Rediscovery of Man

Cordwainer Smith (1913 - 1966)Cordwainer Smith was the most famous pen name of US foreign policy adviser Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger. Born in Milwaukee in 1913, his godfather was the Chinese revolutionary and political leader, Sun Yat-sen - the result of his political activist father's close ties with leaders of the Chinese revolution. Smith held a PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins, served in the US military during the Second World War and acted as an adviser to President Kennedy. Although he only published one novel, Norstrilia, Smith is well regarded for his short fiction, the majority of which is set in his future history of the Instrumentality of Mankind.

Read this. Cordwainer Smith is timeless. - Terry Pratchett.Smith's instrumentality is the most complex and lyrical of all future histories, redolent with future antiquity. It is a history of a mankind transformed, oddly convincingly, by a relentless series of changes - war, genetic engineering, interstellar travel, immortality - and Smith's remarkable, rich prose gives shivery hints of a darkly imagined universe extending far beyond the boundaries of the stories. Lush, strange, unique, a treasure. - Stephen Baxter.