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| Cover art by Gray Morrow |
| NORSTRILIA Cordwainer Smith | Rating: 5.0 High |
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| New York: Ballantine Books, November 1978 (© 1975 Genevieve Linebarger) | ISBN 0-345-27800-3 | 277pp. | SC | $1.95 | |
How long does it take to raise one hundred and fifty generations of men? It takes a long time. And Norstrilia — Old North Australia — was already old by the time of the first generation of them. Far across the galaxy from Old Earth, it had a unique society: Norstrilians, wealthy beyond imagining from sales of stroon, the immortality drug which grew nowhere else, chose to live austerely and mostly in isolation, piling up credits and preserving their pioneer virtues.
But Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan to the 151st is something special. Newly certified as "Mister and Owner" of the Station of Doom, a fairly typical sheep station on Norstrilia, he finds himself under threat from a minor official. At first he is at a loss for some effective response. But one of the untypical things about the Station of Doom is an old battle computer hidden in an invisible temple.1 The young Mister and Owner pulls an all-nighter and, through arcane financial maneuvering directed by this computer, manages to purchase the planet Earth.
But this is hardly the end of his troubles, because now all manner of miscreants will seek to kill him, to capture him, or merely con him to get at his vast fortune. With the aid of one Lord Redlady he escapes2 to Earth — and plunges into a whirlpool where intricate plots and simple customs both put his life in constant jeopardy. Fortunately, he has a skillful guide in the form of C'mell, and she has the support of other Lords of the Instrumentality. And underneath all the petty schemes is the E'telikeli, powerful master of the underpeople. He is no schemer, but a leader in the mold of Paul Atriedes or Kimball Kinnison: someone who works for the good of all people.3
Cordwainer Smith was the pseudonym of Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (1913-1966), scholar on East Asia and expert in psychological warfare. He wrote several books, both fiction and non-fiction, and 32 short stories, but this is his only SF novel. Norstrilia is wild, sweet, outrageous, filled with humor, poetry, song, and imaginings bizarre and beautiful. Underlying all this, like the strength beneath a pillar, is a keen sense of mortality and a love of justice, an understanding that humanity lies deeper than the skin and that no soul is truly free unless all are. It is an unforgettable tour de force. I cannot recommend it too highly.
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