Cordwainer Smith’s Place in the History of Science Fiction?

It may be that he’ll be thought of as the favorite writer of other writers. So many writers praise him that a lot of new readers will probably have seen him mentioned by other authors before they come across his own stories.

But also, he gives the reader things like cranching and c’girls and pinlighters and linguistic and cultural references in rapid succession, asking readers to relax and go with the flow and trust that all will become clear in time. Some people will just be scared off by the initial strangeness, but others will respond to how readable and welcoming his prose actually is and decide to trust him. So that’s another level of self-selection going on among his audience.

And when other writers try to take the stories apart, to figure out how he made them work…they realize only he could write a Cordwainer Smith story, and that just makes him all the more fascinating to study.

If that history of science fiction you’re asking about is about the impact of SF on the mainstream — what were the bestsellers, and how many films were made from SF novels by which authors — Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke will probably always be the top names. But a history of SF written by an SF writer would be another matter. The big three would be there too, of course, but the name Cordwainer Smith would be huge in that volume. (Also a guy named Alfred Bester, who is very different but equally inimitable and influential.)

I think there are two parts to the answer:

For an earlier generation of fans, Cordwainer Smith is a star, one of the truly unique writers of that generation.

And an author who’s works would pass the test of time, if he were given a chance.

For the current generation of fans I think Smith is, at best, an historical curiosity – someone the old folks talk about.

Keep up the good work – eventually the young uns will come around.

Part of the difficulty may be that CS doesn’t fit genres neatly. Are the stories really science fiction? Or are they fantasy?

I think earlier posts about CS being ‘a writer’s writer’ are very valid. He won the respect and admiration of several generations of sf authors, after he’d departed the genre. I think Algis Budrys summed up the power of his work when he wrote something like ‘this is not how the future will be, but how it will be remembered’. That gives CS’s work a mythic power that’s lacking in more ‘traditional’ science fiction. Or, in brief, I think his stories have got staying power, and the fact that they are hard to confine within obvious genre boundaries is an advantage, in a way. It makes it more likely they’ll be stumbled upon by young (potential) writers in future.

A way to answer that question would be to look into the Instrumentality of Mankind entry in Wikipedia. Readership and authorship there is probably representative of younger readers, and it points to direct references to Cordwainer Smith in major Japanese SF animes and mangas there : Evangelion (the director Hideaki Anno is said to be a big fan), and Serial Experiment Lain.

I would also put Hayao Miyazaki there: his Manga Nausicaa of the Wind Valley makes good use of the Fighting Trees of The Queen of the Afternoon, in my opinion. But I tend to be too old to share that sort of ideas with Animes fans.

I first started reading C. Smith in the Best of C. Smith. Once I cracked the covers I was hooked! Thanks for keeping these stories alive!

I first hit Cordwainer Smith when I read “Scanners” in the SF Hall of Fame. Whoa, as in what was That. So I reread it. Ah!
Not every story in that volume deserved a Whoa, although many did. Cordwainer Smith most certainly deserved that Whoa. (I bought that off the presses, by the by, been around for awhile). Don’t know, but Gene Wolfe seems influenced… heck, I think Fred Pohl was back-influenced. In fact, once you’ve read C.S., it’s hard Not to rethink your SF.