The list of F/SF deaths gets tiresome, especially with the recent loss of Kage Baker.
Today, William Tenn (real name Philip Klass) passed away.
William Tenn was on only as a short story novels, his novels were less successful. Tenn's work was wickedly satirical in a way only matched in the SF field by C.L. Kornbluth.
My favorite Tenn stories:
The Brooklyn Project: Researchers send a probe back in time, insisting all the while that time and history cannot be changed, even as things get weirder and weirder in the present...
Eastward Ho!: After a nuclear war, Native American nations turn the tables on the United States.
The Liberation of Earth: Two different alien races come to Earth...and the Earth becomes a proxy space for their war.
Null-P: George Abnego, the most ordinary man in the US, becomes an unexpected symbol in a post-World War III age.
It Ends With a Flicker: Two different alternate histories seek to end the disaster that threatens humanity by changing the historical event that made it happen. Only...
And there are many others. Tenn had a gift for stories with a sting in the tail.
Now, I am tempted to pick up the NESFA Press volumes of his collected stories.
Posted by Jvstin at February 7, 2010 3:46 PM