Cordwainer Smith

It is a fact universally acknowledged that all trends continue without limit, whether the top speed of vehicles, the growth of the human population of Earth, or the acceptance that all trends grow without limit. Therefore, it’s reasonable to conclude from the increasing concentration of wealth in fewer hands that there will come a day when one person owns the whole of the Earth.

This week’s Readers Choice, which comes to us from SF Gateway forum member, The Star Plunderer, is Cordwainer Smith‘s The Rediscovery of Man. 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.

How do the science fiction and horror book genres overlap? And can you explain the appeal of sci-fi horror, particularly body horror? Mixing sci-fi and horror together goes back as far as sci-fi itself, maybe even beginning with Frankenstein. Through some of the books that I’m going to talk about today, I came to love the idea of exploring science fiction through the body, and through body horror in particular.