When you think of the science fiction of the 1950s, you probably think of the great genre grandmasters: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein. But there was another author writing during this time period whose works are undergoing a recent rediscovery–Cordwainer Smith. Smith wasn’t a prolific author; he only wrote about two dozen short stories and a single novel over the course of a decade. But his works have a unique quality and lasting resonance that distinguishes them from anyone writing then–or, for that matter, today.
Almost all of Smith’s stories are set in a shared universe known as the Instrumentality of Mankind. Despite the stories being set in a “shared” universe, most are set hundreds, if not thousands of years apart; the entire cycle spans tens of thousands of years. The Instrumentality is a semi-governing body responsible for guiding mankind’s evolution and preserving his, well, humanity, in the face of this transgenic, intergalactic, post-post-modern future.
One of the Instrumentality’s major initiatives is the Rediscovery of Mankind, a sociological/archeological program that unearths and reimplements ancient cultures and languages to fight the stagnating effects of a post-scarcity economy–the “nightmare of perfection.” Smith grew up overseas and was stationed in Asia for several years during his time in the military; it’s possible that this international background is part of what gives his works an unusual cultural awareness for the normally white bread 1950s.
The stories are packed with feverish detail, and no two stories share the same insanities. “Scanners Live in Vain,” perhaps his most famous story, tells of the first interstellar pilots, men who have surgically removed their emotions and feelings to survive the crushing madness that lies between the stars. “The Game of Rat and Dragon” tells of starships co-piloted by genetically engineered cats, the only creatures with the reflexes to defend against the unknowable creatures inhabiting the higher dimensions of hyperspace. “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” describes the failed revolution of D’joan, forgotten dog-girl martyr of the uplifted animal underpeople. “Drunkboat” tells of a pilot who went mad in hyperspace and whose mind cannot readjust to three dimensions. “A Planet Named Shayol” tells of a prison world where drugged, deformed prisoners are used to grow extra limbs and organs for the utopian Instrumentality beyond.
All of these stories take place in the same universe, a universe with so much history forgotten and remembered and reforgotten that our own era is known as the Second Ancient Days–rediscovered, as they were, after the First Ancient Days (those date to around 12,000 A.D.). Each story hints at the thousands of years of backstory that came before it, but none stop or stoop to explain this context.
What gives these stories their strongest staying power, however, is their lancing moral clarity; Smith converted to Christianity late in life, and this spiritual rebirth infused his later stories with a sometimes harrowing spirituality–sometimes Christian, sometimes non-denominational. Take this passage from “The Dead Lady of Clown Town,” when the awakened D’Joan addresses the fearful animal underpeople for the first time:
Said little Joan, “I bring you life-with. It’s more than love. Love’s a hard, sad, dirty word, a cold word, an old word. It says too much and it promises too little. I bring you something much bigger than love. If you’re alive, you’re alive. If you’re alive-with, then you know the other life is there too–both of you, any of you, all of you. Don’t do anything. Don’t grab, don’t clench, don’t possess. Just be. That’s the weapon. There’s not a flame or a gun or a poison that can stop it.”
“I want to believe you,” said Mabel, “but I don’t know how to.”
“Don’t believe me,” said little Joan. “Just wait and let things happen. Let me through, good people. I have to sleep for a while. Elaine will watch me while I sleep and when I get up, I will tell you why you are underpeople no longer.”
Or this passage, from “A Planet Called Shayol,” when a deformed prisoner, freed from his centuries of torture, demands retribution against his jailer:
“The doctor has been cured and his memories of this erased, so that he need have no shame or grief for what he has done.”
“It’s unfair!” cried the half-man. “He should be punished as we were!”
The Lady Johanna Gnade looked down at him. “Punishment is ended. We will give you anything you wish, but not the pain of another.”
Or the rambling revelations of “Drunkboat”’s hyperspace-addled captain:
“What I found in space-three…this is what I now remember. Maybe it’s a dream, but it’s all I have…I was a boat where all the lost spaceships lay ruined and still. Seahorses which were not real ran beside me. The summer months came and hammered down the sun. I went past archipelagoes of stars, where the delirious skies opened up for wanderers. I cried for me. I wept for man. I wanted to be the drunkboat sinking. I sank… I heard phosphorescence singing and tides that seemed like crazy cattle clawing their way out of the ocean, their hooves beating the reefs. You will not believe me, but I found Floridas wilder than this, where the flowers had human skins and eyes like big cats… I can’t forget the pride of unremembered flags, the arrogance of prisons which I suspected, the swimming of the businessmen! ”
“What I did, I did not do. What I did not do, I cannot tell. Let me go, because I am tired of you and space, big men and big things.”
Smith’s stories have an inexplicable surety that reinforces their apparent simplicity. His future history is heavy with the ghosts of forgotten tales, but the ones we have are strong enough to carry the weight of the universe.
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