Drunkboat (short Story)
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"Drunkboat" is a
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
short story by American writer
Cordwainer Smith Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966), known by his pen-name Cordwainer Smith, was an American author of science fiction. He was an officer in the US Army, a noted scholar of East Asia, and an expert in psycholo ...
. It was first published in the magazine ''
Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...
'' in October 1963. It was included in ''
Space Lords ''Space Lords'' is a video game released in arcades by Atari Games in 1992. It is a first-person perspective space combat video game. It is a multiplayer game that can have up to two players per screen: a pilot (primary player) and a copilot ( ...
'', a collection of five stories by Cordwainer Smith published in May 1965. It appeared in ''The Instrumentality of Mankind'', a collection published in May 1979, and it was in ''
The Rediscovery of Man ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...
'', a complete collection of his short stories, published in 1993.All the science fiction stories and all the books
cordwainer-smith.com, accessed 19 August 2015.


Background

The story was based on the writer's earlier "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All", which in 1955 had failed to find a publisher. In 1963,
Cele Goldsmith Cele Goldsmith Lalli (1933 – January 14, 2002) was an American editing, editor. She was the editor of ''Amazing Stories'' from 1959 to 1965, ''Fantastic (magazine), Fantastic'' from 1958 to 1965, and later the Editor-in-Chief of ''Modern Bri ...
asked Smith to provide a story for ''Amazing Stories'' to match a pre-existing illustration, and the earlier story became a basis for "Drunkboat".The Right Kind of Man for That Kind of Trip.
in ''
Science Fiction Studies ''Science Fiction Studies'' (''SFS'') is an academic journal founded in 1973 by R. D. Mullen. The journal is published three times per year at DePauw University. As Science fiction studies, the name implies, the journal publishes articles and ...
'' #86 = Volume 29, Part 1 = March 2002, at
DePauw University DePauw University ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Greencastle, Indiana, United States. It was founded in 1837 as Indiana Asbury College and changed its name to DePauw University in 1884. The college has a Methodist heritage and was ...
"The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All", in a revised version made in 1958, was first published in the collection ''The Instrumentality of Mankind''.Page 43
Karen L. Hellekson, ''The Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith'',
McFarland & Company McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tert ...
2001, accessed 23 August 2015.
Like other stories of Cordwainer Smith, "Drunkboat" is part of a
future history A future history, imaginary history or anticipatory history is a fictional conjecture of the future used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for stories. Sometimes the author publishes a t ...
, in a universe policed by the
Instrumentality of Mankind In the science fiction of Cordwainer Smith, the Instrumentality of Mankind refers both to Smith's personal future history and fictional universe, universe and to the central government of humanity within that fictional universe. ''The Instrumental ...
. The Lords and Ladies of the Instrumentality are benign but all-powerful. Their slogan is quoted in chapter 7 of "Drunkboat": "Watch, but do not govern; stop war but do not wage it; protect, but do not control; and first, survive!" The story is partly based on "
Le Bateau ivre (''The Drunken Boat'') is a Symbolist poem written in the summer of 1871 by French poet Arthur Rimbaud, then aged sixteen. The poem, one-hundred lines long, with four alexandrines per each of its twenty-five quatrains, describes the drifting a ...
" ("The Drunken Boat"), a poem written in 1871 by
Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...
, in which vivid imagery is used to describe the experience of a drifting boat as it fills with water. In Cordwainer Smith's story, this becomes the experience of a man who is sent through a special form of space known as space3.


Plot summary

The story is introduced as a famous legend, often recalled in later years. Lord Crudelta, wanting to experiment with sending a person through space-three (usually written as space3), selects Artyr Rambo; he is in a hospital on Earth Four, anxious to find his lover Elizabeth. (The name "Artyr Rambo" is a
phonetic spelling A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond consistently to the language's phonemes (the smallest units of speech that can differentiate words), or more generally ...
of "Arthur Rimbaud": "y" is the standard
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
symbol for the vowel written "u" in French.) Having sent Elizabeth, who is dangerously ill, to a hospital on Earth, Crudelta constructs a special spaceship which sends Rambo through space3, almost immediately arriving on Earth. He is found naked and unconscious lying on grass by the hospital. In the hospital, he remains inert; the doctors wonder who he is and what explains the unique unresponsive state they find he is in. Space3 has given Rambo special powers: aware of Elizabeth's presence in the building, he tears his way through a wall, and his uttered word "No", when he cannot see her, has an effect on technology in the area. Back in his hospital bed, he speaks gibberish when the doctors try to talk to him. Crudelta travels, by normal means, from Earth Four to Earth. Believing that Rambo might be a danger to humanity, he seizes troops and they enter the hospital. The leading soldiers turn and attack those behind. In two minutes of confusion, many people are killed. Rambo, asleep and unaware of his powers, had caused the troops nearest Elizabeth to defend her against the rest. There is later a trial of Lord Crudelta. He tells the Investigating Lord that he induced rage in Rambo by saying that Elizabeth was at the edge of death, so that he would want to come faster to Earth than anyone had done, to make him travel through space3. He says he chose Earth Four to select someone, because it was a planet of explorers and adventurers where the rage level was already high. When Rambo testifies, he becomes articulate when he describes the journey through space3; he says "I ''was'' the ship.... I was the drunkboat myself", and he expresses the experience with striking imagery (taken from Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Le Bateau ivre"). For Crudelta, the conclusion of the panel of seven Lords of the Instrumentality is "He has many troubles ahead of him, and we wish to add to them." Rambo and Elizabeth are brought back to health and are free to continue their lives. Although their relationship has less intensity than formerly on Earth Four, he is happy: "A man who has been through space3 needs very little in life, outside of ''not'' going back to space3."


Reception

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...
called "Drunkboat" a "wild jungle of language" and a "tour de force" which was nonetheless "overwritten", noting that it is "full of awfully bad verse" (noting particularly the millennia-old
nonsense verse Nonsense verse is a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature. Limericks are probably th ...
s which Lord Crudelta "laboriously" explains)."Thinking about Cordwainer Smith", in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
by
Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...
; originally presented at
Readercon Readercon is an annual science fiction convention, typically held every July in the Boston, Massachusetts area, currently taking place in Quincy, Massachusetts. It was founded by Bob Colby and Eric Van in 1987 with the goal of focusing almost exc ...
1994; published 2004 by
Shambhala Publications Shambhala Publications is an Independent publisher, independent publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the societ ...


References


External links

* * {{ISFDB title, 44479 1963 short stories Short stories by Cordwainer Smith Works originally published in Amazing Stories