William Tenn was one of Science Fiction’s sharpest satirists in the fifties and sixties. His short stories bit like blackflies. Of Men and Monsters was one of his only two novels, and it was expanded from a short story. It shows it, as the core story is still visible, and the end shows a distinct falling off in quality, with the satire disappearing so that there can be a conventional, plot-driven resolution. But never mind that. SF writers in that period had no social prestige, and very modest incomes; it was standard practice to inflate any successful short story into a “novel” that might pay the rent. But Tenn’s talent lay in beautiful, self-contained miniatures that did not lend themselves to expansion.
Anyone who has participated in a revolutionary underground will probably find Of Men and Monsters delightfully amusing… or more likely wince with embarrassment. The setting is a future in which Earth has been conquered by an alien race of prodigious size, and human beings have been reduced to the status of rodents living in the walls of their houses. While humans, now reduced to primitive tribes, make lame attempts to resist the aliens, they actually spend most of their time hating and fighting each other, debating absurd religious controversies, sneering at each others’ traditional dress, burning witches and heretics, and betraying each other. The prose style in these passages is superb, with every word counting. Tenn delights in deflating the main character’s desperate efforts to understand his own situation… until the “plot” takes command, and he becomes boringly efficacious.
I once met Tenn [his real name was Philip Klass], briefly. He was a quiet, impish man with a twinkle in his eye. No sign of the lugubrious pomposities that swirl around SF writers today. I’m saddened to learn that he died about a month ago. He was one I would have enjoyed a long talk with.
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