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Amazon.co.uk Review
The unusual mythic quality of Cordwainer Smith's extraordinary future comes partly from his upbringing in China and love of Oriental literature. His tales of far tomorrow are told as ancient legends which everyone finds familiar, but not completely: "You already know the end ... But you do not know the beginning." This Millennium SF Masterworks collection opens with Smith's remarkable 1950 debut story "Scanners Live in Vain" and continues with tales of the Instrumentality of Mankind, near-immortal overlords who wield the terrible power of Imperial Inquisitors in old China. Cats appear frequently: as essential fighters against space-borne horrors in "The Game of Rat and Dragon", subjected to forced evolution in "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", uplifted (like other animals) to human shape as human's slaves in "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" and other haunting tales of these "underpeople". The stories throb with crazy rhythms and dangerous music, notably the very strange "Under Old Earth"; Joan of Arc's fate is echoed in "The Dead Lady of Clown Town"; one of the weirdest Hells ever imagined--the Instrumentality's ultimate punishment--comes nightmarishly alive in "A Planet Named Shayol". There are further stories with memorably poetic titles, promising a rich strangeness which Smith always delivers. --David Langford
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Welcome to the strangest, most distinctive future ever imagined by a science fiction writer. An insterstellar empire ruled by the mysterious Lords of the Instrumentality, whose access to the drug stroon from the planet Norstrilia confers on them virtual immortality. A world in which wealthy and leisured humanity is served by the underpeople, genetically engineered animals turned into the semblance of people. A world in which the great ships which sail between the stars are eventually supplanted by the mysterious, instantaneous technique of planoforming. A world of wonder and myth, and extraordinary imagination.
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The unusual mythic quality of Cordwainer Smith's extraordinary future comes partly from his upbringing in China and love of Oriental literature. His tales of far tomorrow are told as ancient legends which everyone finds familiar, but not completely: "You already know the end ... But you do not know the beginning." This Millennium SF Masterworks collection opens with Smith's remarkable 1950 debut story "Scanners Live in Vain" and continues with tales of the Instrumentality of Mankind, near-immortal overlords who wield the terrible power of Imperial Inquisitors in old China. Cats appear frequently: as essential fighters against space-borne horrors in "The Game of Rat and Dragon", subjected to forced evolution in "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", uplifted (like other animals) to human shape as human's slaves in "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" and other haunting tales of these "underpeople". The stories throb with crazy rhythms and dangerous music, notably the very strange "Under Old Earth"; Joan of Arc's fate is echoed in "The Dead Lady of Clown Town"; one of the weirdest Hells ever imagined--the Instrumentality's ultimate punishment--comes nightmarishly alive in "A Planet Named Shayol". There are further stories with memorably poetic titles, promising a rich strangeness which Smith always delivers. --David Langford
Product Description
Welcome to the strangest, most distinctive future ever imagined by a science fiction writer. An insterstellar empire ruled by the mysterious Lords of the Instrumentality, whose access to the drug stroon from the planet Norstrilia confers on them virtual immortality. A world in which wealthy and leisured humanity is served by the underpeople, genetically engineered animals turned into the semblance of people. A world in which the great ships which sail between the stars are eventually supplanted by the mysterious, instantaneous technique of planoforming. A world of wonder and myth, and extraordinary imagination.
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