This is so neat! I feel Smith is very much underrated as an author these days - his language and inventiveness, and just the style of his storytelling, completely different from anything else I've ever come across. He's got this shamelessly mythic approach that I think is just too earnest for a lot of post-modern authors to really feel comfortable with, but he makes it work so well.

(In particular, I think it's a crying shame that everyone with even the slightest interest in body horror haven't read "A Planet Named Shayol," because wow.)

I have to tell you my story of how I discovered him. The first thing I read was "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittens," which I ran across in a short story anthology while I was in college. I hated it. It was so aggressively violent and too strange even for my tastes, and I decided I Did Not Like Cordwainer Smith. And then, maybe a year or two later, I found a battered book club copy of The Best of Cordwainer Smith in the free box at my library, and I figured why not, and I was enthralled. I just needed a few stories to really learn how to read him - to settle into his style and what kinds of stories he told.

Anyway, thanks so much for this! Sorry it took me so long to respond - it's been a really busy month, and I wanted to do the post justice with a proper response. :P