Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (105 page)

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