(Yes, Cordwainer Smith megathread)
The Cordwainer motherfucking Smith Ultrathread
[IMG]http://www.locusmag.com/2007/covers/smithphoto_342x432.jpg[/IMG]
[B]So who was this guy?[/B]
Cordwainer Smith, real name Paul Linebarger, was a complex man with a relatively short and complicated life. At a young age, he lost vision in one eye.
He was raised all over the world, and the time spent on the Far East influenced his science-fiction.
[B]Big deal. Everybody wrote science-fiction in the 50's[/B]
Cordwainer Smith's career lasted only a decade prior to the man's death, he only wrote a single novel and published little more than 20 stories, but his short career outshone God knows how many people.
[B]What did his science-fiction anticipate?[/B]
He wrote about human-animal hybrids (Call it genetically-engineered super-furries), interstellar travel without FTL, mind uploading, artificial intelligence, AI apotheosis... Concepts that we think are brand new or have just been invented by transhumanists like the people behind Orion's Arm.
He was a transhumanist who died decades before the movement started.
[B]Did you just say 'genetically-engineered super-furries'?[/B]
Well, kind of.
[B]Why is his science-fiction so special? [/B]
It's more like science-poetry. It's not particularly sci-fi fantasy, or hard sci-fi, but it's the most powerful science-fiction I have read.
[B]So, solar sails and body mods. What's so new[/B]
Not to mention, in that era, the idea of terraforming was not even there. A few decades later people came up with it and it's still a seal of science-fiction throughout the years. But common sense dictates that it's better to adapt colonists to live in a world than to spend thousands of years adapting that world, no? It's the most efficient way! Well, before people realized -- Even before they came up with terraforming to later realize it's stupid! -- he thought that men would adapt to live on other worlds by modifying their bodies.
His fiction was basically Orion's Arm, but he wrote it in the 50's where hard science-fiction barely existed, 50 years before Orion's Arm made a half-accurate "LOL SINGULARITY LOL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE" attempt to predict the future.
[B]How did you find out about this guy?[/B]
I was browing centauri-dreams.org when there was a post about IKAROS, and someguy mentioned how it reminded him of The Lady Who Sailed The Soul and posted a link to the story.
[B]*ALMOST* went to space[/B]
His story, The Lady Who Sailed The Soul, was compiled along with The Wind From The Sun by Arthur C. Clarke and a commentary by Ann Druyan (Carl Sagan's wife) and jettisoned on Cosmos-1, the world's first solar sail. The rocket never reached the required altitude and spiraled back into Earth, sadly, so the sail never fluttered out.
[B]Great! What do I have to read[/B]
The Rediscovery of Man:
[IMG]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167171283l/18948.jpg[/IMG]
The man's complete science-fiction.
[QUOTE][I]She got the which of the what-she did
Hid the bell with a blot, she did,
But she fell in love with a hominid.
Where is the which of the what-she did[/I]
from THE BALLAD OF LOST C'MELL
She was a girly girl and they were true men, the lords of creation, but she pitted her wits against them and she won. It had never happened before, and it is sure never to happen again, but she did win. She was not even of human extraction. She was cat derived though human in outward shape, which explains the C in front of her name. Her father's name was C'mackintosh and her name C'mell. She won her tricks against the lawful and assembled Lords of the Instrumentality.
It all happened at Earthport, greatest of buildings, smallest of cities, standing twenty-five kilometers high at the western edge of the Smaller Sea of Earth.
Jestocost had an office outside the fourth valve.[/QUOTE]
Norstrilia:
[IMG]http://spire.ee/shop/images/cordwrainer_smith___norstrilia.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://blog.librimondadori.it/blogs/urania/files/2010/03/cordwainer_smith_norstrilia.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]THEME AND PROLOGUE
Story, place, and time--these are the essentials.
1
The story is simple. There was a boy who bought the planet Earth. We know that, to our cost. It only happened once, and we have taken pains that it will never happen again. He came to Earth, got what he wanted, and got away alive, in a series of very remarkable adventures. That's the story.
2
The place? That's Old North Australia. What other place could it be? Where else do farmers pay ten million credits for a handkerchief, five for a bottle of beer? Where else do people lead peaceful lives, untouched by militarism, on a world which is booby-trapped with death and things worse than death?
Old North Australia has stroon—the santaclara drug—and more than a thousand other planets clamor for it.
But you can get stroon only from Norstrilia—that's what they call it, for short—because it is a virus that grows on enormous, gigantic misshapen sheep. The sheep were taken from Earth to start a pastoral system; they ended up as the greatest of imaginable treasures.
The simple farmers became simple billionaires, but they kept their farming ways. They started tough and they got tougher. People get pretty mean if you rob them and hurt them for almost three thousand years. They get obstinate. They avoid strangers, except for sending out spies and a very occasional tourist. They don't mess with other people, and they're death, death, death inside out and turned over twice if you mess with them.
Then one of their kids showed up on Earth and bought it. The whole place, lock, stock, and underpeople.
That was a real embarrassment for Earth.
And for Norstrilia, too.[/QUOTE]
[B]REGARDING NORSTRILIA[/B]: This is actually two novels clamped together, The Planet Buyer (Reprint of The Buy Who Bought Old Earth) and We The Underpeople (Reprint of The Vault of Heart's Desire, I think).
[B]Frank Herbert: Talentless Hack?[/B]
The first novel of Norstrilia was published a year before Dune.
Norstrilia = Arrakis
Stroon = Spice Melange
Rod McBan = Muad'Dib
Lord Jestocost = Stilgar
C'mell = Chani
I'm only half-serious on this, but whatever.
But seriously now, Norstrilia shoudln't be compared to Dune... The former is infinitely better.
[B]WARNING:[/B]
If you think your heart is as cold as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, please proceed carefully while reading The Ballad of Lost C'mell.
It will rip your heart out, thaw it, make it beat again only to kill it.
[B]THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF MANKIND[/B]
Most of Cordwainer's science fiction was set in a human universe where the Instrumentality was the ruling group, always. The Instrumentality of Mankind is described in some detail, but even though the guy describes everything beatifully, it's all left to the reader's imagination.
Plus, it's ALWAYS a fucking Federation or Galactic Empire or Galactic Republic. You have to give the man some credit for calling it Instrumentality.
Plus it sounds fucking awesome:
THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF MANKIND
[B]The Fourth Millenium[/B]
[url]http://www.fourth-millennium.net/index.html[/url]
This site is basically a repository of fan art of
Cordwainer Smith's universe, all wonderuflly done.
[IMG]http://www.fourth-millennium.net/cordwainer-vr/boulevard-height.JPG[/IMG]
[B]Alpha Ralpha Boulevard[/B][I] spiraling upward and into Earthport Tower.[/I]
[IMG]http://www.fourth-millennium.net/cordwainer-vr/ocean-approach.JPG[/IMG]
[B]Earthport Tower[/B][I] on the surface of Meeya Meefla (Phoentically: MIAMI FLA, the old country was mostly forgotten during the Dark Ages and only the phonetics of the name survived)[/I]
The picture was inspired by this:
[IMG]http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/images/Best2a.gif[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.fourth-millennium.net/cordwainer-vr/bell-bank-wideview.JPG[/IMG]
[B]The Bell and Bank,[/B][I] the Council Chambers of the Instrumentality of Mankind, where Lord Jestocost and C'mell played out their little scheme and gave rights to the Underpeople.[/I]
---
So, signing off now, trying to spread the knowledge of this great unfairly forgotten author.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norstrilia[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomsk_(novel[/url])
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rediscovery_of_Man[/url]
The Lady Who Sailed The Soul, full text freely available: [url]http://www.planetary.org/solarsailcd/smith.htm[/url]
I love you Euxodia.
[editline]07:24PM[/editline]
Your threads are always on par.
I must devour these books with my mind-mouths.
What the fuck did they use to render that shit in? I have games from 1999 that have far superior cinematics than those crap fanarts.
I'll have to pick one of these up sometime.
[editline]08:51PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Richard Simmons;25363293]What the fuck did they use to render that shit in?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Richard Simmons;25363293]I have [b]games from 1999[/b] that have far superior cinematics than those crap [b]fanarts.[/b][/QUOTE]
You just answered your own question. Yes. Fan Art, created by [b]fans[/b]
Cinematics. Made by gaming developers that are [b]paid money for their talent[/b], regardless of what year it is. Thanks for contributing.. Even though this thread is clearly not just about the 'fanart.'
Whoever that makes an anime reference, I swear...
On another note, looks neat, i'll look into it sometime
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