Under Old Earth and other explorations

by Cordwainer Smith

The first book-length collection of Smith's short fiction, edited and with an Introduction by Anthony Cheetham. The Game of Rat and Dragon; On the Sand Planet; Under Old Earth; Alpha Ralpha Boulevard; The Ballad of Lost C'mell; The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal; A Planet Named Shayol; 188 pages.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction

188 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1966

About the author

Pseudonym of:
Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Linebarger also employed the literary pseudonyms "Carmichael Smith" (for his political thriller Atomsk), "Anthony Bearden" (for his poetry) and "Felix C. Forrest" (for the novels Ria and Carola).

Linebarger was also a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare.

Reviews

[Chiefdonkey Bradey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and strange fablesc

[Julian Meynell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a British collection designed to introduce Cordwainer Smith to a british audience. Smith wrote only short stories published in the science fiction magazines and as such was almost unknown to a British audience. I assume that these stories are indeed a best of.

The stories are interesting. They all take place within the same universe, although the first of these the Game of Rat and Dragon appears to take place tens of thousands of years before the others. This universe is a utopia of sorts where elite humans known as the "instrumentality" control everything to bring about a perfect happiness. Consequently, Smith's stories often explore the problems with utopias which is very much a minority undercurrent with Sceience Fiction. Smith is a little reminiscent of Iain M. Banks whose culture novels, also set in an extremely advanced world also look at problems with utopias.

Smith writes primarily in a mythic way with a lyrical style. His stories are futuristic myths which take place in societies so far in the future that they science is practically speaking a kind of magic. They explore mythic stories and story structures often in bizarre surrealistic landscapes. The story A Planet Named Shayol even has a gigantic mountain which is an insensible human grown to gigantic size. The stories also show weird anxieties about the changing times and 60s counter culture. The story Under Old Earth that lends its title to the collection, I really saw as an expression of anxiety about Rock and Roll and youth culture, whereas another story sees a monstrous deformity of the human race, essentially an all male society where the men have babies. They are considered inherently evil and disturbing based on this fact. Furthermore, many of the stories such as The Ballad of lost C'Mell have anthropomorphized animals which are always treated very sympathetically and sometimes sexually. Smith certainly loved cats.

This weird intersection of the surreal, the mythic, the conservative, anthropomorphized animals, and explorations of morality is where the stories all lie. They are memorable and interesting, although certainly not great. But they have a unique weirdness to them which is interesting. Still, I am not sure if they are compelling enough to seek out further collections of Smith's stories.

[Jonny Spinasanto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is from my blog, Under Your Windows.

Another fantastic story from Cordwainer Smith. This one's Under Old Earth, published in February of 1966 in Galaxy Magazine.

Under Old Earth is the story of Sto Odin, a Lord of the Instrumentality (which is essentially the government of the future), and his two robot legionaries, who are imprinted with the minds of dead men. They journey deep underground in search of the Gebiet: an underground city without the monotonous, enforced happiness of the surface world.

The story is set in the same universe as The Dead lady of Clown Town (read my review of that one here) and the many other science fiction stories Smith wrote. So far, this is proving to be a truly amazing world.

There is not much of a plot to the story. Instead, Smith focuses on the thoughts and words of Sto Odin and those he encounters. It's a very deep tale, with many layers. I have a feeling I missed a lot of the meaning. I plan on re-reading it eventually, after I've gone through some more of his writing.

The plotline of Under Old Earth is a strange, disjointed one. About two-thirds of the story consist of Sto Odin's journey to the Gebiet. The last third shifts gears to tell the story of the Sun-boy, a young man Sto Odin encounters. I thought this section felt a little out of place, as I didn't think it related much to the premise previously established: exploring an underground world where everyone lives without laws and entirely by their own judgement.

Sun-boy dances constantly, using a dangerous piece of metal called the congohelium to channel the power of a series of planets out in space. His dance becomes an expression of the religions of the world, so I suppose this could be considered a rebellion against the anti-religious laws the Instrumentality has set in place, and thus conforming to the Gebiet's rule of there being no rules, which would, I suppose, tie Sun-boy's story into the rest of the tale.

"Sun-boy was acting out religion before the age of space. He chorused hymns, he lifted his eyes and his hands and his piece of the congohelium to the sun; he played the rattle of the whirling dervishes, the temple bells of the Man on the Two Pieces of Wood, and the other temple bells of that saint who had escaped time simply by seeing it and stepping out of it. Buddha, was that his name?"

Other than this dance of religion, I found the section about Sun-boy to be somewhat distant from the rest of the story, which up till this point had been about the boredom of forced happiness.

(I think it's worth noting that in the quote above, Smith only capitalized the words referencing Jesus. Since Smith was a Christian, I take this to be his way of separating Christianity from the other religions.)

I do not think of the odd plot structure as a flaw. I have a feeling everything in this story was very intentional. So while I did find it a little fractured, it also felt planned and right.

And anyway, everything is written so perfectly by Smith. His voice is great. His style is unique yet subtle, so that it tells the story with a kind of sweetness that doesn't draw attention to itself. I used that word in my Clown Town review - Sweet - and I think it again applies here. There's just this depressing sweetness that attaches itself to his writing and his stories.

Here's a great section where Sto Odin contemplates the meaning of life, when life itself is so fleeting:

"'How can I be alive?' asked Sto Odin, staring around the city. 'How can I be alive when the people who know me are dead? They have whipped through the corridors like wraiths of smoke, like traces of cloud; they were here, they loved me, and they knew me, and now they are dead.

"'...How can passing ghosts like me and my kind, each with just a few dozen or a few hundred years to go before the great blind winds of time whip us away - how can phantoms like me have built this solid city, these wonderful engines, these brilliant lights which never go dim? How did we do it, when we pass so swiftly, each of us, all of us?'"

There's something inherently tragic in Smith's writing. Regardless of what's happening, I am constantly saddened. This is not a bad thing: it's a powerful thing.

For example, Sto Odin encounters a young woman named Santuna who constantly waits outside the room Sun-boy dances in. He is her lover, and she is constantly waiting for him to quit his dance and return to her. She's painted herself gold to look more appealing. She leaves the doorway only when she requires sleep or food or when she wishes to make herself look nice for Sun-boy.

"She lived for a mission of love in the depths of the nothing and nowhere: yet she remained a girl, a person, a human being capable, as she was now, of an immediate relationship to another human being."

I finished the story with a odd sense of unfulfillment, which was, in its own way, somehow moving. The last third of the book confused me, but I also think the story's just perfect. It's got a fractured plot and strange end, yet a sense of rightness and moving sadness shot through it.

Even if Under Old Earth and The Dead Lady of Clown Town were the only stories Smith ever wrote, he would still be a favorite author of mine. Fortunately, he wrote many other stories. And so I go now to those...

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Game of Rat and Dragon (1955)
On the Sand Planet (1965)
Under Old Earth (1966)
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (1961)
The Ballad of Lost C'mell (1962)
The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal (1964)
A Planet Named Shayol (1961)

[Rog Harrison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I gave up after a couple of stories.