Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume 1

by William Tenn, James A. Mann, Mary C. Tabasko

Immodest Proposals contains the majority of William Tenn's short science fiction. It includes such classic stories as "Child's Play," "Time in Advance," "Down Among the Dead Men," and "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi."

The next volume on the series, Here Comes Civilization, will contain the remainder of his short science fiction, the novel Of Men and Monsters, and the short novel A Lamp for Medusa.

Tenn has long been considered one of the major satirists in the field. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls him "one of the genre's very few genuinely comic, genuinely incisive writers of short fiction." Theodore Sturgeon had the following to say:

"It would be too wide a generalization to say that every SF satire, every SF comedy and every attempt at witty and biting criticism found in the field is a poor and usually cheap imitation of what this man has been doing since the '40s. [But] his incredibly involved and complex mind can at times produce constructive comment so pointed and astute that the fortunate recipient is permanently improved by it."

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Humor

618 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

William Tenn is the pseudonym of Philip Klass. He was born in London on May 9, 1920, and emigrated to the United States with his parents before his second birthday. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. After serving in the United States Army as a combat engineer in Europe, he held a job as a technical editor with an Air Force radar and radio laboratory and was employed by Bell Labs.

He began writing in 1945 and wrote academic articles, essays, two novels, and more than 60 short stories.

His first story, 'Alexander the Bait' was published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1946. Stories like 'Down Among the Dead Men', 'The Liberation of Earth', and 'The Custodian' quickly established him as a fine, funny, and thoughtful satirist.

Tenn is best-known as a satirist, and by works such as "On Venus Have We Got a Rabbi" and "Of Men and Monsters."

His stories and articles were widely anthologized, a number of them in best-of-the-year collections. From 1966, he was a Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at The Pennsylvania State University, where he taught, among other things, a popular course on science fiction.

In 1999, he was honored as Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America at their annual Nebula Awards Banquet.



More information at: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topi...

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. What an amazing collection of stories....at least those that I have read so far, which include the four listed below. I have never read anything by William Tenn (aka Philip Klass) but after sampling the work in this collection, I would say he is an under-rated gem from the golden age of science fiction (most of the stories were written between 1946 and 1957).

"Down Among the Dead Men" (5.5 stars) - A truly superb piece of story-telling about a prolonged interstellar war and the price that must be paid by the people fighting in it. I thought it was interesting that the enemy of humanity are insect like and referred to as "bugs" and that the story pre-dates Starship Troopers by some five years. A truly great story.

"On Venus, Have We Got A Rabbi" (5.0 to 5.5 stars) - The seemingly comical title and the somewhat light-hearted tone of the story are simply cover for an extremely powerful and brilliant story that will leave you thinking long after the story is over.

"Project Hush" (3.5 to 4.0 stars) - A good, solid short story that pokes fun at the cold war py era of the 1960's.

"The Dark Star" (4.0 stars) - Excellent story about fame, family and the inherent struggle between the two. I really liked his one.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you go through these complete collections of various SF writers (especially the sets that NESFA puts out, which I find pretty valuable) you often find that they're collecting writers who have either fallen in obscurity or weren't given their due during the time they were active and have only be rediscovered years later. William Tenn is a strange case, though. Pretty well regarded when he was active (from the late 40s to the late 60s) to the point where he had people like Theodore Sturgeon representing him as an agent in the early days, he wrote a bunch of stories during that timeframe before deciding that teaching was more rewarding and focused on that for the remainder of his working life. But even when he wasn't writing he stuck around for quite a while, staying active in the Pittsburgh fandom groups and living nearly until his nineties, only passing away in early 2010. So unlike a lot of other writers who died young and weren't around to hear the plaudits of another generation rediscovering their work (Kornbluth comes to mind immediately, although I'm sure everyone has their favorites), Tenn (born and died Philip Klass) got to hear everyone tell him how great he was and give him all the honors that I'd say he probably deserved.

Because his body of work was so small (fitting in two admittedly hefty volumes here, the first covering nothing but short stories, the second gathering together the rest and his scant longer fiction) yet remarkably consistent, I think Tenn gets kind of the aura of "the one that got away" because he retired from writing SF but clearly never stopped being a decent writer. He was also one of the few consistently successful satiristst the genre has seen, able to take a well worn trope and turn it inside out or approach it from an angle that told a good story while mocking the very cliche he was attempting to ape. Unless you're, I don't know, Mark Twain, humor is probably hard to do and sustain in stories in general and even harder in something like SF because so much of it takes itself very seriously, yet too much of the ha-ha's and you run the risk of undermining whatever point you're trying to make as it dives into ridiculousness.

I have to admit, I find the satire angle intriguing but at the same time it too often dates a lot of his stories as later events in the world of science could negate the point he's trying to make or society has since evolved where we might find the very thing he's making fun of rather quaint nowadays in these jaded times we live in. I don't find him as savage as someone like Barry Malzberg, who I find skews closer to my own sensibilities (although to be fair Malzberg didn't start until Tenn had basically retired, so we may be talking about a generational thing as well) and he lacks the bizarre edge that someone like Cordwainer Smith could bring to the proceedings, which I find reads a lot easier to today's audience.

But Tenn was a good writer just from a pure prose standpoint, able to craft stories that would probably make English teachers the world over swoon. Even his early stories, while maybe a tad overwritten and not able to zero in on their targets the way the best of his stories did, generally have something to recommend. Interestingly Tenn is often his best critic . . . he contributes a sometimes detailed afterword for every single story and his memory alone is impressive but he's also good at pointing out which stories he didn't think worked very well. And while you may be able to accuse him of self-deprecation or being too hard on himself, surprisingly his criticism after the fact are often spot-on (something probably all those years of teaching college English helped with).

As I said, his best stories often take apart SF cliches and have some fun with them. Many of them deal with aliens and he's quite capable of writing some pretty weird alien stories where the aliens actually do feel like aliens instead of people wearing funny costumes (although that happens too in "Lisbon Cubed", the one with probably the best "oh no he didn't" ending). A lot of the stories actually have surprise or "gotcha" endings ("The Flat Eyed Monster" sharing the aforementioned "Lisbon Cubed"'s sense of deadpan tragedy), and he's quite good at that and a good enough writer that even knowing the ending in advance doesn't make it less enjoyable to read). Two of the funniest ones have to do with alien sex ("Venus of the Seven Sexes" and the immensely amusing "Party of the One Part", showcasing the best use for naughty pictures of amoebas doing whatever it is they do on Discovery Channel series that focus on microscopes and one celled organisms).

Other ones act as future histories of sorts, generally about things going terribly wrong ("The Liberation of Earth" and "Eastward Ho!", both ridiculous in their own way although I find the latter a bit more fleshed out) while others take a single idea and run it right into the ground (the still amusing "Null-P", although lately I think we'd all crave a political landscape stuffed with boring people) . . . strangely a lot of his stories seem to end right where other people would start ("Generation of Noah"," "The Sickness", although that nicely inverts a "we're doomed" scenario, "A Man of Family" which focuses I think on the wrong aspect of the scenario but manages to barely save itself with an ending that falls on the right side of sappy) which sometimes makes them feel a bit unfinished even if the central idea is still fairly interesting. When they do work, its because he almost makes it a closed loop, like the machinations of "The Servant Problem", where everyone operates under the assumption that they're in control only to be busted by their own carefully managed system.

You've also got at least a couple satires on gender relations which I think probably fall under the "aw, that's quaint" category . . . "The Masculinist Revolt" and "Venus is a Man's World", although its probably safe to say a lesser author might have been quite a bit more hamfisted in his approach. I find his attempts at sheer weirdness don't work quite as well either, with something like "Wednesday's Child" probably having more impact in the hands of someone able to convey emotion better, like Sturgeon and stuff like "My Mother Was a Witch" barely registering, or like "The Tenants" feeling like a low budget "Twilight Zone" episode.

Part of the problem sometimes why it may be hard to get into Tenn's stories is because he's an author more interested in ideas than characters, with the people in his plot basically there to get us to the twist or the satire (its not that his more personal stories fall flat, although "The Custodian" left me cold despite it apparently being his favorite). I think that's why stories like "Down Among the Dead Men", where a new commander has to bond with his zombie crew (and is a good example of a space opera that doesn't ever really go into space) or even more lighthearted stuff like "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi" which delves underneath all the humor with the more serious question of "what makes a Jew?" Or even "The Dark Star" which brings a human element to the issue of space travel and comes at it from an angle that unexpectedly and surprisingly emotional (similar to the more brutal and far more sobering "The Last Bounce" which takes that scenario even further and probably has a better payoff)

He has some time related stories as well. "Time in Advance" deals more with a future scenario that again trends back toward "Twilight Zone" territory (two convicts serve time in prison for crimes they're going to commit later, earning the right to actually go through with the crime) while "Winthrop was Stubborn" (one of my favorites from the set) is an amusing twist on time travel where everyone is at risk of being stuck in a future they don't find that appealing because one guy thinks its the bees' knees.

But there's a rather startling amount of variety in this collection, as Tenn seems to understand that he's only going to be in SF for a limited amount of time and wants to cover as much territory as possible. And despite the stories not quite being in order (they appear to be organized by collection so the chronology is jumbled) you can easily pick out the more mature works from the ones where the prose is there but he's still finding his voice. And its that voice that kept his name alive in SF even when he stopped being an active contributor to the canon, one that, much like a lot of the other greats, is a necessary building block to a lot of the satire and expectation mangling that came later. That the best of the bunch still stand up today shows you how effective he was at getting his points across and how little the basics of SF have changed where we can still recognize the tropes he's poking fun at. While not quite as barbed as he could be, he's daring in his own way and a witty, welcome voice in a genre where too often writers take themselves ploddingly serious.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Tenn is a science fiction writer who ought to be better known. He was an influential editor and a masterful short story writer with a sly, acerbic wit. Tenn is the pen name of Philip Klass. Klass wrote nonfiction under his own name and should not be confused with Philip J. Klass, who denied the existence of flying saucers. Though he lived until 2010, Tenn wrote most of his science fiction in the 1950s and ‘60s. He wrote only one novel, Of Men and Monsters (1968), that reads like an extended short story. It is a single-gimmick story in which humanity is conquered by giant aliens who quickly strip the planet of resources and move on to their next target. Human survivors must decide whether to go with them and occupy an ecological niche in alien culture similar to cockroaches in human culture. Many of the short stories in this omnibus collection have equally sardonic ideas.
Each story has an afterword by Tenn in which he explains what inspired it, how it was received, and what he thinks of it at the end of his career. He also provides the dates of composition and publication for each story—a practice that I wish more anthologists would adopt. “The Masculinist Revolt,” for example, was written in 1961, two years before Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, but not published until 1965. It describes a future in which men begin wearing codpieces as political symbols: “There are men people and women people—and what’s the difference anyway? They want something that does what the codpiece does, that tells them they are not people, they’re men!” Tenn says he lost an agent and friends of both sexes over the story—a woman called it a castration fantasy, and a man called it a manifesto. Tenn said the story was meant to be “gently but encompassingly satiric” in the manner of E. B. White. One editor at Playboy said he should expand the story into a novella for the magazine, but another editor sent the story back because he saw it as a satire aimed at the Playboy empire. Tenn concludes, “All right, maybe it’s not the stuff of immortality, but I still think it is pretty good and pretty funny.”
I would say the same for the entire collection.

[Marc Goldstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 “Down Among the Dead Men”
Told from the POV of a weary veteran. Humanity is at war with an insectoid race that breeds prolifically. To compete, scientists have found methods to recycle tissue from casualties into human clones. The first clones are blank-eyed, emotionless, and can only perform mundane chores. The human crews take to calling the clones “zombies” and treat them with disdain. The protagonist is given command of a new ship. He prepares to meet with his all-zombie crew. The new clones appear to be perfect human facsimiles. The captain’s crew greets him with hostility. They resent being treated like sub-human animals. They seethe believing the scientists intentionally made them sterile. The captain, attempting to convince his crew that science has not conquered the reconstitution of reproductive organs, confesses that one of his war wounds has rendered him sterile, a condition no doctor has been able to repair. The crew finally bonds with him. Savage depiction of the cost of war and a thoughtful examination of cloning.

9 “The Liberation of Earth”
Earth becomes a battlefield for two warring alien races. Each race “liberates”, then re-liberates and re-liberates Earth. Each alien race spouts propaganda against the other, but determining which race has the moral high-ground is impossible. The battles millions of human become collateral casualties. Earth’s ecology is devastated. Eventually the aliens depart, taking their battle elsewhere. Humanity has been reduced to a stone-age existence, the Earth permanently crippled. The narrator concludes: “We about as liberated as a race or planet can be.”

6 “Flirgleflip”
Scientist, frustrated that the Temporal Embassy has ordered him to cease work on his time-travel device, sends a colleague back to the 20th century to ensure that his name goes down in history as the inventor of time travel. The colleague is an old man with no useful skills for employment or survival in the 20th century. He hooks up with a reporter to try to gain the attention of a temporal agent to rescue him. The reporter exposes the scientist’s story, making him appear insane. Afterward, the reporter confesses that he is a temporal agent, but no rescue will take place. The poor scientist must live out his days in the 20th century, such is the grand design of the Temporal Embassy.

6 “The Tenants”
The new tenants want to rent the 13th floor of an office building, which the manager insists does not exist. They arrange tenancy anyway and occupy their new offices. The manager becomes obsessed with visiting the 13th floor, but can never find it. He figures out that only people who have official business on the 13th floor can actually find it. When the tenants move out, he has his pretense to go visit the floor: an official inspection. While he examines the office space, the tenants depart, leaving him trapped on the 13th floor. A clever but silly yarn.

8 “The Custodian”
Humanity has abandoned the planet after discovering that the sun will go nova in a few years. The populace polarizes between Affirmers (those determined to evacuate humanity from Earth, leaving behind all nonessential artifacts), and Custodians (those who believe an effort must be made to preserve objects of artistic, cultural, or sentimental value.) The protagonist, a custodian, is the last man on Earth. He travels the world, viewing the great works of art. One day his scanner detects another human. He investigates and finds a hidden band of Custodians. All have died save one infant. The protagonist rescues the child and takes for it. The child inspires him to make an effort to escape Earth. He procures an abandoned spaceship. As he prepares to leave, he fills the ship with as many great works of art as he can carry. Elegiac, but ultimately life-affirming tale.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

How exactly, can I go about ‘reviewing’ a book containing some of the most famous and ‘classic’ science-fiction (and fantasy, because they are literally fantastic) stories, after reading it over a longish period? Simply: by jotting down things that I loved, some that I liked, and some that I didn’t.

The stories in this book that I loved were:
1. The Ghost Standard
2. Party of the Two Parts
3. Brooklyn Project
4. My Mother Was a Witch
5. The Tenants
6. Down Among the Dead Man
7. The Sickness
8. The Jester
9. Project Hush
10. Alexander the Bait

The stories in this book that I liked were: -
1. Lisbon Cubed
2. The Flat-Eyed Monster
3. The Deserter
4. The Liberation of Earth
5. Eastward Ho!
6. The Masculinist Revolt
7. Child’s Pay
8. Wednesday’s Child
9. The Lemon-Green Spaghetti-Loud Dynamite-Dribble Day
10. The Servant Problem
11. The Last Bounce

Rest of the stories were not exactly to my liking. Whenever and wherever the author tried to be sentimental and overwrote the stories, they lost that punch that had made Eric Frank Russell or Robert Sheckley so special. The satire also lost its sharpness when it got spread across so many pages.

But that’s my problem with works that are longish, and should not stop you from going through these stories that have been resurrected by NESFA Press in the shape of such a beautiful volume. Recommended to all those lovers of “golden age of science-fiction” and to anybody who likes to read good stories.

[Bria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe I had not heard of William Tenn and only just happened across him in a used bookstore and inexplicably found the back of one of his books appealing enough to note for later investigation. Has everybody been going out of their way to keep him from me? It seems unbelievable it could happen by accident. Although his stories are definitely steeped in the culture of the 50s, they seem so much more mature and less restricted by that time period than almost any others I have read. And besides just being brilliantly constructed and well-written, he uses the most charming and creative phrases and words. On top of all this, and let me assure you this is of the highest praise for a science fiction writer, he doesn't waste time in his stories having his characters be stupid or dense. Somebody seems to get ill on an alien planet? Immediately everyone recognizes the possible causes and consequences and reacts accordingly. No letting the story meander off into boring territory while the characters fumble about and you yell at them for being such irritating, frustrating chowderheads. No, the characters are just as smart as their author, which lets much much more interesting action take place.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The trouble with collections of one author's works is the same trouble with a package of Double-Stuffed Oreos. I can't read only a couple of stories at a time - or eat only a couple of Oreos at a time! You can imagine what that means to my waistline. As for my reading life, I get overloaded on a given author quickly and don't give the stories later in the book as much attention as the earlier ones.

However, with this book, I only had time to read one or two stories each night before sleep. It took about a month to finish, but I was able to enjoy every story worth enjoying. Written mostly in the 40s and 50s, with all the political and cultural baggage that implies, the best of the stories are witty, fun and stimulating. The lesser stories have plots that have been tortured so that the punchline can be delivered, but are still fun. There are author notes at the end of each story, which add a lot to the reader's understanding.

My personal favorites were "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi" and "Venus and the Seven Sexes" and "Lisbon Cubed". I've added Volume 2 to my Amazon wish list, so you know I liked the writer.

[Christopher Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was perhaps the best science fiction collection I have discovered. Far out ideas, unexpected resolutions, and a variety of philosophical precepts mixed with humor and a wide array of topics make this a lot of fun. Some provision must be made in the science due to the timing of its writing, but I give all science fiction a pass.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the best science fiction short stories ever written. "Down among the dead men" will haunt you for the rest of your life.

[Vincent Darlage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was probably one of the most amazing collections of sci-fi short stories I have ever read.

[Sharonlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful writer. Although I didn't love all the stories, there were some that I thought were amazing and all had something to offer. My favorite was the zombie story.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly dated, but contains a few real classics, such as "Brooklyn Project" and "Lisbon Cubed".

[DaughterDaDa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent stories ranging from the quirky to the profound.