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.

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How to Keep Up with Cordwainer Smith Around the Internet is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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.

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Now this is an example of a great science fiction short story. Cordwainer (Paul Linebarger) Smith was one of the best writers the field had to offer. When you read his fiction, it becomes obvious that he influenced later writers such as Roger Zelazny. Some of the same themes and ideas that layed the groundwork for Smith also appear in Zelazny’s fiction. This is most evident in the naming of characters, the classic fiction characters, and the blending of fantastic elements with the more mundane modern settings. Another author whose fiction shows ties to Smith’s is George R. R. Martin. Especially in his early science fiction stories. The way the characters persevere in the face of their inevitable fates is a trademark of both writers. Take “No, No, Not Rogov” as an example.

The prologue describes events in the year A. D. 13,582. It shows us events that do not appear to connect with the rest of the story until the end. The majority of the story takes place in the 1940s and features a team of Soviet scientists. Rogov is the top scientist. His wife Anastasia is a brilliant scientist in her own right. They are working on at top secret project. The only other people with them are 2 security guards. The female guard is secretly in love with Rogov and resents his wife. This is the story of the project and what happens when they are successful. The life of Rogov and the characters who inhabit his world is an example of how dedication can inspire people to achieve great things.

Modern writers would learn a lot by going back and rereading Smith’s short stories.

Highly recommended.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

This story is available on line by clicking here.

No, No, Not Rogov: A Review by Jim Black is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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.

The Copt Out is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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.

That it was a deliberate tribute to his fellow author is without question; Chandler actually placed Cordwainer Smith’s name right on the page for everyone to see, and used it in a way that any but the most uneducated, ignorant and unconnected reader could possibly miss. (Well, back up a bit: that only applies if you’re already familiar with Smith and Chandler.)

The two novels in question are The Inheritors and The Far Traveler.

Allow me a few paragraphs for background so I can bring the few poor souls amongst you who have never read Chandler up to date.

Chandler started writing in 1944.  His first story appeared in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction. He’d been a reader of Campbell’s rag for several years and dropped in to see the editor during a trip to New York.  Campbell asked ‘Jack’ Chandler to submit a story or two and snatched up the very first thing that came out of the typer.

Chandler, a merchant seaman by trade, British born and Australian by adoption, would continue writing until his death in 1984.  During those four decades he produced more than twenty novels and several hundred short stories.

Most of those stories featured his primary character – Commodore John Grimes – the original Horatio Hornblower of space.  Other’s have since adopted that nickname for their characters, but none will ever hold a candle to Grimes – a pedantic, womanizing, fly-in-the-ointment of authority, unbending creature of habit, champion of the underdog,  if ever there was one.  Grimes’ penchant for getting into and out of trouble in unique, rule-bending ways, not to mention his way with the ladies (more women than Captain Kirk ever even dreamed of holding a candle to) formed the basis for numerous humorous, exciting, strange and often bizarre adventures along the spaceways.

The stories follow Grimes career from midshipman to Commander in the Federation Survey Service (the big boys on the interstellar block), through a period of self-employment as owner of a small mail packet ship, to his eventual arrival on the Rim Worlds, where he would become a Rear Admiral in the naval reserve.  He also did a stint as a privateer, a planetary governor and the star attraction in a sex show along the way – but that’s a little too much detail for our purposes here.

One of my favorite features of Chandler’s Grimes stories are the hunts for (and discovery of) Lost Colonies.  Sometimes colonizing ships get lost.  Less frequently, they are rediscovered, often centuries later.  More often than not the foundling colony fails to survive, but sometimes, through pluck and not a little bit of luck, they manage to hold on and eventually thrive.  How they do so very frequently produces strange results.

Which brings us to the homage to Smith and Chandler’s The Inheritors.

To set the scene:  Grimes, Commander of a medium-sized Survey ship is sent off on a wild goose chase to track down the rumor of a white slave trade that is obtaining its ‘product’ from an unknown world.  He and his crew eventually find their way to Morrowvia, a planet inhabited by humans with strangely feline characteristics.

As they get to know the inhabitants, they learn that everyone on the planet shares just four surnames.  Two of them are ‘Smith’ and ‘Cordwainer’.  Grimes tries to puzzle out why there are so few and theorizes that perhaps only four men survived the original colonizing effort.  He knows they can’t be trade-based names since no one on the planet wears shoes and there’s little if any metal working going on.  To the educated reader, these are fairly heavy-handed clues.

I’ll give away part of the plot because even knowing it the story still remains an enjoyable tale.  The sole surviving male from the original landing was a geneticist, a cat-lover – and a science fiction fan.  There weren’t enough human embryos remaining to found a viable population, so the geneticist used cat stock to make a go of it.

The slave trader (one Drongo Kane, Grimes’ primary nemesis through many tales) has learned this bit of history and is claiming that since the planet’s inhabitants are really only ‘underpeople’, the laws against slavery don’t apply.

Grimes manages to solve this dilemma in a perfectly legal manner, and in doing so reminds us of one of the societal imperatives of Smith’s own Instrumentality, that it is illegal for humans to procreate with underpeople.

There are several other references to Smith and his works that I’ll leave to the reader to discover.

The second tale actually involves a bit of forensic research on my part. When Chandler’s widow Susan died a few years ago, the author’s fans (including myself) went on a hunt for any remaining, unpublished stories.  We had clues that there was at least one, possibly titled ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’.  Even though there was reference to it as having been scheduled for publication in David Hartwell’s Cosmos magazine, David had no record of it.

The Far Traveler is a novel composed of the stitching together of several of Chandler’s previously published short stories.  The sources for most of the sections are well known to Chandlerphiles, but a middle section appeared to have not been previously published. Most everyone was of the opinion that it had been written whole as a transitional section for the novel.  Until I happened to re-read it and discovered that the last line of the last chapter of that section was ‘…let sleeping dogs lie’.  Chandler often drew his titles from the last lines of his stories in a punish manner and this one certainly fits that bill.  Most everyone now agrees that we’ve ‘rediscovered’ that missing story.

And interestingly enough, it’s another story that takes place on Morrowvia, planet of the almost underpeople.  This time it involves dog-derived underpeople.

Kane is back at it again, this time trying to seize control of the entire planet. He’s discovered the true ‘inheritors’ of the colony and plans to use their claims to once again enslave the population (metaphorically this time).  (Chandler was not above poking fun at his own works.)

Grimes manages to unravel the plot and solve the problem for his friends the cat people.  It is interesting however, that Chandler returned to Morrowvia to feature dog-derived underpeople.  Perhaps he felt a need to give the descendants of D’joan as much publicity as he’d previously given to C’mell’s literary progeny.

That he chose to feature both cat and dog-derived underpeople is telling of his deep familiarity with Smith’s works.  Other than the eagle derived E’telekeli, E’ikasus his son, C’william the Cat Master and B’dank the bovine derived, feline and canine derived underpeople are Smith’s most fully-realized non-human characters.

I’ve found other author’s works that are either derivative of Smith’s or that feature and play off of some of his tropes, but I’ve yet to find another that so directly engages with Smith’s ideas and takes them in such an entirely different direction. 

If you’re familiar with anyone else who’s done the same thing, I’m sure we’d all love to hear about it.

Cordwainer Smith and A. Bertram Chandler is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

Can’t you just see the marquee?

THE BALLAD OF LOST C’MELL

or

THE GAME OF RAT AND DRAGON

although, given Hollywood’s penchant for stepping on things, that story would probably be entitled The Rat Game by the time it finally made it to the theaters.

Complaining about Hollywood’s treatment of well-known SF works has become a pretty common hobby on the internet: if you want to start a riot, all you have to do is mention I, Robot – the MOVIE, or Starship Troopers – the MOVIE and disappointed fans will make it their sworn duty to let you know just exactly how they feel.

The complaints, however,  still don’t stop anyone from wishing that their favorite story or novel will someday get the Hollywood treatment. 

I’m no different than anyone else.  I’ve often wondered if Smith’s stories, like Ballad or Game or Littul Kittons could be adapted for the screen, let alone survive the experience.  I alternate between thinking that it might be very interesting to watch a movie audience as it gets dropped right into the middle of the Instrumentality of Mankind, and thinking that there’s so much back-story that would need to be front-story that it would be impossible to translate successfully.

But on the other hand, there’s always Norstrilia.  I imagine the promo for that movie sounding something like ‘A Boy, A Cat and a Computer conquer the Earth – to buy a postage stamp!’

A lot of the tropes found in Norstrilia have already made it up onto the screen – think girly-girls, then think ‘furniture’ from Soylent Green or the immortal line from Alien:Resurrection – “Yeah, like you’ve never ****** a robot!”, or even Woody Allen’s Orgasmotron from Sleeper.  Replicants in revolt from Blade Runner, mile-high cities from The Fifth Element, politicians controlling unimaginable power like the Emporer in Star Wars.

It certainly wouldn’t be difficult these days to replicate the imagery from Smith’s stories:  I’d be particularly interested in getting a look at those giant sheep making stroon or watching the bullman B’Dank jump off the tower, or taking a visit to the underground realms of the Underpeople.

But I think what I’d most like to see would be C’Mell in all her red-haired, glory.  I just can’t imagine who they’d cast to play the part of the courtesan’s courtesan, the geisha’s geisha, the woman who’s job it is to make off-world VIPS happy with unrequited love.

She’s worked her magic on me.  Maybe, given Hollywood’s relatively poor track record, my desire to see C’Mell in the flesh ought to remain unrequited.  But there’s still a part of me that really wants to see Smith’s universe up there on the screen.

What do you all think?   Would it be a good idea to see C’Mell up there on the screen, or should we all just leave well enough alone?

Cordwainer Smith at the Movies is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

I’ve been a Cordwainer Smith fan since I first laid eyes on Scanners Live in Vain within the pages of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (Silverberg, ed), the anthology of shorts selected by the Science Fiction Writers of American (SFWA) as one of the finest SF stories published from the beginning of the genre up till 1965.

I devoured that anthology and did so not long after its initial publication – perhaps three or four years at most; I’d recently discovered SF in the pages of Heinlein’s Starman Jones, Del Rey’s The Runaway Robot and Campbell’s Astounding Tales of Space and Time.

That SF Hall of Fame anthology was a godsend: it introduced me to so many fine new writers, Cordwainer Smith not the least among them.

Now what you have to remember is that this all took place something like forty years ago and that the publishing landscape – especially for genre fiction like SF – was not anything like it was today; Asimov’s The Hugo Winners had just been published a few years before, Ellison’s Dangerous Visions was burning up the bookshelves and F&SF, the recently retitled Analog, Galaxy, Amazing Stories, New Worlds and lesser known magazines were the primary sources for short science fiction. Anthologies were few and far between, with Wollheim and Carr’s and Merrill’s Best of the Year collections being one of the few places that the magazine fiction would be reprinted.

There was no such thing as a bookstore chain – no Amazon, no Ebay (nor even personal home computers). The interested and avid science fiction fan was limited to waiting for the monthly installments of the magazines to arrive and was considered lucky if they had a local bookstore that bothered to stock a half-way decent selection of SF.

At the time, I loved anthologies. I could purchase a single book (usually for anywhere from 15 to 50 cents!) and meet a whole slew of authors I’d never been exposed to before; I could then use this research to hunt up novels by the writers who’s work I enjoyed. There really were only three ways to discover new works and new writers – the anthologies and magazines, the huckster’s rooms at conventions and used bookstores.

The one thing that they all shared in common was time. Acquiring new works back then was not a pro-active activity, it was a re-active one. Waiting for the magazines to arrive (waiting 30 days for what you’d consume in one) waiting for something interesting to show up at the used bookstore (I went weekly, if not more frequently), waiting for a con to take place close enough that my parents would allow me to go.

The upshot of all this waiting was that if you found an author who’s work you really liked, chances were you just couldn’t go out and find something else by them. And when you did find something by them you’d never seen before, you often felt that you’d made the find of a century. Then you’d enjoy that new book as fast as you could (usually less than a day for me – most SF back then ran to something like 180 to 240 pages in paperback) – and then you’d be sitting around waiting again.

Such was my experience with Cordwainer Smith. I read Scanners and to say that it was unusual and unlike anything else I’d read up until then is to merely echo what just about everyone else has said about his work. He simply drowned me in new concepts and visions of the future, starting with the idea that space was so dangerous and painful that a special breed of man had to be built in order to be able to handle it. The whole complex life of a Scanner – writing nails, an abbreviated form of English, new names for everything (the ‘Up and Out’ for space), records full of smells – it was simply an overwhelming experience to read that story for the first time.

In Scanners, Smith exposes us to the future of mankind, the far future, and it is called the Instrumentality. A word I’d never heard before when used as a name for a government. The chosen name alone bespoke difference, the rest of the story hinted at greatness and detail that had to be left to my imagination because, despite the fact that it was in its third incarnation as a collected story, and despite the fact that several other collections of Smith’s work had previously been published, it would be several years before I would be able to lay my hands on them.

Finally, in the mid-70s, there occurred a Smith Revival, if you will, when Doubleday included a volume of his short stories amongst their Best Of series and Ballentine released Norstrilia, the complete novel, for the first time.

I eagerly snapped these up; Norstrilia has remained one of my go to ‘comfort food’ books over the years. I have also managed to acquire everything else Smith over the years. But it has taken a long time.

Most recently I was teased, disappointed and finally rewarded for perseverance when I managed to snag a copy of Fantasy Book #6, the 1950s semi-prozine that published Smith’s first story for the very first time (not counting his high school work).

Scanners had made the rounds and, no doubt due to the strangeness of the tale and its unconventional style of presentation, had been rejected numerous times. Fantasy Book was a cheap little publication, somewhat akin to a small press magazine, something like a fanzine, edited and published by William Crawford under the name of Garrett Ford.

The magazine had started publication in 1947 and only lasted through 1951. In fact, only two more issues would be produced after the appearance of Scanners Live in Vain; Smith made it into print almost by the skin of his teeth.

Fantasy Book #6 made an appearance on Ebay not that long ago; I stuck it on my watch list and was hopeful of picking it up for a song, but the price quickly went through the roof and I had to abandon my hopes of a really good buy. A couple of weeks later someone else listed another copy – but this time they weren’t showing it off in the usual categories. I lucked out and got it for a song.

Smith would wait until 1952 for the story to be collected by one Frederic Pohl, an SF writer, editor and agent who kept his hand in watching the small presses. This, after waiting five years for it to be accepted by any publication (he’d originally written it in 1945).

But Pohl knew what he was doing. William Crawford was no ordinary editor and small press publisher. He’d been the editor and publisher of Marvel Tales and eventually established the Fantasy Publishing Company; he published one of the first SF books ever appearing in book form in 1936, the only book by Lovecraft to appear while the author was still alive and a whole host of other authors who would eventually come to be recognized as masters in the field.

Pohl’s practiced eye saw what Crawford had seen when he wrote this introduction to Scanners: “…the author’s treatment of the subject is so completely different that it makes “SCANNERS” one of the most outstanding stories to appear in any magazine!”

Eleven years after Pohl’s inclusion of Scanners in his anthology Beyond the End of Time, Smith’s first collection – You Will Never Be The Same – appeared in print.

And just a few years later I’d be reading it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. I’d soon embark on my own long quest to acquire his works and, like Cordwainer Smith, I’d wait far too long to accomplish the task.

Here’s a copy of the cover of Fantasy Book featuring an illustration for Scanners:  Martel appears to be adjusting his breathing rate – or perhaps his volume.

And here’s the first page of the story as originally published:

A Few Notes on Collecting Cordwainer is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

Would you like to do a guest blog post, or several?

If you are interested,

you can contact me via the contact page here. That form goes to one of my email accounts.  If you don’t hear back from me within a few days, please resend your message as I don’t find cyberspace to be completely reliable.

I could use things that have already been posted elsewhere online, so long as you have the rights to them, or they could be selections from articles you’ve written, again providing you have the rights to them. (I’m not going to do any paperwork about rights, but will expect you to say in an email that you wrote it and have the rights.) I consider an ideal blog post to be about 300 to 500 words, but will happily accept things that are shorter or longer. I would also be glad to take a longer article and turn it into a series…. you could divide it up, or I would.  A link to your website, if you have one, will be included if you’d like.

If English is not your first language, that’s fine. I probably will do some minimal editing for grammar and spelling, but I am fine with your writing showing that English isn’t your native tongue, provided your ideas can be followed. After all, I live mostly in Mexico and believe me my Spanish has lots of errors, but I communicate fine with people here.

Thanks for considering this.

Rosana

Guest Bloggers Wanted… Here. No Pay, Not Much Fame. is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

Paul Linebarger wrote a book manuscript called ‘Ethical Dianetics,’ which was in part a response to Ron Hubbard’s book ‘Dianetics.’

The Linebarger book is mainly an argument for self- analysis or informal mutual analysis between spouses; it was intended to provide an alternative to the Hubbard model and other psychotherapeutic approaches, rather than being a further development of Hubbard’s ideas.

Linebarger and Hubbard knew each other as college undergraduates, but as far as I’ve been able to determine, they didn’t maintain their acquaintance later. The manuscript of ‘Ethical Dianetics’ (which was never published) is now in the Linebarger Papers at the Hoover Institution Archives; it is not available online.

Lost Notebook?

Nope, never found. I’ve gone through all the Cordwainer Smith papers at the U of Kansas and the Hoover Institution several times, and though there are other notebooks there, the notebook detailing the early development of the Instrumentality etc is missing. Paul Linebarger apparently told different versions of how and where it was lost to Genevieve (who told her version to J. J. Pierce and to me) and to Fred Pohl–or maybe they just remembered differently what he told them. But whatever story he told about the notebook’s loss, he never found it again.

I’ve had the fantasy that it’s somewhere out there in a Chinese bazaar or an Egyptian cave, and someday maybe someone will come up with it yet. If so, please let me know–right away!”

Hoover Archives

I turn to Alan with archival questions too. Here’s his answer to one:

Rosana passed on to me your inquiry about the stories listed in Box 30, Folder 14 of the Hoover Institution’s Linebarger Archives–”The Vanguard of Venus,” “The Girl from Mars,” and so forth.

Alas, those are not unpublished Cordwainer Smith stories, nor even Paul Linebarger juvenilia. Rather, they are stories by various early SF writers, published by Hugo Gernsback in the late 1920s in the form of pamphlets (as in Box 30) as well as in his magazines. They were early entries in Paul’s science fiction collection; they wound up in the Hoover Archives (which focus on his academic and political roles) more or less by mistake. If you’re really interested in tracking any of them down elsewhere, try one of the SF bibliographic databases on the Web–but be warned that none of the stories (as I recall from skimming through them at the Hoover) is any sort of SF classic. Paul was an omnivorous reader, and he seems to have grabbed hold of any scrap of science fiction he could find.

Alan Elms Answers Some CS Queries is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

When I was designing some t-shirts for the site, I re-read The Dead Lady of Clown Town online, and the link takes you to where you can do that at no cost… it’s part of the Baen ebook website.  I found a lot of quotes that I liked, though only a few (the ones in bold) ended up on shirts so far.

Here are some:

• Bright brains serve madness as well as they serve sanity—namely, very well indeed.
• I’m a machine, but I used to be a person, long, long ago.
• We will help each other to change the destiny of worlds, perhaps even to bring mankind back to humanity.
• Elaine felt as if she were leaving all known worlds behind. In fact, she was doing precisely that, but it did not occur to her that her own suspicion might be true.
• You will see tremendous things, some of them frightening. But they won’t be real.
• This is no time for fear. It is much too interesting.
• if we do not wish to go back to living a mere seventy years we had better not anger the only planet which produces stroon.
• A bad idea can spread like a mutated germ. If it is at all interesting, it can leap from one mind to another halfway across the universe before it has a stop put to it.
• Go on! Go on. This is a war of love. Keep going.
• When you make history you cannot always take care of all the little things too.
• Peace be with you in the everlasting now.

Cordwainer Smith Quotes is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

1. Give a Cordwainer Smith book as a gift. There’s an Amazon display on the right of the screen, or here’s a page on my site with links to several online booksellers’ Cordwainer Smith offerings.

2. Tell people where they can read Cordwainer Smith online for free. This link takes you to a page where I list the stories that are available this way. They are put there legitimately… by Baen, who sells an ebook of many of the tales…. you can figure out how to get that from the stories.

3. Wear or give a t-shirt, sweatshirt, tote bag, or something of the sort – in styles for men, women, unisex, and kids. These are promptly made to order by a company called Cafepress and they ship worldwide and offer a money-back guarantee.

Some of you have already bought some of these from the box on the sidebar (down a ways), but here are some new ones. Thanks to artist Craig Moore, whose Cordwainer Smith art is on my website now, for allowing me to put some of his artwork on the clothing.

You can see all the Cordwainer Smith t-shirts and other items from this link. Here are some examples:

This one is “Golden the Ship Was…” in organic cotton. My husband has this exact shirt and says the cotton is very soft and comfortable.

Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons look good on black… the little darlings!

I’ve got this exact shirt myself. It reflects my general attitude towards our world, though there ARE times I am more scared than interested! Maybe that’s when I need the shirt the most.

Have Yourself a Merry Little… Cordwainer? is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

Your opinions are welcomed. Me, I really don’t know, but the main reason I put so much work into the website and this blog is to help keep his work alive for new readers.

I’ve got a page on the main site where I quote other science fiction authors  on their thoughts about Cordwainer Smith: http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/others_say.htm quotes eight writers, leading off with Robert Silverberg.

Cordwainer Smith’s Place in the History of Science Fiction? is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

I really can’t remember when I first read his science fiction. He gave me copies of some of the magazines as they came out, but I think that well before any science fiction, I read Atomsk, the spy novel he wrote as Carmichael Smith. That link takes you to my page about it, with a long enough quote that you can get the distinctly Cordwainer-like feel to it. (I liked it so much I made it into an ebook.)

When Did You First Read Cordwainer Smith? is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.