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Cordwainer Smith
Jan. 7th, 2007 12:10 pm(pseud. of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger) was a science fiction writer of the 1950s and 1960s. Smith's work has a particular flavor that isn't quite surreal... for instance, most of the "science" in his stories is bizarre, but he didn't write "science fantasy" as I understand the term.
In the majority of Smith's stories, collected in The Instrumentality of Man:
Space travel is inherently toxic but the effect can be warded off by packing a double-walled hull with small critters such as fish, who will die instead of the other occupants.
The richest planet in the universe is the richest planet because its inhabitants harvest a virus that grows on/in sheep, which can be refined to produce a drug that confers "immortality." The planet, Norstrillia, maintains its social system by imposing a millionfold tax on imports.
A race of alien architects called the Daimoni can build anything, including an exact replica of the Temple of Diana at Ephesos that cannot be seen by the unaided human eye, and buildings that are completely invulnerable, even to weapons of spacefaring civilizations.
Humans horribly bungle first contact with an avian race called the Apicians because an accidental fire roasts the Apician representatives, who smell so good that the humans atavistically eat them. That story ends, "The matter was closed, the napkins were folded. Trade and diplomacy were at an end."
Roger Zelazny wrote about bizarre things in a tone that veered between poetic and hard-boiled. Smith wrote about equally bizarre things in a tone that was completely matter-of-fact. And I haven't even talked about the major recurring motifs. Smith did exoticism better than any three other SF writers.
(I had to post *something*)
In the majority of Smith's stories, collected in The Instrumentality of Man:
Space travel is inherently toxic but the effect can be warded off by packing a double-walled hull with small critters such as fish, who will die instead of the other occupants.
The richest planet in the universe is the richest planet because its inhabitants harvest a virus that grows on/in sheep, which can be refined to produce a drug that confers "immortality." The planet, Norstrillia, maintains its social system by imposing a millionfold tax on imports.
A race of alien architects called the Daimoni can build anything, including an exact replica of the Temple of Diana at Ephesos that cannot be seen by the unaided human eye, and buildings that are completely invulnerable, even to weapons of spacefaring civilizations.
Humans horribly bungle first contact with an avian race called the Apicians because an accidental fire roasts the Apician representatives, who smell so good that the humans atavistically eat them. That story ends, "The matter was closed, the napkins were folded. Trade and diplomacy were at an end."
Roger Zelazny wrote about bizarre things in a tone that veered between poetic and hard-boiled. Smith wrote about equally bizarre things in a tone that was completely matter-of-fact. And I haven't even talked about the major recurring motifs. Smith did exoticism better than any three other SF writers.
(I had to post *something*)
