"Cordwainer Smith - The Best of Cordwainer Smith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

But even in childhood, his thoughts had turned to fiction-including science fiction. Like many budding
SF writers, he discovered the genre at an early age. Since he was living in Germany at the time, he added
to the familiar classics of Verne, Wells, Doyle and others such works as Alfred Doblin's Giganten to his
list of favorites.
He was only fifteen when his first SF story, "War No. 8i-Q," was published. But unfortunately, no
one seems to remember where. According to his widow, Genevieve, the story was bylined Anthony
BeardenтАФa pseudonym later used for poetry published in little magazines. Two examples of this poetry
appear in Norstrilia, also published by Ballantine.
During the 19305, Dr. Linebarger began keeping a secret notebookтАФpart personal diary, part story
ideas. Then in 1937, he began writing serious stories, mostly set in ancient or modern China, or in
contemporary locales elsewhere. None were ever published, but their rangeтАФsome use the same
Chinese narrative techniques that later turn up in SF works like "The Dead Lady of Clown Town"тАФis
remarkable.
While back in China, he took on the name Felix C. ForrestтАФa pun on his Chinese nameтАФfor two
psychological novels mailed home in installments and published after the war. Ria and Carola were
remarkable novels for their feminine viewpoint and for the subtle interplay of cultural influences behind the
interplay of character. Under the name Carmichael Smith, Dr. Linebarger wrote Atomsk, a spy thriller
set in the Soviet Union.
But his career in science fiction came about almost by accident. He may have submitted some
stories to Amazing while still in China during the war; but if so, nothing ever came of them. It was during
idle hours at the Pentagon after his return that he turned an idea that had been bothering him into
"Scanners Live in Vain."
The story was almost written in vain, for it was rejected by every major publication in the field.
Fantasy Book, to which it was submitted five years later as a last resort, did not even pay for it.
Although he had written another Cordwainer Smith story, "Himself in Anachron" (recently adapted by his
widow for Harlan Ellison's anthology Last Dangerous Visions) in 1946, he may well have despaired of
any recognition in the genre.
But there were readers who took notice. Never mind that Fantasy Book had never before
published a worthwhile story, never mind that the author was a total unknown. "Scanners Live in Vain"
got to them.
"Martel was angry. He did not even adjust his blood away from anger ... "
It was more than just the bizarre situation that attracted attentionтАФit was the way it was treated.
From the opening lines, readers became part of Martel's universeтАФa universe as real as our own, for all
its strangeness. They were intrigued, and no doubt mystified.
What was this Instrumentality of Mankind, which even the scanners held in awe? What were the
Beasts and the manshonyaggers and the Unforgiven? One could sense their importance to the hero, hut
beyond that-only wonder.
Smith clearly knew more about this universe than he let onтАФmore, in fact, than he ever would let on.
His universe had been forming in his mind at least since the time he wrote his first published story in 1928,
and it took further shape in his secret notebook during the 1930s and 1940s.
Already in "War No. 8i-Q," his widow recalls, he had made reference to the InstrumentalityтАФthat
all-powerful elite hierarchy that was to become central to the Cordwainer Smith stories twenty years and
more later. Even the word may have had far more significance than it would appear at first.
 Linebarger had been raised in a High Church Episcopalian familyтАФhis grandfather was a
ministerтАФand was devoutly religious. The word "instrumentality" has a distinct religious connotation, for
in Roman Catholic and Episcopalian theology the priest performing the sacraments is the "instrumentality"
of God Himself.
At the time he wrote "War No. 8i-Q," young Linebarger was also having a fling with
CommunismтАФa tendency his father eventually cured by sending him on a trip to the Soviet Union for his
eighteenth birthday. But he remained struck by the sense of vocation and conviction of historical destiny