Dave’s Reviews > The Rediscovery of Man > Status Update

The Ballad of Lost C'mell. A far-future love story? Of sorts? There is also a thread in here about fighting for the rights of the downtrodden. C'mell is one of Smith's most significant characters, featured in his novel Norstrilia, which I am also planning to read in the future. This story, however, left me a bit underwhelmed.

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard. I found this story to be just okay. It seems to be a showcase for life and some interesting ideas in one part of Smith's far-future universe. On this alone, it was fairly interesting, but there was little "story" to it, and I never got a feel for what I was actually intended to take away from this one.

Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons. An excellent story about an attempt to steal the most valuable resources in the known universe from the richest and most protected planet. One of my favorites from this collection.

Under Old Earth. Another story that I would describe as dense and challenging. It probably requires at least a couple of reads to unpack when Smith is doing here, but what I got from it was that the main character, Lord Sto Odin, lives on the surface of the planet where order rules the day and everyone is "happy". He journeys to a lawless underground city for a different perspective on the meaning of happiness.

"The Dead Lady of Clown Town" This story is almost novella-length, but bears all the trademarks of Smith's shorter stories. We are 10,000+ years into the future at this point in his timeline, and some elements of the story are so far removed from that with which we are familiar it is often difficult to visualize what is being described. Underneath it all there is a strong Joan of Arc parallel here though.

Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh! A bizarre title for a bizarre story. It is only 9 pages, but so densely packed that I am not sure that I even understood half of it. I think it is about a distant future war, various events around it, and the aftermath, all conveyed from many points of view. Perhaps it is brilliant upon enough readings and study to fully comprehend all of the details.

The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal. It takes a few pages to get going, but this is a solid story about, I suppose, the potential dangers of failing to follow protocol, no matter how good the intentions. When undergoing intergalactic missions, there is virtually no limit to how high the stakes can be.

The Burning of the Brain. A starship is lost in hyperspace, but some maps that might guide them home are buried in the captain's subconscious memory. Is it worth the risk to attempt to extract them? This is an interesting idea but I liked the execution a bit less than some of the other stories here.

A Game of Rat and Dragon. This is a far future story about battle in space that play out over the course of seconds or even milliseconds. Reaction times are augmented by, among other things, cats! Cats assist with certain aspects of the battle, and are paired with humans via telepathy. It is a bit confusing in the first few pages, but this is an interesting and imaginative story.

The Lady Who Sailed The Soul. This is a distant future story about a woman who makes a long and lonely journey sailing between stars. The fact that it makes a big deal about her being the first woman to do it makes it feel a little dated today. There was also the quote, "There is no all-purpose computer build that weighs as little as 150 pounds. You do." I laughed. This is a nice human story at its heart though.