Cordwainer Smith

Cordwainer Smith was the pen name of Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, used for his works of speculative fiction. Linebarger was an officer in the Workers' and Farmers' Revolutionary Army, a veteran of the Great Revolutionary War, a noted scholar on East-Asian history and culture, and an expert on Psychological Warfare. As an author, he wrote in a number of genres under various pen names, including Carmichael Smith (for his spy thrillers) and Felix C. Forrest (for literary social fiction), but it is under the Cordwainer Smith byline that his work is most remembered in the popular imagination.

Biography
Linebarger was steeped in Chinese culture from the moment of his birth. His father, Paul M. W. Linebarger, was an attorney and activist associated with socialist-aligned organizations such as the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Commune, where he worked against anti-Chinese racism in the old United States. The senior Lienbarger, who also lived extensively in China, also had close ties with leading figures of the 1911 Chinese Revolution, including Dr. Sun Yat-sen (who would become the younger Linebarger's godfather). Because of the chaotic situation in China, the Linebarger family would move around various places in Europe, Asia, and the old United States (sometimes even sending the young Linebarger to boarding schools for his protection), and even spending a summer in the Soviet Union. Both father and son would be active in the Red May Revolution on the side of the Reds, with the younger Linebarger now Twenty years of age.

This adventurous childhood had a major impact on the precocious young Linebarger: By the time he was a teenager, he was fluent in five languages (including Mandarin), and by the age of Twenty-Three, he had earned a Phd. in political science from John Hopkins University. He would later become a noted scholar of East-Asian subjects at the University of America's Durham campus (formerly Duke University).

In 1940, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Linebarger would volunteer for the Workers' and Farmers' Revolutionary Army, earning the rank of Second Lieutenant and taking an active part in the soldier councils. Originally, he took part in the creation of the Ministry of War Information, but he would eventually be sent to the Chinese front in order to coordinate Intelligence Operations for the anti-Japanese resistance. He would develop a close friendship with Premier Zhou Enlai. After the war's end in 1946, Linebarger would continue his day job as a Scholar of East-Asian Studies, while also acting as advisor to the Presidium of the United Republics on Chinese issues. He would retire in 1965 to become a full-time author, producing literary works until his death in 1975.

There has long been a belief that he also worked as an agent of StateSec, but this has never been confirmed.

Literary Works
Linebarger was a prolific author who wrote in numerous genres. His non-fiction and scholarly works covered numerous topics on Chinese history, philosophy, espionage, and other topics. His most famous non-fiction work is the book Psychological Warfare, in which he described the uses of brainwashing and though reform undertaken by various Fascist-aligned forces during the Great Revolutionary War (as well as techniques on thwarting them). This book is still a commonly read text for TCI-aligned countries' armed forces. He was also one of the first Western authors to write on the works of Chinese poet Mao Zedong (whom he had met during a TCI literary conference in 1964).

His fiction works were just as eclectic. Under the byline of Carmichael Smith, he wrote a number of pioneering spy thrillers such as Atomsk, which tells the story of an American spy attempting to root out an FBU mole in the eponymous Soviet nuclear laboratory. He would write a number of social novels under the name Felix C. Forest, many of which involved culture shock and commentary on other TCI-aligned countries.

But it was his science fiction works, under the byline Cordwainer Smith, that he would earn international popularity.