- Gebundene Ausgabe: 671 Seiten
- Verlag: Nesfa Press (September 1993)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0915368560
- ISBN-13: 978-0915368563
- Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 5.0 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (25 Kundenrezensionen)
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 331.582 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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The third story in this volume takes place 16,000 years in the future. When you realize that the 33 stories are ordered chronologically, you begin to grasp the scale of Cordwainer Smith's creation. Regimes, technologies, planets, moralities, religions, histories all rise and fall through his millennia.
These are futuristic tales told as myth, as legend, as a history of a distant and decayed past. Written in an unadorned voice reminiscent of James Tiptree Jr., Smith's visions are dark and pessimistic, clearly a contrast from the mood of SF in his time; in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s it was still thought that science would cure the ills of humanity. In Smith's tales, space travel takes a horrendous toll on those who pilot the ships through the void. After reaching perfection, the lack of strife stifles humanity to a point of decay and stagnation; the Instrumentality of Mankind arises in order to stir things up. Many stories describe moral dilemmas involving the humanity of the Underpeople, beings evolved from animals into humanlike forms.
Stories not to be missed in this collection include "Scanners Live in Vain," "The Dead Lady of Clown Town," "Under Old Earth," "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal," "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons," and the truly disturbing "A Planet Called Shayol." Serious SF fans should not pass up the chance to experience Cordwainer Smith's complex, distinctive vision of the far future. --Bonnie Bouman
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Von John Hobson
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Like everyone else who has commented here, I love Cordwainer Smith. I first started reading him when I was about 12 -- it was "The Dead Lady of Clown Town". For the first time, I realised that it was possible to fuse poetry and prose and tell a great story. I eagerly read everything else of his I could lay my hands on, just for the sheer beauty of the writing. Later, when I got older, I discovered the philosophical ideas behind the stories, and grew to admire them even more.
When I spotted "The Rediscovery of Man" in my local bookstore, I immediately snatched it off the shelf, afraid that some other fan of great writing would grab it first.
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Von Ein Kunde
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
A few years ago I encountered, in an undistinguished anthology of Year's Best Something-Or-Other, a short science fiction story called "The Ballad of Lost C'mell." Love at first sight. I ransacked used book stores, the crowded shelves and dusty boxes of my house, and even libraries to find more short stories written by this miraculous Cordwainer Smith. I managed to assemble eight or nine, all from various anthologies, before my parents took pity on me and gave me "The Rediscovery of Man" for my birthday. Smith's writing is so good, it's intoxicating: you put down his writing with your head full of fantastic images, from underpeople toiling away in the mysterious corridors of Downdeep-downdeep, to star sailors riding the interstellar winds, the indescribable poetry of Space-3 and the strange futile lives of the Scanners. In my eyes Cordwainer Smith has only one fault-he died too soon! How dare he leave such a colorful, complicated, weird and wild future universe unfinished? Fortunately he left these stories, and if you have not already read them, I suggest you waste no further time in discovering the Instrumentality of Mankind and the universe around it. And even if you've read the stories before, read them again. They're just as good the second time around . . . or the fifth . . .or the fortieth . . .
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Von Ray Tracy
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Readers of Cordwainer Smith's work will probably be instantly attracted by titles like "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" and "The Ballad of Lost C'mell". The stories used to arrive on the desk of Frederik Pohl, who along with then wife Judith Merril were editors of any number of Science Fiction magazines. There were generally no titles on them, just instructions on where to send payment should the stories be accepted. Pohl and Merril actually invented the titles, and only years after publishing the seminal stories got to meet Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, the real Cordwainer Smith, a career US Government official on an international book tour. You might also haunt the used book stores for two non-SF novels of his, Ria and Carolla, neither of which have seen the light of day in decades.
I envy those new to Smith: they are in for a mind-expanding experience.
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Von Ein Kunde
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
This is a tough one. Linebarger(aka Smith) could invoke more sense of wonder with two or three lines than most writers achieve in a whole career.
I first read one of his stories thirty years ago and he is still one of my favorite authors. I think one of the greatest disappointments I have ever had as a reader was the day I found out that he was dead. I realized that these stories were the sum total of the windows into that vast and awesome future of the human race that resided in his imagination.
Other men have written of light sailed colony ships that span the stars, genetic engineering that turns animals into ersatz versions of men, planoforming ships that whisper between the stars, "menschenjaggers" that hunt forever, the ultimate abuses of power, and the things men will do to be immortal.
But they have seldom touched the depths of nobleness and good that Linebarger could impart to his characters. D'Joan and the E'Tele'Keli are what I hope will someday be, and that by then the whole human race will someday be worthy of them. Then you realize that they are already here, and that most of us are worthy of them most of the time. If you read some of Linebargers notes you realize where he got these wonderful heroes.
Read the other reviews, if you don't buy the book visit your local used bookstore and find something of his. Try it, maybe you will be one of the select few for whom the windows will open.
Enough trying to convince you to read these stories. I'll let the author speak for himself.
"Goodbye for a while. I am glad to report that I expect to type many hundreds or thousands of pages of stories before I, in my turn, stop. If you have enjoyed this collection, don't tell anyone. Keep it a secret. Go on and enjoy it some more.
... Lesen Sie weiter... ›
Von David N. Reiss
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
It is good to see that the NESFA is keeping the name of Cordwainer Smith alive for future readers of Science Fiction. He was one of the great writers if the golden age and should be remembered in the SF community.
His writing, at its best, was the equal of any of the great writers you could name. Read these stories.
Von Ein Kunde
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I once heard Cordwainer Smith described as "a man who knew his way around in the future so well, it was suspected he must have come from there". And after reading these stories, I have to agree. He writes so casually about the most exotic concepts, he makes you feel that yes, of course this is the way it will be.
The stories here are arranged chronologically, forming a quasi-novel, in the manner of Simak's "City", and adding to the book's charm.
If all books were this good, I'd just curl up in an easy chair, hook up an I.V., and read forever...
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5.0 von 5 Sternen
If you like CS, you may also like...
... "The Void Captain's Tale" by Norman Spinrad, since that also has a singular, offbeat, mythic, feeling.
Veröffentlicht am 8. Oktober 1999 von Tom Gardner (tgg@hpl.hp.com)
5.0 von 5 Sternen
The Greatest writer ever and/or The book that lived forever
Cordwainer Smith was the author the turnd me into a reader. I found the book The Rediscovery of Man on the table and started reading a little of it. I was amazed!!. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 31. August 1999 veröffentlicht
5.0 von 5 Sternen
I'll buy this book for a single story
I've read all his SF stories many times; this book contains "The Queen of the Afternoon", so I have to buy this book just to get that one story. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 18. August 1999 von Tom Gardner (tgg@hpl.hp.com)
5.0 von 5 Sternen
Cordwainer Smith, The best of the old SF writers.
When Heinlin wrote of BEMs, rockets and the need to find men who could memorize binary code to communicate with computers 200 years in the future, Smith(Paul Linebarger) gave us... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 1. August 1999 von Paul Neubauer
5.0 von 5 Sternen
Cordwainer Smith is what Science Fiction is all about
My philosophy is that, if you are going to make the future up, you might as well pull out all the stops and just make it as crazy, mysterious, and as convoluted as possible. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 17. Juli 1999 von M. Miller
5.0 von 5 Sternen
Geniunely unforgettable
I normally prefer to read, and write, hard SF. But Cordwainer Smith's work has rare and precious qualities: the genuine strangeness and genuine unforgettability that is near the... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 16. Juni 1999 von Hal Colebatch
5.0 von 5 Sternen
Is to SF as Tolkien is to Fantasy
"She was a girly-girl and they were True Men, the Lords of Creation. Yet she pitted her wits against them and she won. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 27. April 1999 von W. Gordon
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