SF Masterwork of the Week: Of Men and Monsters

William Tenn, pseudonym of Philip Klass, spent most of his life in America, teaching writing and SF at Pennsylvania State College from 1966. Stories such as ‘Down Among the Dead Men’ and ‘The Liberation of Earth’ established Tenn’s reputation as a fine, funny and thoughtful satirist and in 1999 he was selected the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Author Emeritus.

He is best-known for our SF Masterwork of the Week: Of Men and Monsters:

Giant, technologically superior aliens have conquered Earth, but humankind survives – even flourishes in a way. Men and women live, like mice, in burrows in the massive walls of the huge homes of the aliens, and scurry about under their feet, stealing from them. A complex social and religious order has evolved, with women preserving knowledge and working as healers, and men serving as warriors and thieves. For the aliens, men and women are just a nuisance, nothing more than vermin. Which, ironically, may just be humankind’s strength and point the way forward.

Of Men and Monsters is available as an SF Masterworks paperback and an SF Gateway eBook. You can find more of William Tenn’s work via his author page on the SF Gateway website and read more about him in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.