Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons, by Cordwainer Smith
Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:26 pm
If you have never read a Cordwainer Smith story before, you I recommend that you find a few and give them a try. Cordwainer Smith was, IMHO, a great writer of short stories and its a shame that he died in relative obscurity. He was a professor of international affairs and worked for the CIA. He was also the godson of Sun Yat-sen and a close confidant to Chang Kai-shek. In his later years he was a very accomplished author on the topic of psychological warfare and was an intelligence operative who worked in Australia and China. As interesting as Smith's (real name: Paul Linebarger) real life was, his fiction is amazing, though I have noticed that people either love him or cannot stand him. Though I dont know very much about the topic, I have been shown a lot of elements of traditional Chinese narrative that run through his stories.
Here is one of his short stories. Its set in the Instrumentality of Mankind Universe that Smith wrote, I think, all of his stories in. This story is a set up to his so-so (only) novel, Norstrilia, and its about madness. If you have not read my review of this book yet, go give it a shot now. This book is startlingly similar in its set up to Dune.
Here is one of his short stories. Its set in the Instrumentality of Mankind Universe that Smith wrote, I think, all of his stories in. This story is a set up to his so-so (only) novel, Norstrilia, and its about madness. If you have not read my review of this book yet, go give it a shot now. This book is startlingly similar in its set up to Dune.