Status
Available
Series
Collection
Publication
Phoenix Pick (2014), 290 pages
Description
The discovery of stroon, a drug that confers near immortality on humans, has made Old North Australia rich. So rich that when Rod McBan has to flee the planet because someone wants him dead, he buys the Earth. His picaresque adventures on Old Earth offer an exuberant, eccentric and wildly imaginative vision of the universe - a vision like no other.
User reviews
LibraryThing member baswood
Cordwainer Smith (not his real name is an interesting author writing in the sci-fi genre. He wrote a series of short stories and Norstrilia his only novel. When he was not writing sci-fi he was a member of the Foreign Policy association and professor of Asiatic Politics at John Hopkins University.
He had a fantastic imagination and his stories mostly written in the late 1950's and early 1960's are a delight. No hard science here just pure 50's sci-fi, mostly well written and featuring a cast of brilliant characters. For those that are familiar with the short stories then this novel which is set in the distant future will provide another good read. The Lords of the Instrumentality, C'mell the girlygirl catwoman. the go-captains, Mother Hittons Littul Kittons (a defence system) and the underpeople all feature. What more do you want?
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he is well thought of in the sci- fi fraternity with his short stories and Nostrilia both considered as classics in the field.He had a fantastic imagination and his stories mostly written in the late 1950's and early 1960's are a delight. No hard science here just pure 50's sci-fi, mostly well written and featuring a cast of brilliant characters. For those that are familiar with the short stories then this novel which is set in the distant future will provide another good read. The Lords of the Instrumentality, C'mell the girlygirl catwoman. the go-captains, Mother Hittons Littul Kittons (a defence system) and the underpeople all feature. What more do you want?
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LibraryThing member recon77
What an absolutely delightful science fiction novel. Smith is one of the best. Like Lewis only much more interesting as far as the science part.
LibraryThing member clong
This is the only full length novel published by Smith, and after reading this you can understand why. As a full length novel Norstrilia is only marginally successful. It's more a series of related short vignettes, that move along in jumps and starts (indeed two were previously published as short
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stories). There is little sense of structure (although the very ending brings us back to where we started, providing a rather effective as a denoument). The dialogue tends to be stilted, and the descriptive prose is nothing to write home about. So why read it? Smith is an amazingly inventive author, who describes myth-making galaxy changing events that no other author could have conceived. Norstrilia, like virtually all of Smith's fiction, is part of the "Instrumentality of Mankind" storyline, recounting important actions by characters who play key roles in the evolution of that fascinating tale of our future. Show Less
LibraryThing member TadAD
The first half of this book, originally published as The Planet Buyer, was very good. The second half, originally published as The Underpeople, just didn't work as well for me. I was pretty bored through most of it.
LibraryThing member JohnFair
Although it does occasionally show some signs of age, this book is set so far in the future that hardly matters. Apart from that, it is so lyrical in its tone that you hardly care about the fairly limited plot, if you look at it from a completely objective point of view. Cordwainer Smith is another
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'forgotten' writer from the early sixties, though this mainly because he was not primarily a writer but, as Paul Linebarger, spent much of his time in the far east in various posts interacting with the Korean and Chinese governments. Norstrilia is his only novel but the Instrumentality of Man provides the background to quite a few short stories (some of which are collected in 'The Rediscovery of Man) and it's Linebarger's Far Eastern experience that informed that background. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Seiun Award (Nominee — 1988)
Locus All-Time Best (Science Fiction Novel — 46 — 1998)
Language
Original language
English