Scanners Live in Vain

'''Smith, Cordwainer (pseud. for Paul Linebarger). "Scanners Live in Vain."' Fantasy Book'' June 1950. Coll. The Best of Cordwainer Smith. J. J. Pierce, ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Frequently rpt., including Survival Printout, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, vol. 1 (q.v. under Anthologies), and Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 12 (1950). Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. New York: DAW, 1984.

At the beginning of the story, "Scanners," to survive the "great Pain of Space," have to be surgically altered and, to some extent, made mechanical. See for theme of the organic versus the mechanical and the cosmic. See under Literary Criticism the TMG essay by G. Wolfe.[]