Cordwainer Smith, the pen name of Paul Linebarger, wrote distinctive science fiction set largely within the far-future Instrumentality of Mankind. Stories such as Scanners Live in Vain, The Ballad of Lost C'Mell and The Game of Rat and Dragon combine space travel, engineered animals, telepathy and strange bureaucratic institutions with a narrative voice that can resemble myth or legend. Norstrilia, his only novel, follows a young man from an immensely wealthy planet whose society preserves archaic customs while controlling a substance that extends life. Smith's fiction is imaginative, compressed and unlike most mid-century technological SF, with invented history and emotional fable often more important than scientific explanation. His work fits classic science fiction, future history and literary space opera. Read more Less
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