Subject: Review: The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith

From: "Aaron M. Renn" <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Oct 1999 22:52:19 -0400

The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
	Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn

Conclusion: Recommended

Whenever people talk about the greatest writers in science fiction
history, you always hear names like Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and
Cordwainer Smith.  Cordwainer, who? has always been my reaction.  I mean,
I'd go to a book store and see dozens of books by other famous authors
prominently displayed, but nothing by anyone named Cordwainer Smith.

Well, two events conspired to put some works of his in my hands.  First,
C.S. Friedman cited him as an influence for her latest novel This Alien
Shore.  Second, I shortly thereafter saw an edition of a Smith short story
collection called The Rediscovery of Man while I was at amazon.co.uk.  I
picked it up.  As it turns out, it's understandable that I've never seen
any novels by Smith.  He only has one - Norstrilla - and did most of his
work in short fiction.

This collection features some of his best printed as part of a series
called SF Masterworks.  All of Smith's stories take place in the same
future history.  Quite a future history it is, too.  The writing style is
a bit dated, but the richness of the universe Smith creates is incredible.
This guy invents more cool stuff in one paragraph than a lot of writers do
in an entire novel.  His world also has a sense of epic vastness, with a
timeline stretching across 16,000 years.  Although these stories are as
diverse as can be, there are common themes and elements linking them all,
most notably the ubiquitous Instrumentalty of Man who are the ruling elite
of the universe.  The "What does it mean to be human?" question also
figures prominently.

I'm not much of an SF historian, so I'm really not in a position to judge
how creative Smith really was.  As I said, he has a lot of great elements
to his stories, since imitated many times, but did he really create them?
Or did he borrow them himself from earlier works?  With most of his
stories written in the 1960's, Smith was certainly in a position to borrow
liberally from Golden Age genre SF, much of which I am unfamiliar with.
With all the praise heaped on Smith, I have a strong bias towards
crediting him with inventing most of it himself, but can't judge
definitively.

One example is the idea that there is some property of space itself that
causes insanity or death.  This is a core element of the story "Scanners
Live in Vain".  It's been done several times since then, but was it ever
done before?  I don't know.

Incidentally, I found "Scanners" to be the best story of the lot.  Perhaps
that's because the plotline is more traditional, and the narrative tension
high throughout.  Far too many of the rest of the stories are written as
the re-telling of legends, with the ending essentially given away in
advance.  They would start out something like, "Well of course we know
that James and Alice saved the universe from the evil hordes of aliens and
fell in love, but let me tell you the story again anyway".  Some of the
commentary in the book suggests that Smith used a Chinese narrative
structure -- he lived several years in the Orient, among other places --
but since I'm also unfamiliar with Chinese storytelling, I can't say if
that particular type is or not.  Regardless, it wasn't something that I
really liked.

Besides "Scanners," I thought the other standout was the very disturbing
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons," which shows the ruthless vengeance of
the Instrumentality.  But all of the stories are very readable and
enjoyable.

Reading this book had a couple of interesting effects on me.  For one, it
made me retroactively lower my opinion of This Alien Shore because most of
the elements I loved in that book were taken almost directly from Smith.
It also made me wonder what other books might have been inspired directly
or indirectly by Smith.  For example, Jack Chalker's Well World could have
been inspired by Smith's Rediscovery of Man.  Was it?  I don't know.  This
book will surely keep me busy with similar speculations for years to come.
Please note that I don't think drawing inspiration or ideas from someone
else is wrong.  Far from it.  But I do award extra bonus points for
originality.

NB: There is a US collection of Smith's stories under the same title.
However, that version is a complete collection of Smith's stories.  This
one is not.

Cordwainer Smith was a pseudonym for Paul Linebarger.

%A Smith, Cordwainer
%T The Rediscover of Man
%I Millennium/Orion
%D 1999 (original publication 1975)
%G ISBN 1-85798-819-1
%P 377 pp.
%O trade paperback, £6.99

Reviewed on 1999-09-25

Aaron M. Renn ([email-masked]) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/