The Square Root of Man [Mass Market Paperback]

William Tenn (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (January 12, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345292308
• ISBN-13: 978-0345292308
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,541,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2.0 out of 5 stars A somewhat disappointing collection of stories, June 8, 2010

By 

Ian T. Leckchewel "grassman" (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Square Root of Man (Mass Market Paperback)

William Tenn was a professor at Penn State University who published a fair collection of short stories (and a few novels), presumably in his spare time. The stories in this paperback represent part of a six volume collection of his writings published in the late 1960s. In this collection, stories were published between 1946 and 1967. His very first story (" Alexander the Bait") is included. That story is not too bad, but the best is probably "Venus in a Man's World" which is an intriguing statement on man-woman relations, to say the least. A lot of the stories are humorous ("My Mother Was a Witch"), but rather ridiculous and of no value other than as entertainment. That is, don't expect any deep messages here! Its somewhat of a shame that early sc-fi writers like Tenn (and Damon Knight and Jack Williamson and Henry Kuttner and ...) sometimes seem to get lost in the shuffle and overwhelmed by the heavyweights of their time (i.e., Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, etc). But there is some good, cheap (used) sci-fi out there if you dig a little deeper...