Rereading “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” by Cordwainer Smith.

Smith didn’t write many stories, but they linger in my mind far more than most. The first one I remember reading was “No, No, Not Rogov!” — I forgot where I read it, or who the author was.  “Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons” was the same — the story burned itself into my memory, but I couldn’t remember where I read it or who it was by.

A couple of years ago the mystery resolved:  there’s a book that reprints his complete short works.  Some of the titles are so poetic:  “The Dead Lady of Clown Town”,  “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard”, “Scanners Live in Vain”, “The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-At-All”.

http://www.amazon.com/Rediscovery-Man-Complete-Science-Cordwainer/dp/0915368560/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362700388&sr=1-1&keywords=cordwainer+smith

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