Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, better known by his pen-name Cordwainer Smith, was an American author known for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a US Army officer, a noted East Asia scholar, and an expert in psychological warfare. Although his career as a writer was shortened by his death at the age of 53, he is considered one of science fiction's more influential and talented authors.
Raphael Aloysius "R. A." Lafferty was an American science fiction and fantasy writer known for his original use of language, metaphor, and narrative structure, Lafferty also wrote a set of four autobiographical novels, a history book, and several novels of historical fiction.
John Thomas Sladek was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels.
Daniel Francis Galouye was an American science fiction writer. During the 1950s and 1960s, he contributed novelettes and short stories to various digest size science fiction magazines, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Louis G. Daniels.
Mark Clifton (1906–1963) was an American science fiction writer, the co-winner of the second Hugo Award for best novel. He began publishing in May 1952 with the widely anthologized story "What Have I Done?".
In the science fiction of Cordwainer Smith, the Instrumentality of Mankind refers both to Smith's personal future history and universe and to the central government of humanity within that fictional universe. The Instrumentality of Mankind is also the title of a paperback collection of short stories by Cordwainer Smith published in 1979.
The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith (ISBN 0-915368-56-0) is a 1993 book containing the complete collected short fiction of American science fiction author Cordwainer Smith. It was edited by James A. Mann and published by NESFA Press.
NESFA Press is the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Association, Inc. The NESFA Press primarily produces three types of books:
"Knock" is a science fiction short story by American writer Fredric Brown. It begins with a piece of Flash fiction based on the following passage by Thomas Bailey Aldrich:
Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!
Readercon is an annual science fiction convention, typically held every July in the Boston, Massachusetts area, currently taking place in Quincy, Massachusetts. It was founded by Bob Colby and Eric Van in 1987 with the goal of focusing almost exclusively on science fiction/fantasy/slipstream/speculative fiction in the written form. Past guests of honor have included authors such as Greer Gilman, Gene Wolfe, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, Karen Joy Fowler, Brian Aldiss, Nalo Hopkinson, Joe Haldeman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Peter Straub, and China Miéville, and editors such as Ellen Datlow and David G. Hartwell. The convention also makes a point of honoring a deceased author as the Memorial Guest of Honor. In 2009, for instance, the guests of honor were the living writers Elizabeth Hand and Greer Gilman and the memorial guest of honor was Hope Mirrlees.
Wyman Woods Guin was an American pharmacologist and advertising executive best known for writing science fiction.
"Scanners Live in Vain" is a science fiction short story by American writer Cordwainer Smith. It was the first story in Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind future history to be published and the first story to appear under the Smith pseudonym. It first appeared in the semi-professional magazine Fantasy Book.
Terence William (Terry) Dowling, is an Australian writer and journalist. He writes primarily speculative fiction though he considers himself an "imagier" – one who imagines, a term which liberates his writing from the constraints of specific genres. He has been called "among the best-loved local writers and most-awarded in and out of Australia, a writer who stubbornly hews his own path ."
Mildred McElroy Clingerman was an American science fiction author.
Franz Rottensteiner is an Austrian publisher and critic in the fields of science fiction and speculative fiction in general.
"Drunkboat" is a science fiction short story by American writer Cordwainer Smith. It was first published in the magazine Amazing Stories in October 1963. It was included in Space Lords, a collection of five stories by Cordwainer Smith published in May 1965. It appeared in The Instrumentality of Mankind, a collection published in May 1979, and it was in The Rediscovery of Man, a complete collection of his short stories, published in 1993.
The year 1913 was marked, in science fiction, by the following events.
Fantasy Book was a semi-professional American science fiction magazine that published eight issues between 1947 and 1951. The editor was William Crawford, and the publisher was Crawford's Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. Crawford had problems distributing the magazine, and his budget limited the quality of the paper he could afford and the artwork he was able to buy, but he attracted submissions from some well-known writers, including Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, A. E. van Vogt, Robert Bloch, and L. Ron Hubbard. The best-known story to appear in the magazine was Cordwainer Smith's first sale, "Scanners Live in Vain", which was later included in the first Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology, and is now regarded as one of Smith's finest works. Jack Gaughan, later an award-winning science fiction artist, made his first professional sale to Fantasy Book, for the cover illustrating Smith's story.
Karen L. Hellekson is an American author and scholar who researches science fiction and fan studies. In the field of science fiction, she is known for her research on the alternate history genre, the topic of her 2001 book, The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time, and has also published on the author Cordwainer Smith. In fan studies, she is known for her work on fan fiction and the culture of the fan community. She has co-edited two essay collections on fan fiction with Kristina Busse, and in 2008, co-founded the academic journal, Transformative Works and Cultures, also with Busse.
The Best of Cordwainer Smith is a collection of science fiction short stories by American author Cordwainer Smith, edited by J. J. Pierce. It was first published in hardback by Nelson Doubleday in July 1975 and in paperback by Ballantine Books in September of the same year as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. The Ballantine edition was reprinted in October 1977 and July 1985. Phoenix Pick issued a new edition in trade paperback and ebook in April, 2017. A British paperback edition under the alternative title The Rediscovery of Man was published by Gollancz in June 1988, and reissued in 1999, 2003, and 2010; Gollancz also brought out hardcover and ebook versions in September 1988 and November 2012, respectively. The book has also been translated into German.
