We have proven that time travels are safe; the present is affected by changing the past. Nothing had changed—count your pseudopods!

The story, which Tenn described as having been inspired by the Korean War, portrays Earth as the battleground between two powerful alien races, the Troxxt and the Dendi, who repeatedly “liberate” it from each other. The Earth was nearly destroyed in process and abandoned by both parties.

From Publishers WeeklyHere Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume II, edited by James A. Mann and Mary C. Tabasko, celebrates the achievement of a preeminent SF author of the 1950s. With numerous stories published for the first time since their initial appearance in magazines, the complete body of Tenn's only novel and an analytic essay, this second volume should receive as much praise as the first, Immodest Proposals.