William Tenn

William Tenn is the pseudonym for the science fiction work of Philip Klass (born May 9, 1920). Born in London, he and his parents moved to New York in the 1920s. He served in the United States Army during World War II and started writing fiction while working at Bell Labs. He was a professor of English at Penn State University from the mid '60s to the late '80s, though he does not have a college degree. He has written over 60 stories, mostly satires on social and business themes. Some of his best-known stories are "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi," "Alexander the Bait," (his first story, which he now considers his worst) "Child's Play", "Time in Advance", "Down Among the Dead Men" and "Venus and the Seven Sexes".

Bibliography

• Children of Wonder (1953)
• Of All Possible Worlds (1955)
• The Human Angle (1956)
• Time in Advance (1958)
• A Lamp for Medusa (double novel with The Players of Hell by Dave Van Arnam) (1968)
• Of Men and Monsters (1968)
• Once Against the Law (1968) with Donald E. Westlake
• The Seven Sexes (1968)
• The Square Root of Man (1968)
• The Wooden Star (1968)
• Immodest Proposals (2000)
• Here Comes Civilization (2001)
• Dancing Naked, the Unexpurgated William Tenn (2004)