Where to start with Cordwainer Smith? I was all ready to gush for pages
about one of my favorite SF authors--and then I realized that nothing I
could say would capture his uniqueness and splendor. Perhaps more than
anything, this: Smith comes closer to writing genuine myth than any
modern author, SF or mainstream, that I have encountered. Vague ideas
like the Instrumentality, simply because they are vague, seem to
penetrate directly into our subconscious, like archetypes of authority,
remoteness, omnipresence. Somehow the less he tells us, the more
monumental things seem--as when we learn the name of Alice More only at
the end of the story "Under Old Earth". No matter what the story, we
always get a sense of great forces battling each other--and although
there are often good guys and bad guys, they are not, as in space opera,
simply beings with white hats and black hats. Their moral dimensions
seem essential to them, not an authorial convenience to get a plot
going. And what wonderful titles! "Golden the Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"The Dead Lady of Clown Town," "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," "Scanners Live
in Vain," "Think Blue, Count Two." I'm afraid I haven't been very
eloquent here; Smith always leaves me gasping. Just read him!!!
Peter Goldstein
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