HERE COMES CIVILIZATION: THE COMPLETE SCIENCE FICTION OF WILLIAM TENN, VOLUME 2 (NSFA PRESS)
Mood:  bright
Topic: Book Review
I saw this one in a library display of recent books, and picked it up. The NSFA reprints have been uniformly good, and this was no exception.

William Tenn was Phil Klass, a writer of SF short stories with a satirical flavor. Apparently he is well though of in the field, as Robert Silverberg's introduction piece was several pages long.

Contents:
Here Comes Civilization:
Bernie the Faust
Betelgeuse Bridge
Will You Walk a Little Faster?
The House Dutiful
There Were People on Bikini, There Were People on Attu

The Somewhat Heavy Fantastic:

She Only Goes Out at Night
Mistress Sary
The Malted-Milk Monster
The Human Angle
Everybody Loves Irving Bommer

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
Sanctuary
Me, Myself and I
It Ends With a Flicker
The Girl With Some Kind of Past, And George.
Flirgleflip
Errand Boy
A Lamp for Medusa

Essay: On the Fiction in Science Fiction

Of Men and Monsters

Priests for Their Learning
Soldiers for Their Valor
Counselors for Their Wisdom

My particular favorite was "There were people on Bikini, there were people on Attu"... about another collision with a superior, oh-so-helpful alien race and humanity. I used to live on Adak, which was not so far from the (still somewhat radioactive) Attu.
I'm familiar with SOME of these stories, having read GALAXY and F&SF back in the glory days (Tenn/Klass wrote primarily for GALAXY). Tenn's predominant theme is humor, especially in the context of mankind meeting either a superior race (and coming out on the losing end, usually) or just something totally whacked.
The afterword notes (which are recorded faithfully-- Tenn is still alive and quite spry in his 90s) are worth the price of admission, describing life as a struggling writer in the fifties and early sixties.
Summary: mixed bag, as most short story collections tend to be. However, all of the stories in Volume 2 were a decent read, and all of them made me laugh, despite the high corn factor in a few of them. Tenn is quite artful in how he approaches .. what should we call it, xenophobia? Ethnocentrism? The belief that man is the center of the universe? In any event, this is a great collection and now I'm finding myself wanting Volume 1. I may buy these!

---