Atomsk (novel)

First edition
(publ. Duell, Sloan and Pearce)

Atomsk, first published in 1949, is a Cold War spy novel by "Carmichael Smith", one of several pseudonyms used by Paul Linebarger, who wrote fiction most prolifically as Cordwainer Smith. Written two years after Winston Churchill's Sinews of Peace address, Atomsk is the first espionage novel of the Cold War, inaugurating a genre exemplified by such writers as Ian Fleming and John Le Carré.[1] [2]

Linebarger's third published novel, it has long been out of print. Paper copies regularly command figures in the hundreds of U.S. dollars in the second-hand market, even though it is also available as an inexpensive e-book.[3]

As well as drawing on Linebarger's own expertise in the field of psychological warfare, it is a study of the personality of a U.S. operative (Major Michael Dugan) who has little in common with James Bond except his extreme resourcefulness under cover and in danger. A man of many identities who sees himself to some extent as a blank sheet, he goes from calling himself "Comrade Nobody" to saying "I'm anybody". The novel also has an underlying, albeit devious and ambiguous, message of peace. As one character says, learning to like people is "the only way to win wars, or even better, to get out of them."

  1. ↑ Cawelti, John G., and Bruce A. Rosenberg (1987). The Spy Story. University of Chicago Press.
  2. ↑ Woods, Brett F. (2008). Neutral Ground: A Political History of Espionage Fiction. Algora Publishing.
  3. ↑ "Atomsk, by Carmichael Smith". cordwainer-smith.com. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
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