The Rediscovery of Man

Cordwainer Smith

1976

Imagine a sweep of history that takes you over a period of ten thousand years and an unknowable number of light years.

That’s what you get in this unusual collection of short stories detailing the development of Cordwainer Smith’s Instrumentality of Mankind universe, from the reclaiming of Earth after the wars that had destroyed all the old nations except China.

Written over a period of about sixteen years, the stories show Smith’s fascination with the culture of pre Communist China (Smith was god son to Sun Yet Sen - leader of the Nationalist Chinese). As well as using his vast knowledge of the Orient to advise Western governments, Smith used it to inform the background of the Instrumentality. However, it is a background tempered by Smith’s basic humanity – the Instrumentality is not keen on death before dishonour. The Instrumentality does have its own casual disregard for the mass of the people it rules though. The Lords of the Instrumentality are not beyond casually invading people’s minds telepathically or forcing forgetfulness upon them should their actions appear to warrant it.

The Instrumentality is facing a couple of problems though; the Undermen, people built from all sorts of animals into human form, vastly outnumbering True Men and doing the work that the True Men are too comfortable to do. The True Men are dying out having become too comfortable to even bear children. As we read the stories we see what answers the Instrumentality comes up with to cope with both the problems above.

The stories in this collection are arranged in approximate internal consistency,as we no longer have Cordwainer’s original notes.

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Part of the Science Fiction Masterworks series.

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