Norstrilia

An absolute acid trip of a book. Cordwainer Smith packs the pages so full with fantastical, fun, and outlandish ideas that I have a hard time understanding how he made it fit into the svelte 275 page size. Every ten to twenty pages, Smith hits you with something new and wacky, that takes you the next ten to twenty pages just to absorb and half understand. Invisible palaces, massive sick sheep that produce an immortality drug, animal-human hybrids that act as servants for mankind, dehydrated space travel, bird assassins, and bird gods. If you can believe it, all of these ideas are used to explore wealth, and it's impacts on society. How does wealth and power corrupt the individual? Can society function when individuals are free from any adversity? What role does mutual hardship play in our lives?

I think if this book has a major flaw, it's that there's simply too much to tie together. It feels a little clumsy at points, as Smith tries his best to make sense of it all. I've heard that most of his short stories are set in this same universe, and precede the events in Norstrilia. I'm looking forward to diving into some of those other works, and then giving Norstrilia a re-read, which should give me way more perspective.

Even so, I highly recommend this one. I've never read anything like it, and I suspect I won't ever.