The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith [Hardcover]

No one before or since has written like Cordwainer Smith: the strange, soaring stories, with their hints of even further unglimpsed depths and wonders, were one of the delights of my youthful exploration of SF, and are a recurring source of pleasure even now.

Unfortunately Smith was ill-served by his early publishers: his one longish novel (Norstrilia) was hacked into two parts (The Planet Buyer and The Underpeople), and the short stories (which originally appeared in magazines like Fantasy & Science Fiction ) were splattered around different compilations at random.

Now Norstrilia has been restored and published intact, and the shorts have all been collected into one properly-edited volume: this one.

There are 33 stories altogether. If you've been reading SF for any length of time, you may well have one or more of the early anthologies already, and will want to know if this complete opus will give you enough extra stories to justify the expense. I therefore provide the complete list below.

CONTENTS

01) No, No, Not Rogov!
02) War Nº 81-Q (Rewritten version)
03) Mark Elf
04) The Queen of the Afternoon
05) Scanners Live in Vain
06) The Lady Who Sailed The Soul
07) When the People Fell
08) Think Blue, Count Two
09) The Colonel Came Back from Nothing-at-All
10) The Game of Rat and Dragon
11) The Burning of the Brain
12) From Gustible’s Planet
13) Himself in Anachron
14) The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal
15) Golden the Ship Was — Oh! Oh! Oh!
16) The Dead Lady of Clown Town
17) Under Old Earth
18) Drunkboat
19) Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittens
20) Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
21) The Ballad of Lost C’mell
22) A Planet Named Shayol
23) On the Gem Planet
24) On the Storm Planet
25) On the Sand Planet
26) Three to a Given Star
27) Down to a Sunless Sea
28) War Nº 81-Q (Original version)
29) Western Science is So Wonderful
30) Nancy
31) The Fife of Bodidharma
32) Angerhelm
33) The Good Friends

N.B. The Gollancz paperback with the identical title is NOT the same as this edition, since it contains only twelve (12) stories. Suggestio falsi?

Cordwainer Smith is the pen name of Mr. Paul M. A. Linebarger, who lived a comparatively short (1913 - 1966) and difficult life. He was educated in China, Germany and USA. Loose one eye in an accident being a child. Had a PH degree in Political Sciences, was a university professor and worked undercover for CIA. At the same time he wrote fascinating sci-fi stories.
My first contact with the author's stories was "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard". It was obvious for me that this was a fragment of a greater story, full of mysterious and provoking ideas as the Rediscovery of Man, the Eketeli and so on. I was captivated by the imagery and searched for more works from Cordwainer Smith. Little by little they were appearing in different sci-fi magazines and short stories collections.
With this book you have the opportunity to read almost all the "fragments" constituting Cordwainer's universe, with consistent references to the underpeople, the Instrumentality, the Scanners and the rest of the interlaced icons of this particular Myth.
Remarkable stories are: "Mark Elf", "The Game of Rat & Dragon", "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" and "Under Old Earth".
A speciall mention must be done for "Ballad of Lost C'Mell" and "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" both dealing with the relationship of humans and underpeople. Mr. Smith had a very particular relation with cats and dogs. He loved them and his underpeople characters show this love.
A final note "The Dead Lady..." is a forceful recreation of Joan D'Arc martyrdom.
A wonderful collection from an unjustly underrated author.

Lyrical and stunning. I remeber many of the characters years after reading the book