This page
contains press releases the Cordwainer Smith Foundation has issued,
with the most recent listed first.
Contents
About the
Award
"So there's
a resplendent new award in the science fiction universe: the Cordwainer,"
observes Robert Silverberg in his Reflections column in the March
2002 issue of Asimov's. He continues:
"The Cordwainer
-- or to give it its formal name, the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery
Award -- is intended, so its bylaws declare, to recognize the
creative output of 'a science fiction or fantasy writer whose
work deserves renewed attention or 'Rediscovery.' This writer's
work should display unusual originality and should embody the
spirit of Cordwainer Smith's fiction, according to one or more
criteria identified by the Awards Committee from time to time."
The Awards
Committee is a highly distinguished panel with an encyclopedic
knowledge of science fiction past and present: Robert Silverberg,
Gardner Dozois, John Clute and Scott Edelman. In 2001 the panel
awarded the first Cordwainer to Olaf Stapledon, presented in conjunction
with the Hugos at the Millennium Philcon.
The Award
itself was inspired by an earlier Reflections column by Silverberg,
puzzling over the phenomenon of the evaporation of reputations
into obscurity. This observation led Cordwainer Smith Foundation
trustee Professor Alan C. Elms, past president of the Science
Fiction Research Association, and biographer of the man behind
the Cordwainer Smith nom de plume, Paul M. A. Linebarger, to propose
a Rediscovery Award as the guiding purpose of the Cordwainer.
The Foundation's other trustees include Paul MA Linebarger's two
daughters and Washington consultant Ralph Benko.
Additional
information on the Cordwainer, its background, history, purposes
and administration, may be found at www.cordwainer-smith.com,
a highly regarded website maintained by Ms. Hart devoted to her
father's life and work.
Cordwainer
Smith's masterpieces of science fiction include such works as
"Scanners Live in Vain,""The Lady Who Sailed the Soul," "The Ballad
of Lost C'Mell," and "the Game of Rat and Dragon," reprinted in
his collected stories, The Rediscovery of Man (NESFA Press, Box
809, Framingham, MA 07101, $24.95), and the novel Norstrilia,
(also available from NESFA).
FIRST
CORDWAINER SMITH REDISCOVERY AWARD
TO BE PRESENTED ON SEPTEMBER 2 AT PHILCON;
CORDWAINER SMITH FOUNDATION DEBUT PARTY ALSO PLANNED
[For
immediate release]
CONTACT:
Rosana Hart, contact form on
www.cordwainersmith.com
Alan C. Elms, acelms@123ucdavis.edu,
530-752-1699
Eleanor Lang, eleanorlang@123erols.com
, 212-488-6860
PLEASE REMOVE THE 123 FROM EMAIL ADDRESSES
BEFORE USING.
Crestone,
CO, June 12, 2001-- The first annual Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery
Award will be presented on Sunday, September 2, 2001, at the 59th
World Science Fiction Convention, "Philcon," in Philadelphia,
PA. Noted science fiction author Robert Silverberg will be presenting
the Award on behalf of the Cordwainer Smith Awards Committee and
the Cordwainer Smith Foundation.
"The
Cordwainer," as the award has been nicknamed, will go to to a
science fiction or fantasy writer whose work displays unusual
originality, embodies the spirit of Cordwainer Smith's fiction,
and deserves renewed attention or 'Rediscovery.'
Jurors
for this year's Award are four of the most distinguished and encyclopedic
minds in contemporary science fiction, all Hugo winners themselves:
Robert Silverberg, Gardner Dozois, John Clute, and Scott Edelman.
They were free to choose any writer, living or dead, for the Award.
About
Cordwainer Smith
The
name of the award, Rediscovery, is derived from the title of the
one-volume edition of Cordwainer Smith's complete short stories,
The Rediscovery of Man, published by New England Science
Fiction Association Press. "Cordwainer Smith" was the pseudonym
of political scientist and psychological warfare expert Paul M.
A. Linebarger (1913-1966). In the years since his death, his reputation
for haunting, uniquely-crafted stories has continued to grow,
with many writers in the science fiction community acknowledging
his influence on their work. The first Cordwainer Smith story,
"Scanners Live in Vain," has been nominated for a retro Hugo this
year, in the novelette category.
About
the Cordwainer Smith Foundation
The
Rediscovery Award is a project of the Cordwainer Smith Foundation,
which promotes the celebration and study of the works and ideals
of Cordwainer Smith. Its Directors include Smith's two daughters.
Joining them are Alan C. Elms, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis,
who is completing the definitive biography of Paul Linebarger,
and Ralph Benko, a Washington, DC, consultant who originally suggested
the award.
The
Cordwainer Smith Foundation is planning to celebrate its debut
at Philcon, in a manner that will be announced later. Details
will posted on the home page of www.cordwainersmith.com (also
reachable as cordwainer-smith.com). The event will take place
on Sunday, September 2.
NEW
CORDWAINER SMITH
REDISCOVERY AWARD IS CREATED
JURORS
TO BE JOHN CLUTE, GARDNER DOZOIS, SCOTT EDELMAN, AND ROBERT SILVERBERG
[For Immediate
Release]
CONTACT:
Alan C. Elms,
acelms@ucdavis.edu,
530-752-1699
Rosana Hart,
rosana@cordwainer-smith.com,719-256-4278
Eleanor Lang,
eleanorlang@erols.com
212-488-6860
(Crestone,
Colorado, 6/1/01) The Cordwainer Smith Foundation announces the
establishment of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, an annual
literary award for forgotten SF classics. The jurors also have
the option each year of awarding a Cordwainer Smith Discovery
Award for contemporary writers who achieve high literary standards
and create a sense of wonder, as Smith did.
The awards
and the newly-formed Foundation grew out of a website that one
of Smith's daughters began last year. "It's been an astonishing
experience of 'build it and they will come,' " comments Rosana
Hart. "Just for fun, I created www.cordwainersmith.com, about
my father's life and work. I soon found out that his stories are
still widely read and deeply loved worldwide. The impetus for
these awards was to share the wealth, so to speak-to bring to
public attention works by others that are also deserving of further
notice." Hart and her sister are the children of Paul M. A. Linebarger
who attained SF greatness for the stories he wrote in the 1950s
and 1960s as Cordwainer Smith.
John Clute,
Gardner Dozois, Scott Edelman, and Robert Silverberg have agreed
to be the founding jurors for the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery
Award. Nonvoting ex-officio jurors will include two members of
the Foundation: Rosana Hart and Dr. Alan C. Elms, immediate past
president of the Science Fiction Research Association. Eleanor
Lang has agreed to serve as founding executive director for the
award.
About the
Jurors
Dr. Elms
comments, "First, the Cordwainer Smith Foundation wanted figures
who are esteemed for having the highest standards of critical
capability in the field. Second, we sought figures with an encyclopedic
knowledge of SF. Finally, we sought people who had spontaneously
demonstrated a particular appreciation for the quality and significance
of the work of Cordwainer Smith. We quickly arrived at a short
list of four people who thoroughly exemplify those qualities:
John Clute, Gardner Dozois, Scott Edelman and Robert Silverberg."
Robert
Silverberg
is the dean of living SF writer/editors. Silverberg has won five
Nebulas and four Hugos, and has received more major award nominations
than any other SF writer. In addition to his prolific output as
a writer, Silverberg has left a definitive imprint on the field
of SF by his genre-defining editorial work and by his long personal
devotion to the field.
Gardner
Dozois has won eleven Hugos for his work as editor
of Asimov's, the most influential magazine in contemporary science
fiction. Publishers Weekly has noted that "Dozois is to the 1980s
and 1990s what John W. Campbell, Jr. was to the 1940s and 1950s
- the finest editor in the world of short SF."
John
Clute
co-authored the definitive reference books on science fiction
and fantasy, the 1.3 million word Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
(which Samuel R. Delany called "...the most intelligent, wide-ranging,
and richest reference work on science fiction ever assembled")
and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, among many other works. He has
won three Hugos and many other awards.
Scott
Edelman is the Editor-in-Chief of Science Fiction Weekly
(www.scifi.com/sfw), the Internet magazine of news, reviews and
interviews. With 191,000+ subscribers, Science Fiction Weekly
is one of the most successful and powerful contemporary media
outlets in SF. Prior to this, Edelman was the creator and only
editor of the award-winning Science Fiction Age magazine from
1991 to 2000. He was also the editor of Sci-Fi Entertainment,
the official magazine of the Sci-Fi Channel, for four years, and
has edited other SF media magazines such as Sci-Fi Universe and
Sci-Fi Flix. He has been a Hugo Award finalist for Best Editor
on four occasions.
"We
are very gratified that the Foundation's first choices all agreed
to serve on the jury," Dr. Elms stated. "That is a high tribute
to the magic of the Cordwainer Smith name. This group represents
an unprecedented collection of superb critical judgment and encyclopedic
expertise. In terms of group memory, they know all the SF worth
reading from the past century. The Cordwainer Smith Foundation
expresses its profound gratitude that such eminent and busy figures
have agreed to undertake the responsibility of choosing an annual
winner of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award."
As the Award
by-laws provide, "The Awards Committee shall choose for the Rediscovery
Award a science fiction or fantasy writer whose work deserves
renewed attention or 'Rediscovery.' This writer's work should
display unusual originality and should embody the spirit of Cordwainer
Smith's fiction, according to one or more criteria identified
by the Awards Committee from time to time.
"The Awards
Committee may, at its discretion and in addition to its Rediscovery
Award, choose a Cordwainer Smith Recognition Award winner, to
recognize a science fiction writer of high promise whose work
embodies the spirit of Cordwainer Smith's fiction and, in the
opinion of the Committee, is exemplary of the standards to which
science fiction and fantasy should aspire."
The date
for the first award is to be set by the jury and a decision is
expected soon. The Foundation does not currently encourage unsolicited
submissions for consideration for the Award.
About the
Executive Director
The Foundation
is pleased to announce that Eleanor Lang has agreed to serve as
executive director for the award. Miss Lang is a Digital Media
executive, formerly of Random House's Del Rey imprint, where she
was instrumental in launching its critically acclaimed Impact
line of rediscovered SF and fantasy classics. She helped bring
back into print important works such as Dunsany's The King of
Elfland's Daughter.
She will
oversee ongoing Committee business and handle communications to
and from publishers, writers, fans and other members of the science
fiction and fantasy communities. The Foundation expresses its
gratitude to her for the role she will play in assisting the jury
and helping to integrate the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award
into the intellectual and popular heart of the world of science
fiction.
About Cordwainer
Smith
The members
of the jury have made the following statements about Cordwainer
Smith:
John Clute:
"First, genuflect, genuflect: The Rediscovery of Man collects
between one set of covers all the short fictions of the unmatchable,
unthinkable Cordwainer Smith. All are magnificently weird, most
are plain magnificent, and one or two are the nearest thing to
perfection that you or I will ever chance upon in our little lives."
(Interzone)
Gardner
Dozois: "If, when I was a young would-be writer, struggling
for a glimpse of the Light from out of the stifling provincial
darkness., some supernatural agency had given me the chance to
put on the saffron robe of an acolyte and sit at the feet of the
writer of my choice, learning all that I could learn, I would
have, without any hesitation, picked Cordwainer Smith as the Master
at whose feet I would sit." (Modern Classics of Science Fiction,
edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1991.)
Scott
Edelman: "Sifting through tens of thousands of manuscripts
in the slush pile over the years for Science Fiction Age, what
I always hoped I would find is another Cordwainer Smith. Too many
beginning writers are timid, fearful of stepping over the boundary
separating the day after tomorrow from the vast, rich, unexplored
universe beyond. Better than any writer we've yet seen, Smith
represents the sense of awe and wonder that is the heart of science
fiction."
Robert
Silverberg: "One essential component of great science fiction
is strangeness. The story must take the reader someplace new and
show him something he has never seen before. . Cordwainer Smith's
'Scanners Live in Vain,' one of the classic stories of science
fiction, provides that essential degree of strangeness in two
ways: by sheer originality of concept, and by a deceptive and
eerie simplicity of narrative. It was the first published story
of a remarkable man and a remarkable writer, and when it appeared
in 1950 - in what was little more than an amateur magazine - it
set off reverberations that opened the way for an extraordinary
career. For me it was a revelation. I read it over and over, astonished
by its power. It had for me the fundamental science-fiction quality
that I had been searching for ever since I discovered Wells' Time
Machine and Lovecraft's Shadow Out of Time, and for which I continue
to search to this day, some forty years later: it thrust me into
a place that was utterly new to me, and imbued me with a residue
of haunting images and impressions and feelings that I knew would
never leave me." (Science Fiction 101; Robert Silverberg's Worlds
of Wonder, edited and with an introduction by Robert Silverberg,
ibooks, New York, 2001.)
About www.cordwainersmith.com
and the Cordwainer Smith Foundation
Cordwainer
Smith's literary estate is owned and managed by Paul Linebarger's
two daughters. Last year, his daughter Rosana Hart opened a website
at www.cordwainersmith.com (also reachable as cordwainer-smith.com),
recently selected for prestigious notice by www.scifi.com.
On her site,
she shares thoughts and reminiscences about her father, along
with unique family memorabilia such as never-before-published
photographs. The site also offers exceptional merchandise, such
as a CD of the only known recording of Cordwainer Smith, reading
his novelette On the Sand Planet -- a compelling listening
experience. In addition, the site features numerous links and
a guest registry, where comments about Cordwainer Smith are posted
by fans from all over the world.
Rosana Hart
comments, "My own interests and knowledge are primarily outside
of science fiction, and I'm very grateful to the people who have
inspired, advised and assisted me in so many ways."
Joining Hart
and her sister as directors of the Cordwainer Smith Foundation
are Alan C. Elms, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis,
who is completing the definitive biography of Paul Linebarger,
and Ralph Benko, a Washington, DC consultant and 1969 Clarion
workshop alumnus, who originally suggested the formulation of
an award in Cordwainer Smith's name and was active in structuring
it and recruiting its jury.
The Cordwainer
Smith Foundation will promote the celebration and study of the
works of Cordwainer Smith, through the Cordwainer Smith awards,
the website and its associated ezine, and other projects. The
Foundation will also promote the understanding of the life of
Paul M. A. Linebarger, and will help keep alive the high ideals
which are at the core of Cordwainer Smith's work.
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