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"Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" is our group's January 2025 featured novelette. First published in the June 1961 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it was nominated for a 1962 Hugo award. No less a fellow author than Ursula K. LeGuin famously stated that reading this "was as important to me as reading Pasternak for the first time."

I don't want to give away any plot details here at all, not even to entice readers. I will point out that the novelette was inspired by a painting from Smith's childhood, The Storm by Pierre-Auguste Cot, reproduced in our masthead this month, of two young lovers fleeing along a darkening path. Additionally, the names of the two principal characters, together with the story's conscious attempt to revive a French culture, recall the 18th century French novel Paul et Virginie.

This will be my first read of Cordwainer Smith. He wrote most of his stories, including this one, in a series called "The Instrumentality of Mankind." It apparently posited an age of computers that made lives too easy. Humankind atrophied as a result. An attempt was made to wean people, to not make everything so easy. The thought was doing this would reinvigorate. This is one of those stories.

This is a terrific story. I think the world-building is fantastic and the characters, particularly C'Mell, are fully developed and engaging. The one point I wish the author had explained in more detail was why Paul went "into a hospital and came out French." Presumably, the treatments involved brain implants of some kind so he could learn French culture and language immediately, but I would have liked to know more about the procedures he underwent to become French.

As I indicated earlier, this story is in Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind series. I have to wonder if a reading of some of the earlier stories in that series would have answered the question of how Paul could so easily become French. I suspect Smith explained it already and didn't want to bore readers of his earlier stories with another explanation.

Incidentally, I have ordered his out-of-print, and getting increasingly more expensive story collection The Instrumentality of Mankind from the used book market. It's due to arrive any day. That collection does not include "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," however. So I will probably pull this story up via the June 1961 issue it appeared in and read it first that way.

Dan wrote: "As I indicated earlier, this story is in Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind series. I have to wonder if a reading of some of the earlier stories in that series would have answered the qu..."

Yes, it could have been explained earlier. If I remember correctly, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard was published tenth of the 33 Instrumentality of Mankind stories. But, since the Instrumentality had only just decided to reverse course for humanity and allow them to become 'real' humans in Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, I don't know which of the earlier stories would have had that information.

I am now reading the story. So far I am really liking it. I believe Paul and Virginia underwent a process called hypnopedia in the hospital they emerged from. As a result of unconscious programming they received there, they can no longer speak their native language, but only old French.

They were also immortal, lives limited (to 400 years?) only by something called the Instrumentality. As a result of the hospital process, they are now mortal, but their lives seem to still be limited by that Instrumentality, only it's no longer predictable when the end is coming. They also have no idea what food tastes like.

This is all strange, but a pretty cool concept, nonetheless. My working hypothesis, for now, is that human beings by this time have been synthetically replaced and are no longer human but actually machine. After all, that seems to be where our society is headed for now, what we are ultimately trying to accomplish in medicine in order to extend our lives. When parts wear out, we want to replace them: artificial hearts and organs. Why not replace everything and live hundreds of years thereby? That would make food unnecessary if we run on say solar power, like our calculators do.

If I am right about my hypothesis, it's pretty amazing Cordwainer Smith would have extrapolated this trend as early on as he did. We didn't have solar powered calculators when he was alive, and organ replacement was uncommon if it existed at all.

That was a fun novelette, a really good introduction to Cordwainer Smith. Here is my review: /review/show...

On the basis of having read this story, I went ahead and purchased a copy of The Instrumentality of Mankind. My copy has this very cover. 11 of the 14 stories were written and published in various SF magazines between 1958 and 1963. One outlier, a story titled "The Queen of the Afternoon" was published in Galaxy in 1978. I'm surprised Galaxy was still publishing that late. Most SF magazines had folded by then in favor of publishing stories in anthologies, as is still the practice today. Another story, "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All," seems to have appeared in this 1979 collection for the first time. And finally, the second story of the collection, "War No. 81-Q," was first published way back in 1928! (found here on Gutenberg: ) That's 22 years before the second published Instrumentality story, "Scanners Live in Vain" (1950).

Anyway, there's this interesting "timeline" at the beginning. The stories are arranged in chronological order of events that took place in the story. The range of dates is roughly 2000 to about 16000 A.D. Almost every eon has an Instrumentality story or two, some up to ten. Our story, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," takes place near the end, at 16,000. It's one of nine stories in that eon, five marginally related stories, of which one is "The Ballad of Lost C'mell," and the four Cashier O'Neill stories.

I read the first story, "No, No, Not Rogov!" And it's a truly odd story. It takes place in the 1940s and in the year 13,582. Two talented Soviet scientists are trying to invent and then develop a mind reading, mind control device, and accidentally connect to an event taking place in 13,582. Most of the story takes place in the 1940s and involves a love quadrangle of sorts, but the connection to the future throws a wrench into everything.

I've never read another story quite like this one. It has human elements to it in the interesting love angles between the two scientists and the two Soviet watchers trying to keep them on task. But they aren't the real story. The mind control and link to 13,582 turn out to be more important.

Cordwainer Smith has a really interesting writing style. It's simple, unadorned, and gets right to the heart of the matter. He makes it feel like he's telling you the essence of the story, but then takes unexpected, surprising twists to make you realize it wasn't the story. But he resolves everything by the end. I really like his style of writing!

I wish this collection had "Scanners Live in Vain." That story takes place around the year 6,000, about the same time as "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul," which is also not in this collection.

Dan wrote: "Cordwainer Smith has a really interesting writing style. It's simple, unadorned, and gets right to the heart of the matter. He makes it feel like he's telling you the essence of the story, but then takes unexpected, surprising twists to make you realize it wasn't the story. But he resolves everything by the end. I really like his style of writing!..."

I agree totally! I really love his writing style, and his stories are fantastic. Another collection you might like is The Rediscovery of Man, which has, I think, all the stories in The Instrumentality of Mankind, plus virtually all of his other short work. After Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, my favorite stories are The Ballad of Lost C'mell, Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons, The Game of Rat and Dragon, and The Lady Who Sailed the Soul. I also like Scanners Live in Vain, just not as much as these others. Of his longer work, I really like Norstrilia.

There's an interesting connection between Cordwainer Smith and one of our authors from the previous month, James Tiptree Jr. in that they both were career U.S. intelligence officers, Smith with the U.S. Army and the CIA, and Tiptree (Alice Sheldon) with the OSS, which became the CIA. Smith had his doctorate in political science and Tiptree had hers in experimental psychology. I've done some research trying to find out if they could have known each other, or at least known of each other, while they worked for the government, but have not been able to find out definitely. Tiptree definitely knew of Smith's novels, as there are letters by her about them that were more or less complimentary, but I don't know if she knew that Cordwainer Smith was actually Paul Linebarger.

I don't think I've read the other story you mention, No, No, Not Rogov!, at least not yet. I'll be interested to see how Soviet era scientists get entangled with the Instrumentality

This was a great story-Paul should have listened to the birds who told him No, no, no.

Just finished this novelette. What a zany ride. I can't help but wonder about the Abba-dingo and its provenance. I can also see how any species living across the span of eons may want to harken back to an almost-forgotten period of their history their current society romanticizes about. Especially one where they can experience controlled chaos. We humans already do this with our imaginations of perceived golden eras and activities like hunting.

Glad I found this Goodread book group! This thread has been fun to read as well. Thank you David for sharing your bit of sleuthing regarding the connection to Smith and a previous month's author. Dan, I hope you enjoy delving into the future history of the Instrumentality of Man! Let us know how the ride goes.

I agree this is a good introduction for me to this author. I will definitely consider reading more of his work in the future.

I loved this weird little story. It reminded me a little of The Machine Stops, which I also like.