The True Frontier - Cordwainer Smith - Extra Sci Fi
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- The godson of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Paul Linebarger led an exciting life of unusual achievements well before he got into writing science fiction--including setting up one of the United States' first psychological warfare units. Under his pen name, he wrote the trend-bucking work Scanners Live in Vain.
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Much like our own showrunner Matt, Cordwainer Smith was *also* rumored to bring his cats to class and simply address his lectures to the cats.
Will u make a video about The Division 2?
wait so you said something 4 days before this video was uploaded
@@unitedstates4912 talking to me or him?
@extracredits how close to modern day are you going to cover? I.E. will you do a video on Larry Niven
6:00 EVANGELION FLASH BACKS!
No mention of the "I surrender" story?
>While in Korea, Linebarger masterminded the surrender of thousands of Chinese troops who considered it shameful to give up their arms. He drafted leaflets explaining how the soldiers could surrender by shouting the Chinese words for 'love', 'duty', 'humanity' and 'virtue' - words that happened, when pronounced in that order, to sound like "I surrender" in English. He considered this act the single most worthwhile thing he had done in his life.
Source?
@@raywilliams6717 I have a print copy of "the rediscovery of man" and this anecdote is included in its foreword.
ISBN 1-85798-819-1
@@raywilliams6717 I'm coming in with that secondary research three years late B)
His life story could stand as it's on fictional story
No one would believe it, most likely
I certainly would watch the movie!
I think the mention here alone calls for an Extra History series on Sun Yat-Sen and the chinese civil war.
Pretty please?
That's actually on the list. After the current one about Majapahit and the one after that about Viking Expansion.
could be controversial, but i think they got it
“Scanners Live in Vain” is seriously one of my favorite SciFi stories of all time! Thank y’all so much for helping bring the story to a wider audience.
I read "scanners" a few months ago and, despite obviously written from a late 40's conception of future technology, I couldn't help but think "holy crap, this story feels so modern!"
That and Mark Elf. And the one from the prison planet. And.. Fuck, he is such an amazing writer.
Professor Linebarger wrote so many great stories! Another favorite is The Game of Rat and Dragon, which he wrote in a single afternoon. Fred Pohl's Day Million is such a hat tip to Linebarger's work.
Just found a 5 dollar paperback called You will never be the same, this story is in there. Can't wait to read it!
Then, Cordwainer Smith INVENTED Catgirls?!?!! He's obviously a god!!!
There was a Louis Wain
Whose art was never plain
He drew a lot of kittens
Yet sadly went insane
So let us all retain
The memory of Louis Wain
A poet I am not
But still I maintain.
@Dream Delirium anthropomorphic cats aren't the same as cat girls, cat girls are more human than cat, they're actually just girls with cat ears and tails and says Nyan a lot
I believe one of the oldest known pieces of art is "Lion Man", a carving of a 1/2 lion, 1/2 man. Cat people have basically always existed in human art.
Edit: Found it en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-man
I do like me some ancient furry novels!
@Dream Delirium NEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRDDDDDDDD
Smith's "Instrumentality" series can be a bit hard to find, but his short story, "A Game of Rat and Dragon" shows up frequently in SF anthologies.
So we have an Ex-agent of a government agency, and he makes the book of Psychological warfare along with some of the best Sci Fi so far presented. He is the 2nd most interesting man in the world, 1st going to Buzz Aldrin, dudes 88 and makes trips to the Antarctic, after his you know, visiting the moon in 1969.
Buzz heard there was a penguin who claimed the moon landings were faked.
"Penguin needed punched yer honor."
I own a copy of one of Cordwainer Smith's books, "Norstrilia." It's about how a boy in the distant future literally buys planet Earth. It is insane; it's kind of hard to follow because he barely explains any of the weird terminology used all throughout the book, but the concepts presented within the book are all unique and very fascinating.
I had no idea how important of an author he was in the sci fi industry. I literally found "Norstrilia" on the side of the road, believe it or not, and I thought he was pretty much a nobody.
In contrast to all the scientists and engineers, Smith's works stand out because of their bizarrely alien FEEL.
I mean, c'mon, "Norstrilia"? That book is insane. IN A VERY GOOD WAY.
"The Ballad of Lost C'Mell " is probably his most amazing work. It was included in the "SF Hall of Fame" for pre Hugo and Nebula Award stories and Novellas. Very few SF stories can best be described by the word "Lyrical" but C'Mell is exactly that. .... Where is the which of the what-she-did? She fell in love with an hominid......"
Yeah, I haven't read much of his work but what little I have had some incredibly intense, vivid prose.
I'm partial to those in the style of Mark Elf and Scanners Live in Vain. I personally don't like as much his stories linked to the Underpeople
So glad you've covered him! I didn't even know about him until I started reading the SF Masterworks imprint as a reading challenge a few years ago. He was a flat-out freakin' genius.
The Rediscovery of Man is one of my all time favourite Novels.
As someone who didn't know much about Smith, I now have a lot of work to catch up on. Great video, and a very interesting person!
Bringing pets to a lectures seems like it would be a cat-astrophy.
I'll see my self out now
Cordwainer Smith is one of my favorite authors. If I had the money, I would turn his stories into movies.
I grew up reading sci fi, (and still do), and I have never heard of Cordwainer Smith. There is still so much to learn about the genre. LOVE this series.
You can't have Cordwainer Smith without RA Lafferty. You're going to have to do him now.
"nesecitamos mas pelotas de playa" indeed EC, indeed, we do not forget about Scott's story with the beach ball, oh no we don't
*Scott's story.
I don't understand the joke, can you explain it please? I speak spanish too, by the way.
@@losalfajoresok What story was that?
@@losalfajoresok uno de los artistas de EC (Scott DeWitt) hacía unos vídeos para la convención PAX entre 2015-2017 y en el último hablaba de un proyecto en el que trabajó donde todo lo que le mandaban a hacer era una mala idea entre ellas poner una pelota de playa en una escena muy violenta y seria. Si buscas "extra credits PAX 2017" deberías encontrarlo
Solo me demoré 2 años en responder, no mucho :)
@@gafeleon9032 mejor tarde que nunca!
as a fan of eva you just rocked my world by revealing to me where human instrumentality truly came from will wonders never cease?
Wow, cordwainer Smith sounds awesome
The best writers almost always turn out to have the most interesting lives. Whether it be war, travel, psychological trauma, many other things besides, or a combination of all these, it's a consistent constant of these people.
Filled lives bores Filled minds
One of my griefs is that nobody has ever been able to do a full biography of Paul Linebarger. A remarkable mind, scholar, solider (he's buried at Arlington), diplomat, slave to cats, and writer.
This buy was absolutely amazing .. he absolutely blew my mind as a teenager. And .. what's even cooler, he was more equipped than anyone to actually predict the future. I hate to gush over someone that may have been Illuminati, etc. The guy was HYPER-connected. But it was so kind of him to share with us his visions of what the future may hold, based at least in part, I'm sure, on his knowledge of how the world works. He is most definitely one of the most underrated writers out there.
Perhaps one of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time. If you haven't go, IMMEDIATELY, and buy his stuff.
I imagined the up and out and the internet before I could talk. No wonder Paul Linebarger is one of my heroes. He did miracles in imagination.
1:33
The Japanese says
Walpole did that
in a very familiar way, tbh.
nice catch ! kudos
And the Spanish says
We need more beachballs
So THAT'S where Warframe gets its plot from...
Warframe got its plot from some artist style i think. Its still sci fi, you can found steve mentioning it in his interview.
Not without Evangelion
Read Nostrilia and all Cordwainer's Smith stories its extremely good.
Wait, I just realized that Extra History is now covering Smith's Godfather,Sun-Yat Sen. Nice
You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars...
Blue Oyster Cult reference?
I've been living on the edge so long, where the winds of Limbo roar...
And I’m young enough to look at, And far too old to see...
@@zesky6654 no the movie heavy metal.
All the scars are on the inside...
a real-life Nick Fury, agent of The S.C.I.- F.I. ?!
More like Nick Furry
@@firagabird Hey even Nick Fury was a fan of cats (till one took his eye of course).
GOOSE :) 🐈
Many of Smith's stories are in the public domain in Canada, and are available free via FadedPage (you can Google it). Also, NESFA Press has put his SF into their permanent collection; they'll print the books (which are beautiful hardcovers) on demand. One is The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith, a print collection of _all_ of his short science fiction. The other is his one SF novel, Norstrilia, along with some supplemental material written when it was broken up into two separate novels.
Hey, I love the show! Just wanted to let you know that it's all fantastic, and I hope to see more.
Thanks a million for your support!
How am I only just now hearing about this man?!
Cordwainer Smith took the crazy cat lady trope to a whole new level.
This video made me realize how much you've improved Matt. Your voice is quite pleasant to listen to now, especially compared to your first videos! Awesome work, keep it up.
I here I thought I knew my Golden Age authors. Thanks for the informative video, guys!
I had a visceral reaction when you said human instrumentality, memories of eva just came swarming back
Thank you so much! I just found out about Cordwainer Smith a few minutes ago. I recommend reading his: Golden The Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh! that's what I started with!
6:29 I love that image of The Instrumentality. Real good work, almost out of place in an Extra [something] episode
Thanks a lot :D
No mention of Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons? Scariest story ever...
that ending tells me one thing; hes an inspiraion for the giver.
I first read "Scanners..." in an SF anthology book I'd bought at the PX when I was in the Army in the 80s and it always stayed with me.
That Scanner story sounds awfully familiar. I believe that it may have been adapted as an old time radio play back in the 40's on either X minus One, or Dimension X.
I had always loved this author, reading his books online, but I had never found anyone else who knew about them, much less liked them, besides my brother
I love ur channel it helps me with history class
Would you guys ever consider doing an Extra Fantasy series? I love Extra Sci-Fi so much!
Interesting stuff, need to look this guy up.
Man. That stuff about burning out nerve endings and everything. It was really..... unnerving
I can not squee loud enough! Thank you!
Always loved Cordwainer Smith, Er Paul Linebarger
Instrumentality? Like in Evangelion? Fascinating!
That was my first thought.
Yep
SPOILERS FOR THE EVANGELION FRANCHISE:
...
The "Human Instrumentality Project" of Neon Genesis Evangelion was an attempt by Seele (that table of evil secretive dudes and the "sound only" meeting guys) to use the technology of the angels to turn themselves into god beings that would rule mankind for eternity. They don't do the best job explaining it in all the media, but they go to war with the main cast because they figure out that Gendo Ikari (Shinji's dad) wants to become a god being himself to get his wife back, and spend eternity in god power fueled bliss with his family. This is where the name comes from. It was a literal reference to the works of Cordwainer Smith.
CONGRATULATIONS
Lex Edmonds (spoilers)
Where did you get the idea that Seele (which I think you are confusing with NERV) wanted to turn themselves into "god-beings"? My understanding of the Instrumentality project was just that all individualism would be lost and that humanity would merge into a single unified being. That's just based off the final episodes of the series. I never really understand what was gong on in the movies, to be honest, but I didn't get the impression that Gendo and Seele were in conflict over who would get to be Gods... So just wondering where you got that info from?
Dame, I found myself tearing up
CS my beloved
Lol I heard sun yat sen and thought Sun Tzu
Fantastic
Oh boy! Frederick Pohl!? Definitely one of my favorites. Next you're going to tell me Roger Zelazny is getting an episode.
I first discovered Cordwainer Smith through his novella "Nostrilia." I am surprised this work was not mentioned in this video.
I then read the book "The Rediscovery of Mankind" which is the "definitive & complete compilation" of his short science fiction writings.
To me, one of Linebarger's most innovative science fiction technologies is planoforming spacecraft which enter a two-dimensional space to overcome the lightspeed barrier.
"Planoforming was sort of funny. It felt like like- Like nothing much. Like the twinge of a mild electric shock. Like the ache of a sore tooth bitten on for the first time. Like a slightly painful flash of light against the eyes. Yet in that time, a forty-thousand-ton ship lifting free above Earth disappeared somehow or other into two dimensions and appeared half a light-year or fifty light-years off." From The Game of Rat and Dragon, by Cordwainer Smith, published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1953. In addition, planoforming space ships are crewed by humans telepathically linked with cats to defend against the attacks of malevolent entities in space, which are perceived by the humans as dragons, and by the cats as gigantic rats.
A standard trope of much other science fiction is to somehow use higher dimensions beyond our normal three spatial dimensions for faster than light travel or teleportation, but Linebarger bucked the trend and went to a lower dimensional space.
I love this sort of unique and quirky creativity that suffuses Linebarger's science fiction.
I also enjoyed Linebarger's 1949 spy novel "Atomsk: A Novel of Suspense" written under the pen name Carmichael Smith.
Best channel
Cordwainer Smith sounds like a badass!
Spy, blind in one eye. Real life Nick Fury
how can the cat lecture not be considered apocryphal?
It's possible that it is. But also possible that he actually did this. Sometimes scientists get a bit...eccentric.
Richard Feynman as the GOAT in eccentricity
Even if it did happen, it's also possible it's not as silly as it sounds. For many if not most people, practicing speech-giving (or lecturing) is easiest with an audience. Whether that audience has any idea what's going on isn't always relevant.
Awesome author.
This man invented kemonomini? I will be buying all his books immediately
I have been waiting for a mention of fredrik pohl since this series started. Starburst and Wolfbane are two of my favorite pieces of scifi and I would love a video about their author.
Good story! I hope you cover the sub-genre of Space Opera, notably The Vorkosigan Saga of Lois McMaster Bujold and the Honorverse novels of David Weber. This area is very human, and awesome in its questions on what makes us human.
While I am fairly well-read in sci fi, for some reason I had never gotten around to Smith. I need to give him a shot now.
God I love these videos
Well, that certainly puts Shin sekai yori in context
TIL Cordwainer Smith basically wrote the 40k universe
I didn't even know about him; just ordered The Rediscovery of Mars.
“Press ‘A’ for feels” 😂
I never heard about this author. Definitely gonna check him out now! :O
We need a Extra History on Sun Yat-Sen
Wish more people read his works
He invented furries
Well at least we now know where Nick 'Fury' got his name from.
Stop
@@stuffmorestuff6647 nick furry
@@razlad2523 that is phonetically and grammatically incorrect
No, there are cave drawings of humans with animal heads. Humans were degenerates from the very beginning.
Fantastic episode.
Again I'm going to lobby for a Kingsley Amis Golden Age Episode, he wrote the first serious work of Sci Fi Criticism (New Maps Of Hell) and at least one of the greatest alternate history books of all time (The Alteration) not an obvious choice but I'd love your take on his contributions.
I may not be as knowledgeable in Japanese as this guy was, but I think I got the joke.
Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, explored many of the same ideas in much of the same way in 1952. The theme of instrumentality has a long thread through much literature, some of which can be classed as Sci-Fi. Vonnegut himself was on the fringes of the Golden Age.
Would love to see you guys do Jack Vance, or some of the weirder fantasy writers.
'We're off to see the wizard... the wonderful wizard of Oz...'
Cat man! Listen to me!! Hyperion! By Dan Simmons! You need to do an episode on Hyperion!! 'We miss sharks!!' 'We MISS SHAAHHAAWHAAWAARKS!' (pleading intensifies!) You've got to cover Hyperion folks!! Trippiest Noir read in sci fi! Love the show by the way! Much love Bru!
Hyperion is noir?
1:32- "We need more Beach Balls"
Hi I love your channel
Thanks a lot , love to have you here !
A real life Solid Snake.
So THAT'S where Beyond Good and Evil 2's legs come from!
It's pretty weird when this man's real life is strange enough to sound like fiction.
This guy was literally the Nick Fury of World War 2
If only that notebook of his had not been lost...
5:10 love Frederick Pohl
Another writer who began about 1950 was Edgar Pangborn. ANTHING he wrote was 10k times better than anything else being written at the time. His novel, "A Mirror For Observers" won the International Fantasy award against some extremely good competition, and I defy anyone at all to read the last 30 pages of his Masteriece "Davy" without shedding tears. It IS that painfully tragic and so superbly written. I know, people say "Another after-the-apocalpse novel? Don't like them..." but that is like saying "The Taj Mahal, nah, Don't like headstones! ".....
are you planing on a video on Jack Williamson?
Wow, The Instrumentality sounds a lot like the plot for Mega Man Legends 2.
I dunno, cats make great student replicas.
They don't listen to you and don't do their homework...
i noticed the bilingual bonus trope being used @ 1.31 > ウオールポールはそれをした（woruporu wa sore wo sita）= walpole did it , although its gramatically clunky since it should have been ウオールポールはそれをしていた （woruporu wa sore wo site ita）= walpole did that @ source being me as a half or ha-fu as most would call it
1:32
Japanese
“Walpole has turned”
Subtitle vocab alert "He was seeped" (1:07) -> "He was steeped"...
"Scanners Live in Vain" reminds me of "Aye, and Gomorrah", a short story from the anthology "Dangerous Visions". The story is about the Spacers, a genetically engineered race of genital-less humans created to act as astronaut but feel alienated from normal humanity.
Oh boy, you featured my favorite Sci-Fi author (after P.K. Dick). He is so oft forgotten, I love you more for this.
1:32 lol, Walpole did it.
Is the Swedish author and Nobelpricewinner Harry Martinson, with his philosophic space-epic Anira from 1956, something that fits into the history of Sci Fi?
6:00 you're telling me the guy who wrote the book on psychological warfare, a half-blind spy and polyglot, fucking, invented furries