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The Rediscovery Of Man

The Rediscovery Of Man

Author: Cordwainer Smith

Practically all of Cordwainer Smithâs fiction belongs within a future history that starts just a few years from now and extends for tens of thousands of years into the future. At the heart of this, and the core of his very best work, was the Instrumentality of Mankind, the body that ruled an elegant, utopian realm that extended across space. But what makes these stories interesting in posthuman terms is the Underpeople. These are genetically enhanced animals, such as the cat-derived CâMell in âThe Ballad of Lost CâMellâ or the dog-derived DâJoan in âThe Dead Lady of Clown Townâ, which are originally treated as slaves, but gradually revolt and win their freedom. By the time we come to the stories set furthest in the future, they are fully integrated into the social order. Why itâs on the list:One of the persistent themes of posthuman fiction is that the future does not belong to humankind. Time and again we are shown that something else will replace man, or at least share the world with our descendants. This may be robots or AIs, or, as here, it may be evolved or enhanced animals. And nobody has shown those enhanced animals with as much elegance and delight as Cordwainer Smith.

Books in Instrumentality Of Mankind Series (7)

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Apart from his spectacular stories, Cordwainer Smith wrote only one novel, Norstrilia, which is also set in the future of the Instrumentality of Mankind, and which is also eminently readable. The hero amasses the biggest fortune in the history of the universe thanks to stroon, a drug that allows people to live extended lifespans. He is so rich that he is rumoured to have bought Old Earth, the legendary home of humanity. Touring Earth in the company of the bewitching cat woman C'Mell, he puts his immense fortune towards campaigning for the rights of the under people.

If you are looking for other distinctive voices in science fiction, you would do well to try the stories of R.A. Lafferty, for instance in Nine Hundred Grandmothers or Does Anyone Else have Something Further to Add? Idiosyncratic, wacky, weird, his stories are funny but unsettling, as if the only way to make sense of what happened is to accept that the world doesn't make sense. In the superb, "Narrow Valley", for instance, an old indian preserves his land from unscrupulous dealers by folding the landscape so the valley can only be seen by those who know it's there. Or in "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne" a group of scientists use a time machine to change the past, but because everything has changed they don't realise it was successful, so they try again, and again.