Welcome to the strangest, most distinctive future ever imagined by a science fiction writer. An insterstellar empire ruled by the mysterious Lords of the Instrumentality, whose access to the drug stroon from the planet Norstrilia confers on them virtual immortality. A world in which wealthy and leisured humanity is served by the underpeople, genetically engineered animals turned into the semblance of people. A world in which the great ships which sail between the stars are eventually supplanted by the mysterious, instantaneous technique of planoforming. A world of wonder and myth, and extraordinary imagination.
'Read this. Cordwainer Smith is timeless' -- Terry Pratchett
'Smith's Instrumentality is the most complex and lyrical of all future histories, redolent with future antiquity. It is a history of a mankind transformed, oddly convincingly, by a relentless series of changes - war, genetic engineering, interstellar travel, immortality - and Smith's remarkable, rich prose gives shivery hints of a darkly imagined universe extending far beyond the boundaries of the stories. Lush, strange, unique, a treasure.' -- Stephen Baxter
Author Biography
Cordwainer Smith (1913-66) was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his SF works.
