants a dissertation, presentation, slides, graphs or an impassioned telephone call, all they have to do is ask.
My second reason for raising Chandler is the homage he paid to Cordwainer Smith in no less than two of his novels. Read More
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