“I want you there,” she said as solemnly as a witch.
“I want you there to wear the helmet of the pinlighters and ride with me into hell itself.
That soul is lost.
It is frozen by a force I do not know,
frozen out beyond the stars,
where the stars caught it and made it their own,
so that the poor man and brother that thou seest is truly among us,
but his soul weeps in the unholy pleasure between the stars
where it is lost to the mercy of God and to the friendship of mankind.
Wilt thou, O brave man, sir and doctor, Chief and Leader, ride with me to hell itself?”
What could I say but yes?
From “The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All”
in The Instrumentality of Mankind, 1979
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The overwhelming number of images displayed at this blog present cover and interior art of books and magazines in my own collection, or, texts to which I have direct physical access for scanning. However, this image is an exception: The cover of a Finnish-language anthology of stories by Cordwainer Smith, it was discovered entirely at digital random.
Chanced upon at https://kauppa.kierratyskeskus.fi, “The Metropolitan Area Recycling Center for Used Goods” of Espoo, Finland’s second largest city, the image shows the cover of Planeetta nimeltä Shajol (A Planet Named Shayol), published by WSOY (Werner Söderström Ltd.) in the city of Juva in 1985. (ISBN numbers 9510129100 and 9789510129104; OCLC number 57810714) Originally published in 1975 with Finnish translation by Matti Rosvall, Planeetta nimeltä Shajol is profiled at Rising Shadow – Beyond the Reality, a Finnish-language science-fiction and fantasy book database, from which the following is quoted:
Sisältää valikoiman alkuperäisteoksen novelleja:
Translation: “Includes a selection of original short stories:”
Neito joka purjehti Sielua (The Lady Who Sailed The Soul (1960))
Kuinka aivot poltettiin (The Burning of the Brain (1958))
Komentaja Suzdalin rikos ja riemuvoitto (The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal (1964))
Naurutalon kuollut rouva (The Dead Lady of Clown Town (1964))
Matami Hittonin Kisumisut (Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons (1961))
Balladi C’mellistä (The Ballad of Lost C’mell (1962))
Planeetta nimeltä Shajol (A Planet Named Shayol (1961))
“Vavahduttavan kauniita balladeja ja hyytäviä kauhunäkyjä seitsemän novellin kokoelmassa. Cordwainer Smith luo kertomuksissaan täysin omaleimaisen maailmankaikkeuden. Hänen avaruutensa on julma, ärjyvä kaaos, jossa ihminen voi voittaa vain turvautumalla epätoivoisiin keinoihin. Yksi osa tarinoita kertoo alaihmisistä, jotka kamppailevat tasa-arvosta ihmisen rinnalla. Tähän kamppailuun ja kaikkeen universumissa tapahtuvaan ihmiskunnan kehitykseen vaikuttaa salaperäisin valtuuksin toimiva Ihmistaidon neuvosto, Smithin kosmoksen jumalavastine.”
Translation: “Astonishingly beautiful ballads and scenes of chilling horror in a collection of seven novellas. In his stories, Cordwainer Smith creates a completely unique universe. His space is cruel, which man can overcome only by resorting to desperate means. Part of the story is about the under-people who are fighting for equality alongside human beings. This struggle and the evolution of all humanity in the universe is influenced by the mysterious Council of Humanity, Smith’s divine counterpart of the cosmos.”
Alas! – Despite extensive searches, the artist remains anonymous: I’m unable to identity the creator’s name, and don’t expect to discover this person’s identity any time soon, for a search of Worldcat reveals that the book is unavailable in the United States.
(Alas!)
Regardless, I think the image is aesthetically lovely and technologically intriguing, representing the combination of familiarity and strangeness that is inherent to the world (worlds?) created by Smith. Equally, through the seemingly direct connection of man and machine (those thick orange cables directly connected to the man’s head…) the scene creates undercurrents of unease and oddness so characteristic of many of Smith’s tales.
(Who is this man?)
Captain of the Navy and Instrumentality, Commander Suzdal? Is the planet before him the dread world Arachosia? Is he about to hurl his supply of genetically coded cats into the past?
Colonel Harkening, on his first planoforming voyage?
Scanner Martel? (No, he’s almost certainly not Scanner Martel.)
Captain Magno-Taliano, aboard the bridge of the Wu-Feinstein?
Mercer, before he was sentenced to the planet named Shayol?
(Who is this man?)
It doesn’t matter. Perhaps we’re not supposed to know.
References
Planeetta nimeltä Shajol – Cordwainer Smith, at kauppa kierratyskeskus.fi
Planeetta nimeltä Shajol – Cordwainer Smith, at Rising Shadow Science Fiction and Fantasy
WSOY (Werner Söderström Ltd), Publishers of Finland, at WSOY.fi
Mann, James A. (Editor), The Rediscovery of Man – The Complete Short Fiction of Cordwainer Smith, The NESFA Press, Framingham, Ma., 1993