I'm sitting here feeling I've almost (not quite, but very nearly) failed some sort of intelligence test with this book. Having completely missed the huge clue in its title, some distance in I was still thinking, 'Well, I like the oddness of this, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere much' and it looked to be heading for a disappointing two stars.
   The set-up is this: after an invasion from space by gigantic aliens (called 'Monsters' throughout) what's left of humanity has been reduced to living in a maze of burrows and tunnels - scuttling to and fro behind the wainscotting so to speak - and risking their lives on expeditions out into Monster territory to steal food from the invaders' gigantic larders. The story itself follows raw initiate Eric the Only as he's transformed by his experiences into a resourceful leader; and, although actually published in 1968, it had a pleasantly nostalgic 1950s-or-so feel to it.
   It's a satire of course (the quote from Gulliver's Travels at the start was another Monster-sized clue I nearly missed). For 'men' read 'mice' and for 'monsters' read 'men' - the Monsters are us in disguise, while we are now the mice, annoying 'vermin' to be exterminated. 'See how you like it' is the theme, see how it feels to be a couple of inches tall and at the mercy of something a hundred times your size. And an alien invasion is a good metaphor for that: appearing as if out of nowhere (which, in evolutionary terms at least, H. sapiens certainly has), armed with incomprehensible weapons, suddenly here and taking over the whole world. The book does satirise other things too (religion for instance) but in essence it's about us humans seen from the terrifying perspective of a house mouse.
   So, in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as it climbed steadily all the way up to a solid four-star rating. I'm giving myself only one star though; I did get the point of Men and Monsters, did solve the maze and reach the cheese, but only (eek, eek!) by a whisker. ( )

These post-WWII "classic sci-fi" stories --I think you just have to have been there. The ascendance of Büchner, Goethe, Gaskell, Austin, Tagore, Joyce, then precipitously down to classic sci-fi. I guess that's democracy. Tenn is, compared to my readings of Pohl and Heinlein, one of a handful of competent writers in that older scene, so it's no surprise that Sturgeon showered him with such praise. I think Probably Sturgeon, Tenn and Dick (decidedly way ahead of his time) are some of the only ones of these still readable without barfing or falling asleep, until the likes of Delaney, Tiptree and Le Guin show up with actual writing skills. Having read Ellison since I was a kid, who to me represents a sort of middle along with Dick, now that I have him in context, a lot of his stuff simply sucks too.
That being said, Men and Monsters, ick! Slow, undeveloped (why do people living in caves following a televised religion and living only to breed and hunt have this vocabulary that Tenn couldn't restrain himself from??? Why X Y and Z internal logic issues???), macho (my favorite), in every way a product of its age. They say this is Tenn's only novel. I hope it's not his best writing. ( )

This is my first book by William Tenn. I will try a few more. He was one of the Pulp SF magazine writers of the 1940s-50s. He had stories in more then a dozen magazines. Like many of his peers he went on to write novels but only a couple. This book is one of his novels.

This is a juvenile SF novel about a boy in a dystopian future where humans have fallen to tribalism and superstition. A race of alien giants took over the Earth hundreds of years ago and humans are no more then rats. It is a coming of age, adventure with plenty of action and naked females. ( )

William Tenn's only novel, but a very good book. Eric goes forth to steal some item that the aliens now in possession of earth have left lying around. Then, one thing leads to another as we grow alongside Eric and his later career. ( )

Science fiction satire in which the monsters regard humans not as a threat, but as pests. The storytelling is first rate and the ending, though it comes out of nowhere, is pretty nearly perfect. I met the author when I was in college and interviewed him, and he was a hoot. Just bought a book containing most of his short stories and am very much looking forward to it. ( )