History Creator / CordwainerSmith

* MindScrew: Frequently.

* TheNamesake: "The Game of Rat and Dragon" refers to a battle that humanity is fighting against an unknown enemy. Humans see this enemy as dragons, fierce and dangerous, capable of tearing apart a telepathic mind. Partners (telepathic cats) see this enemy as rats, nasty monsters that they can beat and kill.

%%* OneGenderRace: The Arachosians in "The Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal".

%%* OneWorldOrder: The Instrumentality, after the fall of China.

%%* PenalColony: Shayol, of the BodyHorror kind.
%%* PlanetSpaceship: The Golden Ships, which are larger than most stars.

** The Vomact family, the descendants of the vom Acht sisters. Various Vomacts show up through the series - some helpful, others malevolent.

* SleptThroughTheApocalypse: The origins of the Vomact family. [[spoiler: They're the descendants of three German sisters, the vom Achts. During the end of World War II, they were placed in suspended animation in some experimental rockets, and sent into space. Sleeping and preserved, they are awakened thousands of years after the Ancient Wars.]]

* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: The Instrumentality feel it does.

* WetwareCPU: Laminated animal brains.

* {{Cyborg}}: Some stories feature the use of living rat and wolf brains as components in technology. Also, individual robots sometimes have other kinds of animal brains; two different robots are described having a chicken brain and an owl brain.
%%** [[Literature/ScannersLiveInVain Habermans and Scanners]].
%%* DaysOfFuturePast:
%%* DefectorFromDecadence: The Instrumentality forces this on civilization.

** The planet Mizzer, the homeworld of Casher O'Neill has a natural and political climate mirroring that of 1950s Egypt.

%%* EldritchAbomination: The reason Planoform ships require pinlighting teams in "The Game of Rat and Dragon".

%%* TheEmpire: The Bright Empire, the Goonhogo (the surviving Chinese government), and the Empire mentioned in "A Planet Named Shayol".%%Are examples how?

%%* FluffyTheTerrible: "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons". Let's just say there's a good reason why they're sedated most of the time.%%Which is?

%%* GreatOffscreenWar: The Ancient Wars.
%%* HegemonicEmpire: The Instrumentality of Mankind. It's a bit vague how it's actually ruled, but its Lords and Ladies are collectively very powerful.%%ZCE, quotes aren't acceptable context and this one doesn't describe the trope.
%%-->''The Instrumentality was a self-perpetuating body of men with enormous powers and a strict code. Each was a plenum of the low, the middle, and the high justice. Each could do anything he found necessary or proper to maintain the Instrumentality and keep the peace between the worlds...\\\
%%This was all the business of the Instrumentality. The Instrumentality had the perpetual slogan 'Watch, but do not govern; stop war, but do not wage it; protect, but do not control; and first, survive![='=]''

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: Dealt with in "Drunkboat" and "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All", where Space Two and Three turn out to be very, very strange places. Not that the interstellar void is any safer, with the Dragons [=/=] Rats lurking to eat human souls.

** The Band of Cousins and their supporters within [[SecretPolice Instrumentality of the Jwindz]] against the philosophers who rule the post-apocalyptic Earth. [[spoiler: They succeed, and form the Instrumentality of ''Mankind'']].
* MagicMusic: "The Fife of Bodhidharma", which doesn't take place in the Instrumentality of Mankind universe.

Cordwainer Smith was the pen name of Doctor Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966): ScienceFiction writer, poet, and psychological warfare expert. In fact, he ''literally'' {{wrote the book}} on psychological warfare — the standard US Army textbook on the subject. He looked like a classic nerd, wrote weird little ScienceFiction stories about cats, and was apparently regarded with respect by a generation of top US diplomatic and intelligence specialists. During the Korean War, he was asked to write a set of qualifications for the head of psychological operations for the US army; he got interested enough in the possibilities of the job and so set things up that he was the only person qualified to do it. He was a man of the world, but had particular ties to China and the Far East. His godfather was Sun Yat-sen, and he and his father were confidants of Chiang Kai-shek. He also liked Australia.

* AfterTheEnd: A good chunk of the Instrumentality cycle is set after the Ancient Wars, which left only Morons and Saints barely surviving on a wasted, poison world, hiding from death machines. "Mark Elf" and "Queen of the Afternoon" are set in an era following some recovery. And even in stories set millennia later, the scars of the war remain.

* BearsAreBadNews: Inverted in the case of the Bear in "Mark Elf" and "Queen of the Afternoon". Wise, educated, and sporting spectacles, when the Bear shows up things improve for the human characters.
* BeastMan: The Unauthorized Men in "Queen of the Afternoon". Called "puppy-dog people" by Juli vom Acht, they're intelligent, small anthropomorphic animals. However, they are not Underpeople -- the Unauthorized people seem to have their origins from the Ancient Wars.
* BigDumbObject: Smith was never averse to sheer scale, with buildings reaching up to the stratosphere and all. But crucially, the titular craft of "Golden The Ship Was—Oh! Oh! Oh!" is ''ninety million miles long'', taking it beyond the PlanetSpaceship range and into this category. [[spoiler:Even if it is mostly foam. Smith may have been {{parody}}ing the trope before it really got started.]]

%%* BodyHorror: "A Planet Called Shayol" explores this from beginning to end.
%%* BrownNote: "The Fife of Bodhidharma", "No, No, Not Rogov!".

* CatGirl: Literally with C'Mell. What's particularly notable about this example is that she may have been the ''[[UrExample first]]'' literal cat girl, arriving in 1961.
%%** As well as dog girls, snake girls, buffalo girls...
* ChinaTakesOverTheWorld: The Chinesian Goonhogo. It becomes a superpower by virtue of surviving the apocalypse. In fact, it's the only nation to survive. In "The Queen of the Afternoon", the rest of the world not under the Goonhogo is ruled by Chinese philosophers. "When the People Fell", in which China takes Venus by sheer weight of numbers is something of an UrExample of Chinese space colonization plots.

* {{Cyborg}}: The use of living rat and wolf brains as components in technology. Also, individual robots sometimes have other kinds of animal brains; two different robots are described having a chicken brain and an owl brain.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Most of his stories are Christian allegories, but it is subtle and many will miss them.

** The planet Mizzer, the homeworld of Casher O'Neill. Its natural and political climate mirrors that of 1950's Egypt.

* ''{{Literature/Ria}}'' (1947, as Felix C. Forrest)
* ''{{Literature/Carola}}'' (1948, as Felix C. Forrest)

* ''{{Literature/Norstrilia}}'' (1975)

** There are a number of references to duck feasts, [[spoiler:which makes it unfortunate for the Apicians that they happen to taste like the finest duck imaginable.]]
** Oh yes, the cats. Linebarger liked cats, and the stories feature a lot of cats, cat-people, and evolved cats — one or two of them named after Linebarger’s pets.

* BeastMan: The Unauthorized Men in "Queen of the Afternoon". Called "puppy-dog people" by Juli vom Acht, they're intelligent, small anthropomorphic animals. However, they are not Underpeople - the Unauthorized people seem to have their origins from the Ancient Wars.

* BilingualBonus: More like Multilingual Bonus — many names in the Instrumentality cycle have secondary meanings if one knew the language used. And Smith used Chinese, Russian, German, Finnish, Japanese, and many other languages for his theme naming.

* BodyHorror: "A Planet Called Shayol" explores this from beginning to end.
* BrownNote: "The Fife of Bodhidharma", "No, No, Not Rogov!".

** The "Dragons" or "Rats". To telepathic people or cats they appear like those creatures. But they're [[EldritchAbomination anything but those]].
* CanonDiscontinuity: Averted with "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All". Its plot was reworked into "Drunkboat". "Colonel" reads like a beta version of that tale. The later story does not contradict any of the previous continuity, and shows how planoforming was discovered.

** As well as dog girls, snake girls, buffalo girls...

* {{Cyborg}}:
** The use of living rat and wolf brains as components in technology. Also, individual robots sometimes have other kinds of animal brains; two different robots are described having a chicken brain and an owl brain.
** Also, [[Literature/ScannersLiveInVain habermans and Scanners.]]
* DaysOfFuturePast: As noted.
* DefectorFromDecadence: The Instrumentality forces this on civilization.
* DepravedHomosexual: Arguably, the klopts in "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal". It's not clear if they are depraved ''because'' they are homosexual, or because of the social, psychological and hormonal disruptions brought about by their need to become a monosexual culture or die out.

** "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is a retelling of [[spoiler: Joan of Arc]].

* EldritchAbomination: The reason Planoform ships require pinlighting teams in "The Game of Rat and Dragon".

* TheEmpire: The Bright Empire, the Goonhogo (the surviving Chinese government), and the Empire mentioned in "A Planet Named Shayol".

* HegemonicEmpire: The Instrumentality of Mankind. It's a bit vague how it's actually ruled, but its Lords and Ladies are collectively very powerful:
-->''The Instrumentality was a self-perpetuating body of men with enormous powers and a strict code. Each was a plenum of the low, the middle, and the high justice. Each could do anything he found necessary or proper to maintain the Instrumentality and keep the peace between the worlds...\\\
This was all the business of the Instrumentality. The Instrumentality had the perpetual slogan 'Watch, but do not govern; stop war, but do not wage it; protect, but do not control; and first, survive![='=]''

* {{Fiction 500}}: In ''Norstrilia'', the people of the planet Old North Australia have a production monopoly on the drug stroon, which grants immortality. The resulting wealth threatens to destroy their hard-working rural way of life, so they impose an import duty of 200 million percent on all imports and spend the revenue on defence. The result is that everything costs two million times as much on their planet as off planet, and an ordinary agricultural labourer's income is billions per week. In this setting, [=Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan=] the 151st is the owner of one of the oldest and largest sheep stations, a major stroon producer, and is fabulously rich even on Old North Australia. To escape some political difficulties he buys Earth, "lock, stock, and underpeople". A lot of people are embarrassed and annoyed that that was possible.
* FluffyTheTerrible: "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons". Let's just say there's a good reason why they're sedated most of the time.

* GenderBender: Eleanor in ''Norstrilia''.
* {{Gratuitous Foreign Language}}s: Used to help add layers of meaning, as well create a sense of the exotic.
* GreatOffscreenWar: The Ancient Wars.
* HumanHardDrive: Monitors - usually condemned criminals modified to sit back, do nothing, and record events. [[ThePoliticalOfficer And secretly kill whoever they monitor if they attempt to commit treason]].
* HumanSubspecies:

* HypocriticalHumor: There's a very dark example, illustrating the Instrumentality's corruption, in "Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh!" The Lords of the Instrumentality accept huge bribes from the tyrant Raumsog not to attack his planet. Then they declare the bribes off the record and attack his planet anyway, killing ''95% of the population'' including Raumsog himself.

** "{{Literature/Drunkboat}}": Artyr Rambo appears naked and almost catatonic when returning to Earth through Space-3.

* NoodleIncident: As a mark of good writing, Smith would allude to major historical and personal events, but never describe them in-story.
** "Literature/APlanetNamedShayol" has a "crime without a name" committed by TheProtagonist, but we never learn the nature of this crime.

* OneGenderRace: The Arachosians in "The Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal".
* OneProductPlanet: Norstrilia, which has the monopoly on the immortality drug Stroon. In addition, there's Viola Siderea (an Underworld) and Shayol (see below). The novel ''Norstrilia'' also mentions Khufu II, which produced a lichen more luxuriant than the finest fur, and became almost as wealthy as Norstrilia - until the lichen was killed off by an infection and the Khufuans were reduced to begging.
* OneWorldOrder: The Instrumentality, after the fall of China.
* OurMinotaursAreDifferent: Bull-Men are often prominent characters in Smith's stories. They include B'dikkat in "Literature/APlanetNamedShayol" and B'dank in ''{{Literature/Norstrilia}}''.
* PenalColony: Shayol, of the BodyHorror kind.
* PlanetSpaceship: The Golden Ships, which are larger than most stars.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: In "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", D'joan is force grown from age five to fifteen.
* PunctuationShaker

* {{Recurring Character}}s:

* TheRemnant: The Manshonyaggers [[spoiler:— robotic killing mecha built by the long defunct Sixth German Reich]].

* ToServeMan: [[spoiler:Inverted]] in "From Gustible's Planet".

** In "Think Blue, Count Two," the viewpoint character, Veesey-koosey, a young girl, is a DamselinDistress intentionally sent on a voyage to motivate the crew to protect her by heroic efforts.

* TurtlePower: [[MeaningfulName T'ruth]] from ''On the Storm Planet'', a Turtle-Girl with extremely powerful psychic abilities.

Cordwainer Smith was the pen name of Doctor Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966): ScienceFiction writer, poet, and psychological warfare expert. In fact, he ''literally'' {{wrote the book}} on psychological warfare — the standard US Army textbook on the subject. He looked like a classic {{nerd}}, wrote weird little ScienceFiction stories about cats, and was apparently regarded with respect by a generation of top US diplomatic and intelligence specialists. During the Korean War, he was asked to write a set of qualifications for the head of psychological operations for the US army; he got interested enough in the possibilities of the job and so set things up that he was the only person qualified to do it. He was a man of the world, but had particular ties to China and the Far East. His godfather was Sun Yat-sen, and he and his father were confidants of Chiang Kai-shek. He also liked Australia.

Cordwainer Smith was the pen name of Doctor Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966): ScienceFiction writer, poet, and psychological warfare expert. In fact, he ''literally'' wrote the book on psychological warfare — the standard US Army textbook on the subject. He looked like a classic {{nerd}}, wrote weird little ScienceFiction stories about cats, and was apparently regarded with respect by a generation of top US diplomatic and intelligence specialists. During the Korean War, he was asked to write a set of qualifications for the head of psychological operations for the US army; he got interested enough in the possibilities of the job and so set things up that he was the only person qualified to do it. He was a man of the world, but had particular ties to China and the Far East. His godfather was Sun Yat-sen, and he and his father were confidants of Chiang Kai-shek. He also liked Australia.

* BilingualBonus: More like Multilingual Bonus — many names in the Instrumentality cycle have secondary meanings if one knew the language used. And Smith used Chinese, Russian, German, Finish, Japanese, and many other languages for his theme naming.

* CanonDiscontinuity: Averted with "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All". It's plot was reworked into "Drunkboat". "Colonel" reads like a beta version of that tale. The later story does not contradict any of the previous continuity, and shows how planoforming was discovered.

* ALoadOfBull: Bull-Men are often prominent characters in Smith's stories. They include B'dikkat in "Literature/APlanetNamedShayol" and B'dank in ''{{Literature/Norstrilia}}''.

* BaldWomen:
** Santuna in "Literature/UnderOldEarth" takes this to an extreme. Not only is she bald, but she has no body hair.
** The cover art for the older ''Instrumentality of Mankind'' collection includes a bunch of bald people floating down to Venus. One is clearly female.

** Casher [=O'Neill=], the focus character of the ''Quest of the Three Worlds'' sequence.[[note]] This comprises three stories, "On the Gem Planet", "On the Storm Planet" and "On the Sand Planet", together with a loosely-connected story, "Three to a Given Star". These were collected together in 1966 with the individual story titles stripped out and presented as a novel, ''Quest of the Three Worlds''. Whether they, or at least the first three, really constitute a novel is debatable. Later collections have simply printed the four stories in chronological order with their titles reinstated.[[/note]]

** "Literature/OnTheStormPlanet" has a robot, rat and Copt, and the three rediscovered the "Old Strong Religion". What religion did they mean?[[note]]A reasonable assumption, at least in the mind of a 20th century western reader, would be {{UsefulNotes/Christianity}}.[[/note]]

* {{Geisha}}: The job of a "girly-girl" is compared to this - they entertain off-worlders through dance and conversation.

* GalacticConqueror:
** Raumsog attempts to become one by taking over Earth. [[spoiler: He fails, badly.]]

* PosthumousCollaboration: Genevieve Linebarger, Paul's wife and story collaborator, finished "Down To A Sunless Sea" and "The Queen Of The Afternoon". May also apply to Smith's other posthumous stories, "War No. 81-Q (rewritten version)", "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All" and "Himself in Anachron".

* AlienSky: The planet Xanadu in "Down to a Sunless Sea" has no sun, but its surface is illuminated by the light of its two moons. It's never explained how the moons shine with no sunlight to reflect.

* BittersweetEnding: In "Down to a Sunless Sea" Kuat's plan for conquest is foiled, but only at the expense of [[spoiler:Lari's legs, Madu's innocence, Griselda's life and Lord Kemal's peace of mind]].

** Kuat in "Down to a Sunless Sea" dreams of becoming one, but is foiled before he can even conquer his homeworld of Xanadu.

-->''The Instrumentality was a self-perpetuating body of men with enormous powers and a strict code. Each was a plenum of the low, the middle, and the high justice. Each could do anything he found necessary or proper to maintain the Instrumentality and keep the peace between the worlds...\\
\\
This was all the business of the Instrumentality. The Instrumentality had the perpetual slogan 'Watch, but do not govern; stop war, but do not wage it; protect, but do not control; and first, survive!'''

-->See, that's the story. Now you don't have to read it.
-->Except for the details.
-->They follow.

* GalacticConqueror: Raumsog attempts to be one, by trying to take over Earth. [[spoiler: He fails, badly.]]

* HumongousMecha: The titular "Mark Elf" manshonyagger - [[spoiler: a "Model 11" German-made man-hunting robot, continuing its mission long after the war was over]].

* InterspeciesRomance: In ''The Game Of Rat And Dragon'', humans and cats must telepathically link to fight off aliens that MindRape humans traveling through deep space. The protagonist finds he enjoys being linked with his feline partner a little ''too'' much and the story ends with him repeatedly reminding himself "She's a ''cat!''"

* MilitaryScienceFiction: Oddly enough, "The Game of Rat and Dragon" has been published in at least two sub-genre anthologies. One editor pointed out that the story technically doesn't qualify. Of course, it does deal with cat-piloted {{Space Fighter}}s as they battle alien horrors.

** "Literature/APlanetNamedShayol" had a "crime without a name" committed by TheProtagonist, but we never learn the nature of this crime.
** "Literature/OnTheStormPlanet" had a robot, rat and Copt, and the three rediscovered the "Old Strong Religion". What religion did they mean?
*** A reasonable assumption, at least in the mind of a 20th century western reader, would be {{UsefulNotes/Christianity}}.

* StoryArc: The collection ''The Quest of Three Worlds''. The first three stories ("On the Gem Planet", "On the Storm Planet", and "On the Sand Planet") tell the story of Casher's mission of vengeance [[spoiler: only to find something greater]].

* UnusualUserInterface: Genetically altered animals, a giant scrying dish and many more.

* AliensAreBastards: The Apicians are downplayed. With superior telepathic powers and equal weaponry, Mankind can do nothing but put up with their rude guests. On the bright side, they do pay for their meals. Even then, however, they insist on paying cash on the nose, which is considered bad form in a credit-driven society.

* AristocratsAreEvil: Played with the Lords of the Instrumentality. They are corrupt, ruthless, callous, and make arbitrary decisions. However, they are devoted to protecting humanity and benevolent, creating a utopia for mankind.

** Norstrilian "Sheep". Granted they were once sheep, but are now house-sized and very ill creatures that generate an immortality drug.

* {{Cyborg}}: The use of living rat and wolf brains as components in technology. Also, individual robots sometimes have other kinds of animal brains; two different robots are described having a chicken brain and an owl brain.

* TheRemnant: The Manshonyaggers [[spoiler: robotic killing mecha built by the long defunct Sixth German Reich]].

* StealthPun: Kind of. "...[T]he only living city with a pre-atomic name. The lovely meaningless name was Meeya Meefla [near] the warm, bright, clear beaches of the Old South East." ("The Dead Lady of Clown Town"). In other words... [[spoiler:A mispronunciation of "Miami, Fla"]].

* ThemeNaming: The Underpeople have names prefixed by a one-letter abbreviation of their species, e.g. C'Mell = Cat Mell.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Subverted. When a certain planet is found to have the components to make one immortal, the opportunity is there, although the Instrumentality seems to settle for 400 years (there is a dismissive reference to people who try to live longer than that).
** Nostrilians themselves don't feel compelled to follow the Instrumentality's lead on this, however. Also, Lords and Ladies of exceptional value are sometimes allowed to live longer; Sto Odin, the eldest Lord of his era, was over 1000 years old at the time of "Under Old Earth" (in which he sacrifices his own life to save Manhome).
*** The life-prolonging drug has "queer side-effects, so that most Norstrilians preferred to die in a thousand years or so."

* FantasticRacism: Underpeople, [[PettingZooPeople formed out of animals]] to serve humans, are treated as second class citizens at best. As the cat woman C'mell says in ''Norstrilia'', they can be [[DisproportionateRetribution put to death]] for using the wrong bathroom.

* PettingZooPeople:
** Some of the Underpeople. It seems to vary from underperson to underperson; some are more animalistic in appearance than others. In the story ''On The Gem Planet'' one of the Underpeople is a Tiger-Man who is very clearly described as looking more like a tiger then a man, though this seems to be unusual among underpeople.
** The Unauthorized Men in "Queen of the Afternoon". Called "puppy-dog people" by Juli vom Acht, they're intelligent, small anthropomorphic animals. However, they are not Underpeople - the Unauthorized people seem to have their origins from the Ancient Wars.

** The cover art for the older''Instrumentality of Mankind'' collection includes a bunch of bald people floating down to Venus. One is clearly female.