Talk:Cordwainer Smith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.

An appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article, or the current infobox may need to be updated. Please refer to the list of biography infoboxes for further information.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science Fiction, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on science fiction on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article. Feel free to add your name to the participants list and/or contribute to the discussion.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the importance scale.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Wisconsin, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Wisconsin. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page. If you give this article a rating or change a previous rating, please leave a short summary in the comments to explain the rating and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.

[edit] religion

I have restored the previous version of the Science fiction writing section and placed the new content here. Many strange and unsupported claims were made by anonymous user 161.65.16.253, for example that Linebarger based the Instrumentality on the Episcopalian faith, a faith he converted to when he remarried in 1950 (his second wife was Catholic, and was unable to marry a divorced man and remain a Catholic, so they both converted, him from Protestantism of some stripe, her from the Catholic faith.) Ken 15:06, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

It is valid, I think, to see him as a Christian author. I went to Cordwainersmith.com, the site ran by his daughter, and I don't think she ever disputed that he was Christian or that it influenced his writing. What she disputed, as I recall, was the idea that he was religious when he was younger or even when he wrote Scanners live in Vain. When he did Scanners live in Vain, 1949, he had not married Genevieve so was not even Episcopalian yet. He also did stories from a variety of faith perspectives, including Buddhism, thoughout the 1950s.(The Fife of Boddhidharma being done in 1959) There's also reason to doubt he was loyal to anyone denomination as he seemed to have considered Quakerism, Copticism, and somewhat irreverently asked for Marian intercession in Mexico as it was "her land." Still I think it's fair to say that by the 1960s he was a fairly committed Christian even if he wasn't specific, or humorless, on what kind of Christianity. What I read of the Far Eastern government books I think he was fairly Christian by 1956 as it indicates some fondness for the fact the Taiping in least tried to be Christians. Although that could've been his co-authors doing, in his last years his series gets pretty specifically Christian with On the Storm Planet(written a year before his death) talking about Christianity as the best hope for that future.--T. Anthony 21:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it makes sense, but Ken is right in asking for references, especially as it has been challenged. The Ballantine paperback mentioned in the unattributed comment below would be appropriate. - BanyanTree 22:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see some references for these assertions before they are re-inserted into the main article. Ken 15:06, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Part of it was a loose and sloppy paraphrase of the introduction to the old Ballantine paperback "The Best of Cordwainer Smith", by J.J. Pierce.

[edit] Science fiction writing

Linebarger's stories are strange even by the standards of science fiction, sometimes written in narrative styles closer to traditional Chinese stories than to most English-language fiction. His science fiction is relatively small in volume, due to his time-consuming profession (he worked in the intelligence community, and as a college professor), and his early death. Rather than a full fledged cycle like Dune, Smith's writings consist of only one novel, originally published in two volumes in edited form as The Planet Buyer, a.k.a. The Boy Who Bought Old Earth, (1964) and The Underpeople (1968), later restored to its original form as Norstrilia (1975); and around 30 short stories (gathered in The Rediscovery of Man and other collections), together suggesting a rich universe, but leaving much to be guessed by the reader. The cultural links to China were partially expressed in the Felix C. Forrest pseudonym, as the ideograms for "Linebarger" in Chinese roughly translate as "Forest of Incandescent Bliss".

You seem to have forgotten about Atomsk in your list of novels. --maru (talk) Contribs 22:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It's mentioned in the lead, but is not described as science fiction. - BanyanTree 22:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

As an expert in psychological warfare, Linebarger was very interested in the then-newly developing fields of psychology and psychiatry and inserted many of their ideas into his fiction. Also, his fiction often has religious overtones or motifs, in particular in characters who have no control of their actions. This has led to suggestions that Linebarger was personally religious, which are refuted by Linebarger's daughter. Regardless, Linebarger's works are sometimes included in analyses of Christianity in fiction, along with the works of authors such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The bulk of his stories are set some 14,000 years in the future, starting on Earth. The Instrumentality of Mankind rules the planet and any planet later inhabited by humanity. The Instrumentality is derived as a concept from the Episcopalian faith, where they are elders who cannot be questioned, while holding themselves accountable. The Instrumentality describes itself as The Oldest Servant of Mankind, and concerns itslef with ruthelessly enforcing happiness. The brutal lessons of past wars (the era of the Manshonyagger, as described obliquely in War No. 81-Q, a mispronunciation of Menschenjaeger, the german form man hunter, today best described as being like James Cameron's Terminator robots in the films of the same name), and the ruin of the old civilisation have forced them to prevent the possiblity of war by nipping it in the bud - no money, free food, perfect health, a set lifespan of 400 years; However, news, gossip and free thought ar expressly forbidden, happiness is assured, and by the era of D'Joan (The Dead Lady of Clown Town), full humans were already genetically programmed, and were prcatically slaves of the same form as the Underpeople that they despised universally. Christianity is forbidden for the same reason : the prevention of war. the Trinity are described in secret as The First Forbidden One, The Second Forbidden One and the Third Forbidden One, and ironically the last faihful are the Underpeople themselves. Revelation of God ha come back to meta-humankind in the most unusual manner - the revelation of a Rat, Robot and revived ancient Coptic Christian.

The Instrumentality has a rival, the Bright Empire, who despite their name, are practically a mirror image of themselves - Linebarger's comment on the Cold War, explored in A Planet named Shayol, and Golden the Ship Was, Oh, Oh, Oh

Colonisation, in echo of James Blish's pantropy stories, has modified humans against their will to different planetary environments. True humans are only so if born on Old Earth. All others are hominids, even those who are born on Old Earth (the Lord Jestocost, 72nd descendant of the Lady Goroke, is described as a hominid in the Ballad of C'Mell, thanks to his 72nd grandmother having come from III Delta Pavonis, rather than Old Earth)

The Instrumentality attempts to revive old cultures and languages in a process known as the Rediscovery of Man. The Lady Alice More, together with the Lord Jestocost is responsible for this movement. Further, the Lady Alice More was made a Lord of the Instrumentality after witnessing an act of extreme barbarism brought about by the hoplessness of the enforced utopia, and here strong will was not unnaturally harnessed to prevent further incidents of this nature (as told in Under Old Earth, were the concept of the fun-death has entered the society, a comment on hippy culture when without any form of expression, could have become self-destructive)

This rediscovery can be seen either as the initial period when humankind emerges from a mundane utopia and the nonhuman underpeople gain freedom from slavery, or as a continuing process begun by the Instrumentality, encompassing the whole cycle, where mankind is constantly at risk of falling back to its bad, old ways.

Linebarger's stories feature strange and vivid creations, such as:

• Planet Norstrilia, a semi-arid planet where an immortality drug is harvested from gigantic (over one hundred tons) virus-infected sheep (see the worms of Arrakis and melange for similar concepts).
• The punishment world of Shayol (cf. Sheol), where criminals are punished by the regrowth and harvesting of their organs for transplanting.
• Technologies associated with spacetravel that are all highly unpleasant, before the age of planoforming : adiabatic pods to be towed behind solar sail-ships; Scunning, where human beings are disassembled, put into suspended animation by pickling and re-assembled at their destination.
• Planoforming spacecraft crewed by humans telepathically linked with cats which defend against the attacks of unknown malevolent entities in space with the flash of small atomic weapons (these entities are perceived by humans as dragons, and by cats as gigantic rats).
• The Underpeople, animals modified during gestation into human form to fulfill servile roles, and treated as property. Several stories feature clandestine efforts to liberate the underpeople and grant them equal rights to humans. They are seen everywhere throughout regions controlled by the Instrumentality.
• Habermen and their supervisors, Scanners, whose spinal cords have been cut to block the "pain of space", and who perceive only by vision and various life-support implants. Other modes of perception can be temporarily restored to scanners by "cranching".

[edit] Name of article

I have reverted User:BanyanTree's move on July 17 of this article from Cordwainer Smith to Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger. Wikipedia policy is to use common names, and there is no doubt that Cordwainer Smith is far more common than Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, by an entire order of magnitude, as the following Google hits attest:

• "Cordwainer Smith" - 34,500
• "Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger" - 1190
• "Paul Linebarger" - 673

A comparable case is Mark Twain; the article is at Mark Twain, not Samuel Clemens. Most pages linking here are also going to link to Cordwainer Smith, not Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger.

—Lowellian (talk) 03:48, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I concur. For another example, see James Tiptree, Jr; another science fiction author who published under a pen name and whose true identity was hidden for the majority of her career. grendel|khan 13:58, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

This is more of a comment, but Linebarger is quite clearly notable outside of science fiction while, looking at her article, it doesn't appear that Tiptree is. Similarly, Twain was the persona by which the world knew Clemens, while Linebarger was prominent in addition to, and not because, of Smith. It may just be me, but I find Linebarger the person to be much more interesting that Smith the writer, or at least what little I remember of his short stories is much more interesting when you look at the person. That said, I am not particularly fussed either way. BTW, a list of fiction would be useful if anyone is feeling motivated... Cheers, BanyanTree 16:28, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Whether Linebarger is more "interesting" as Linebarger or Smith is subjective, and furthermore, irrelevant to titling the page. Linebarger was notable as Linebarger, but he was more notable and well-known as Smith. Under Wikipedia's naming conventions, that's what matters as far as the Wikipedia title is concerned. —Lowellian (talk) 05:08, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

His case is unusual though because there are people who are more interested in Linebarger then in Cordwainer. My University has, I think, three books on Linebarger but I'm not sure they have any by Cordwainer. Kind of an odd case. I'm tempted to suggest a segment for his work as Linebarger or maybe an expansion from the section that just lists his non-fiction works.--T. Anthony 23:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orson Scott Card reference

I've removed the following here for discussion. I honestly don't see the relevance to Cordwainer Smith. Scott has never claimed Smith's Shayol as an influence in A Planet Called Treason, and without that I don't see that it's a relevant link.

• The punishment world of Shayol (cf. Sheol), where criminals are punished by the regrowth and harvesting of their organs for transplanting (see also A Planet Called Treason by Orson Scott Card).

Ken ^{talk|contribs} 03:42, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Related to this, I removed a link referencing Robert Jordan's Shayol Ghul as well. Unless such references can be attributed to Cordwainer, rather than Sheol, they should not go here. - BanyanTree 02:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Kirk Allen story

I added a brief paragraph about recent articles suggesting that Linebarger was a prototype for psychologist Robert Lindner's famous fantasy-prone personality. I think it would be a mistake to turn this into a major focus of the article on Linebarger since it's all still pretty speculative. It would only serve to distract from the very real achievements of Linebarger as a writer, scholar and patriot. Further comment on Kirk Allen properly belongs in an article on Lindner, who has not yet, alas, been wikified.--dking, 05 April 2006

I think you have put this topic in exactly the right proportion, dking.

On the one hand, the idea that Linebarger was "Kirk Allen" (or a large part of a composite "Allen") is extremely plausible, seems to explain much that is so interesting about Linebarger's science fiction, and therefore has been of great interest to the author's fans for at least forty years. The theory unquestionably deserves mention in this article.

But on the other hand, pending confirmation from the estates of Linebarger or Lindner (not likely to come from either), the story remains mere speculation. Even if we had confirmation, Lindner's account is clearly fictionalized to a large degree. Without knowing what parts have been changed to protect Linebarger's identity (or for other reasons), it would be irresponsible and sensationalistic to go into a big summary of the early sex life and subsequent mental problems of "Kirk Allen" here.

But I do have some reservations about your lead-in: "Lee Weinstein and Alan Elms have proposed that Linebarger was a prototype for 'Kirk Allen'". Firstly, without real links or at least occupational epithets, Weinstein and Elms are just names without authority, not much better than "Some have proposed." Secondly, the phrase (and the footnote dating Weinstein's paper to 2001) is likelly to mislead many readers into thinking Weinstein and Elms originated the theory, and recently, when in fact the rumor has been current among science fiction fans since at least the 1960s. I will shortly do a minor edit to deal with these small problems.

LATER: Done and done. 66.241.73.241 10:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cause of Death

The article mentions several times that he died young, but not once mentions the cause of death. What did he die of? ~IMP - 5/12/06

[edit] Links to Story/Novel Pages

I noticed that the numerous Wikipedia pages on Smith's individual stories aren't linked to this one. This urgently needs to be done so that they aren't free-floating. --Varenius 03:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Now done. I took the story list from The Rediscovery of Man page, stripping off a few unlinked and lesser-known stories to reduce length. Now we just need to work on those story pages! --Varenius 03:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. - BT 13:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese characters

An anon who made otherwise good edits took out the Chinese characters 林白楽 for Smith's name. These are taken from the Japanese wiki version, who I imagine would have a better idea. The characters given are, roughly, wood-white-joy, which seem to fit. I have readded the characters. - BT 14:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible coining of the computer term "Instant Message"

On page 95 in chapter eight of the 1975 Pyramid Books paperback edition of "The Planet Buyer" originally published in 1964, appears:

"How much money have I got?" said Rod

Angry John Fisher cut in: "So much that the computers are clotted up, just counting it. About one and a half stroon years. Perhaps three hundred years of Old Earth total income. You sent more Instant Messages last night than the Commonwealth government itself has sent in the last twelve years. These messages are expensive. One kilocredit FOE money."

Is this a possible first appearance of the term "instant message"? K8 fan 06:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe. On the other hand, one can find earlier similar phrases like "There is no time for the modern motorist to read even the briefest of words, hence the age of the instant message." in The Private Library. --Gwern (contribs) 00:34 16 July 2007 (GMT)

In Norstrilia, an "instant message" is an interplanetary hyperspace communication which is fabulously expensive (and which few private individuals other than the inhabitants of Norstrilia could ever hope to afford to send). Not much in common with the current computing concept... AnonMoos 03:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Anthony Lewis (Upcoming events, back page Analog) used ARRBlvd as a fanzine title for many years. The Instant Message, IIRC, was one of his ways of both referencing/Honoring CS, and may have spread the use farther through-out fandom. Sean —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.189.135.36 (talk) 02:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CS inventions

He also invented bird and mouse brained robots, and cats (lost c'mel, dead lady of clown town, etc) used as attack partners or part of an attack system (game of cat and dragon) Sean —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.189.135.36 (talk) 02:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neologisms and manshonyaggers

I'm trying to figure out what to do with the sixth bullet under "Science fiction writing":

Early works in the timeline include neologisms such as manshonyagger which are not explained to any great extent, but serve to produce an atmosphere of strangeness. These words are usually derived from corruptions non-English words. For instance, manshonyagger resembles the German words "menschen" meaning, in some senses, "men" or "mankind", and "jaeger", meaning a hunter. Manshonyaggers roam the wild lands between the walled cities, suggesting that they are creatures or machines designed to hunt humans.

The difficulty is that "manshonyagger" is not the best example of an unexplained neologism: the story "Mark Elf" explains the manshonyaggers pretty thoroughly, discussing the name's etymology, describing what they look like, making it clear that they're machines rather than creatures and even getting into their specific programmed purpose. "Mark Elf" is from 1957, according to this; I can think of one other story, "The Queen of the Afternoon," that mentions manshonyaggers in slightly less detail--but that's a later story. So hmmm. Even if there's a pre-1957 story that uses the word (and I can't think of one), and even if that story is vague as to description and etymology as suggested in the bullet . . . well, even then a bit of revision's probably called for. Or am I not getting something? Iralith (talk) 23:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, OK, I see. They're mentioned in "Scanners Live in Vain" (as "Manshonjaggers") much more vaguely--that's an earlier-published story than "Mark Elf," so it is indeed the case that our first encounter with them is strange, unexplained, etc. I'm still trying to figure out if there's a clearer way to put things in that bullet. For one thing, "in the timeline" isn't quite right--"Scanners Live in Vain" is an older story, but "Mark Elf" is earlier "in the timeline" of the shared Instrumentality universe. Iralith (talk) 00:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)