Where Do Cordwainer Smith's strange words come from?

Cordwainer Smith's writing is so filled with literary puns, obscure references, and bizarre names, that you'd never know what they all mean. Some of them turn up in multiple stories, and you may not remember exactly how they were used in something you read a while ago...

Luckily, Tony Lewis' 190-page paperback, Concordance to Cordwainer Smith solves many mysteries. (Clicking on the title will open a new window at Amazon's page for the book.)

Hundreds of entries, arranged alphabetically, answer such questions as:

• What characters, besides the famous girlygirl C'Mell and the heroine D'Joan, have names beginning with C' or D'?
• Who is the E-telekeli and why is his name not said aloud?
• What did Lord Jestocost do, and in what language does his name mean "cruelty?"
• How is Scanners Live in Vain related to an Anglican hymn?

I could have fun making up a lengthy trivia quiz... the book is a delight to browse... but you get the drift. I keep my copy handy next to the stories.

Tony Lewis began compiling the Concordance to Cordwainer Smith in 1968, and he's been at it (off and on) ever since. In his words, the book "is the attempt to bring together all the people, places, things, and concepts in the science fiction works of Cordwainer Smith together with exegetical—in some cases, highly speculative—comments."

I like his remark, "Where dates or comments are in contradiction, I have selected those which best serve my theories. Go Thou, and do likewise." Lewis invites readers to contribute their thoughts for future editions. (The current edition is the third, published in 2000, and nominated for a Hugo that year.)

A Sample Entry

To give you the flavor of the book, here is one entry. (Many are shorter, some are longer.) The letters in brackets are codes for the stories.

Abba-Dingo
An obsolete computer part way up in Earthport on Alpha Ralpha Boulevard. The words written on its doors are in English (possible dating?). It is a prediction machine and always works if you go up on the northern side. The Underpeople treated it as a god. It knew Paul and Virginia 12 years before they came into being. [AR] Lord Jestocost had a direct connection to this machine. [PB]

Abba (Aramaic) father + dingo (Australian slang) to betray = father of lies?
less possible: from Abed-nego = worshipper of nebo (lofty place)

You can read the rest of the entries for the letter A on the website of NESFA (New England Science Fiction Association), the publishers of the book. They also list the entries for the letter R.

Further Uses for Concordance to Cordwainer Smith

1. You can look up any story by its title for a brief plot summary and other comments.
2. There is a chronology of the Instrumentality, updated from the one that J.J. Pierce produced for The Best of Cordwainer Smith.
3. There is also a bibliography of the fiction of Paul M. A. Linebarger, his science fiction as Cordwainer Smith and his other fiction. Lewis calls it incomplete, but at 13 pages of small print, it must have more than I do!

What others Have Said

"One of the most entertaining reference books around. It should delight all Smith's fans." — Locus

"It impelled this reviewer to immediately reread all of Smith's stories, and if it does so for others it's a most valuable book indeed." — Steve Carper, Fantasy Review

"Fun for other dedicated Cordwainer Smith fans and helpful to dedicated Cordwainer Smith scholars." — Alan C. Elms, Science Fiction Studies

Where to Find It

At Amazon.com:

At Amazon.co.uk in the UK:

It's likely to be at alibris too. This link takes you to a Cordwainer Smith search page there.

Of course, you can buy it directly from the publisher, NESFA, but they do state on their website that you need to allow several weeks for delivery. (They are a volunteer organization.) I used to buy from them wholesale and sell directly from this website, and my experience was that it often did take a good while to get orders.