Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Born in 1913, Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger wrote science fiction as Cordwainer Smith. Outside fiction, he was also a scholar of East Asia, a U.S. Army officer, and a specialist in psychological warfare, giving his work an unusual blend of global politics, strategy, and visionary storytelling.

His science fiction stands out for its far-future setting, often called the Instrumentality of Mankind sequence, and for stories that feel both mythic and intimate. Readers still return to his work for its originality, its sympathy for outsiders, and the way it mixes big ideas with strong feeling.

Linebarger died in 1966, but Cordwainer Smith remains one of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century speculative fiction. Even now, his fiction feels unlike anyone else’s: elegant, eerie, and full of wonder.