by William Tenn
Although the description of "satirist" does fit much of Tenn's work, his stories ("Firewater" and "Brooklyn Project," for example) also feature a level of verisimilitude not usually seen in the "just kidding" school of satire, which in the minds of many dulls the edge of dramatic materials. Tenn is always a master of situations, which at first prod and intrigue us, then provoke a deeper curiosity, make us laugh, then explode into some thoughtful irony or observation. Once you catch on to a Tenn situation, you can't stop reading. The satirical ironies, mockeries, slapstick, and occasional bitterness do wonders for genre materials, because Tenn joins these materials to human experience outside the insular worlds of wish-fulfillment and power fantasy. The science-fictional themes are all there, strong and clear, but just as you are about to accept the story at its face value, Tenn hits you with something close to home and painful. He's a very sly writer, inserting polished, precise narratives into our minds through unexpected channels. Many of his stories blossom into a single line of beauty and recognition; but always the aesthetic fires are banked by irony and wit; above all, eloquent wit, behind which sits the authority of an author who knows what he wants to say, who believes as Oscar Wilde did, that eloquence and wit alone can make the scales fall from human eyes. One spies an author laughing and crying at the same time, writing, exhibiting intellect and dramatic talent within the confines of a marketplace that never knew what to do with his work—so it just left him alone. Fortunately, the tyranny was never perfect, and Tenn's work slipped through into our sight, as did much of science fiction's best.
"A Matter of Frequency," a story satirizing the constant threat of "dumbing down," is just as relevant today as it was in 1951. It's absolutely bone-chilling to realize that this is exactly the way things are, with corporate money hiring "Nuts" to think for them, while dividing the "Nuts" in every field of accomplishment from the "normal" people. Shudder even more while recalling that our constitution recognizes the obligation to educate citizens, because without such an electorate we cannot have a genuine democracy. Our major citizens today are the artificial citizens known as corporations, whose rights exceed that of every other "citizen." To educate everyone would be to give away power and wealth.
Tenn's two long works are the novel Of Men and Monsters (1968, Galaxy magazine version, 1963), and the short novel A Lamp for Medusa (1968; magazine version, 1951). If you are reading this afterword before reading these novels, I recommend the short novel as a place to start. Funny, atmospheric, and wonderfully paced, this neglected work has seen only a shabby paperback appearance. It is not surprising, given Tenn's tendencies, that the story recalls the poise of fantasy fiction from John W. Campbell's Unknown Worlds magazine tradition, which was the only sizable market for humorous work of the early 1940s, and Tenn's only antecedent within the genres.
Of Men and Monsters, a story of humanity living in the walls of houses belonging to giant aliens who have occupied the earth, is a vivid, energetically paced story which best embodies one of Tenn's major themes: that humanity is not what it imagines itself to be in its religious and political myths; that implicit in our biological history is a nature not of our making; we may glimpse it, even understand it at times, but it may be a while before we can remake it entire, if ever, because even our heart's desire is not free.
In his awareness of biological and anthropological complexities, Tenn has at the center of his work the most thoroughgoing of science fictional methods: the collision of the possible with the actual, with the actual displaying fantastic staying power. Eric the Eye, the Lilliputian viewpoint character of the novel, learns that his society is not what he thought it was, that its rights of passage are a sham, and finally that human beings have only limited choices to make. Since change on a radical scale seems unlikely, he accepts his newly revealed humanity and joins the plan to make of it something pervasive and powerful. Eric becomes part of the reverse invasion of human vermin as they begin the infestation of the great alien starships, and later the worlds of the alien empire. One thinks of the small mammals, our ancestors, who ate the eggs of the great saurians and survived the great asteroid strike.
I am also reminded of Robert A. Heinlein's "Universe," in which humanity has forgotten that its world is a starship, destined to reach a far star after many generations have lived and died. Both Tenn and Heinlein remind us that we don't know ourselves; that in fact our generations lapse into amnesia, and have to be reminded that we too live on a generation ship parked in orbit around a star; that we have come out of a deep past on our way into a deeper future, and that only knowledge, unblinkered by wishes and myths, has any chance of helping us. Many an unwelcome Galilean and Darwinian revelation waits for us, as developments in cosmology and biology suggest.
Of Men and Monsters is a colorful story. The characters are charming (Eric meets Rachel Esthersdaughter, one of the nicest nice Jewish girls in all science fiction). The death of Eric's uncle is shatteringly presented. There are great wonders and awesome confrontations, sharply realized. Most important, there is anthropological sophistication in the depiction of social systems; the aliens are terrifying, puzzling, and other. Tenn's moments of romance, compassion, and hard-bitten sentimentality do not detract from his bitter truth-telling about a pathetic and deluded humanity.
Although he was much imitated (one paperback novel blatantly copied Of Men and Monsters), Tenn's new fiction became scarce in the late 1960s and the decades ahead, just when it seemed that the continuous practice of his craft, coupled with his acute and constant rethinking of the nature of fiction and science fiction, would certainly have produced a still mightier development of his skills. To me he still seems poised to start his most mature period. When I recall that Jack Williamson is still writing worthy books in his nineties, I remind myself that Phil is a generation younger than Jack. Tenn can do anything he chooses, when Phil lets him, except hack work ("I have no talent for it," he has said).
Few writers have written so many stories that should have received awards. He belongs to the great generation of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov, and is a living reproach to the awards systems. His work is a clear example of SF as a literature that can provoke us to see, feel, and think (SF without thought is not science fiction). Tenn belongs to that unbroken chain of savers who expose our foibles, our willful blindness and stupidity, and who ultimately stand against death and the amnesia of generations.
To know Philip Klass the man and William Tenn the writer is to become powerless to prevent humorous conceits from falling out of one's head into one's mouth—or from slipping through one's fingers into the words one writes about him. Phil Klass called me just as I was finishing this essay.
"Not now, I'm assaying the work of William Tenn," I said when I heard his voice.
"What do you mean?" he asked, falling neatly into my trap.
"I'm applying the seat of my pants to the chair and writing."
"Oh," he said after a pause, then laughed.
"And so should you," I added, thinking that Robert Silverberg rightly laments (in the introduction to this volume) all the stories and novels that William Tenn did not write. That is, of course, entirely Phil Klass's fault, not Tenn's. To be a good writer requires a certain sensitivity; but you must have a thick skin to survive the warfare of the marketplace. Sadly, that often means survival for the tough-minded, even insensitive. I think Phil was just discouraged and told William Tenn to shut up. Happily, quality more than made up for the quantity of work. Maybe if Tenn had been given a Hugo Award for "Firewater," things might have been different. Tenn is stubborn, and Phil spoils him.
Bob Silverberg calls these two volumes "slender." Try dropping one on your foot, as I did. It hurt. Two volumes would have broken it.
Never fear. There is a Tenn novel, under contract to a publisher, long in the writing.
Look for it.
Complain to the author.
I have faith (and I rarely truck with faiths) that I will read this new novel, because, as a competitor once
wrote, "Tenn is an artist who won't stop until he's had the last word."
Delmar, New York—June 7, 2001
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION Robert Silverberg
HERE COMES CIVILIZATION
BERNIE THE FAUST
AFTERWORD
BETELGEUSE BRIDGE
AFTERWORD
"WILL YOU WALK A LITTLE FASTER"
AFTERWORD
THE HOUSE DUTIFUL
AFTERWORD
THERE WERE PEOPLE ON BIKINI, THERE WERE PEOPLE ON ATTU
AFTERWORD
THE SOMEWHAT HEAVY FANTASTIC
SHE ONLY GOES OUT AT NIGHT...
AFTERWORD
MISTRESS SARY
AFTERWORD
THE MALTED MILK MONSTER
AFTERWORD
THE HUMAN ANGLE
AFTERWORD
EVERYBODY LOVES IRVING BOMMER
AFTERWORD
FOR THE RENT
A MATTER OF FREQUENCY
THE IONIAN CYCLE
HALLOCK'S MADNESS
RICARDO'S VIRUS
THE PUZZLE OF PRIIPIIRII
DUD
CONFUSION CARGO
AFTERWORD: FOR THE RENT
BEATING TIME
THE DISCOVERY OF MORNIEL MATHAWAY
AFTERWORD
SANCTUARY
AFTERWORD
ME, MYSELF, AND I
AFTERWORD
IT ENDS WITH A FLICKER
AFTERWORD
THE GIRL WITH SOME KIND OF PAST. AND GEORGE.
AFTERWORD
FLIRGLEFLIP
AFTERWORD
ERRAND BOY
AFTERWORD
A LAMP FOR MEDUSA
A LAMP FOR MEDUSA
AFTERWORD
ESSAY
ON THE FICTION IN SCIENCE FICTION
AFTERWORD
OF MEN AND MONSTERS
PART I: PRIESTS FOR THEIR LEARNING
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PART II: SOLDIERS FOR THEIR VALOR
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PART III: COUNSELORS FOR THEIR WISDOM
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AFTERWORD
AFTERWORD TO THE TWO VOLUMES
WILLIAM TENN: THE SWIFTEST TORTOISE George Zebrowski
