By the time I finished the four short stories contained in that book, I was a Cordwainer Smith fan for life. It was to be one of the best discoveries of my reading life. It was 15 years ago, while rifling through the shelves of a second-hand bookstore – on to be exact – that I stumbled upon a much-read copy of a book called Space Lords by an author called Cordwainer Smith, with the description above jumping up at me in big bold letters from the back cover. Where living weapons guard the most important secret-the secret of immortality.Ī universe ruled by an omnipotent elite known to men as the Lords of the Instrumentality. Where men ‘built’ from animals labor for mankind-and plot in secret.
these stories rank among the finest of all time.Take a trip 40,000 years into the future to the weird and wonderful universe of Cordwainer Smith.Ī universe where giant planoforming ships ply the spacelanes. these stories rank among the finest of all time."- Publishers Weekly "If literary historians of the future make of Cordwainer Smith another Tolkien, it will not be too surprising." - Theodore Sturgeon a truly unforgettable writer." - David Brin
a great, exploratory science fiction author. Cordwainer Smith is timeless." - Terry Pratchett And he made us believe they could be real."- Frederik Pohl A unique vision of the future by one of the most honored and original writers in science fiction. Together for the first time in one volume-the classic novel Norstrilia, plus the other stories of the Underpeople's struggle for freedom. Its inhabitants were wealthy beyond comprehension, and one of them, a boy named Rod McBan, with the help of his computer, had manipulated the galactic economy until he completely owned the planet Earth-which made him much too dangerous a person to be permitted to live.īut when Rod came to Earth and joined forces with C'Mell and a rebellious Lord of the Instrumentality, the petrified utopia of the Instrumentality began to crack and fall apart as freedom was reborn in the galaxy. But they had become more humanlike than their decadent creators, and their leader, the cat woman C'Mell, had a plan for gaining their freedom-which made her much too dangerous a person to be permitted to live.Įlsewhere in the galaxy, the planet Norstrilia had power of its own, for it was the only source of stroon, the drug which arrested aging and made humans immortal. The Underpeople, humanlike beings created from animals to do the work of utopia, had no rights, and could be disposed of at the whim of a human. In a far-flung future, planoforming ships knit together a galaxy ruled from Earth by the ruthless benevolence of the mysterious Lords of the Instrumentality, who presided over a utopia without disease, danger-or freedom.
THE SUFFOCATING BENEVOLENCE OF THE INSTRUMENTALITY
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