I brought a second hand copy of this collection and i regret it. It should have been brand new and in hardback- it's that good. And the money would have gone to the author, for he surely deserves it. I'd never read any of his stuff before, only Bradbury, Dick, Wells Sheckley, Asimov, Bester and Knight. Having finished it, i'd have to place him up their among the legends of sf.
This collection is worth it, if only for one story. But their are many that belong among the all time great masterpieces of the short story; 'The Liberation of Earth'- about an devastating future war in which mankind can be no more than a witness to ir's own extinction, 'Down Among the Dead Men'- zombies reconstituted from the remains of the dead help out the human troops on the front againsts an insect race in a interstellar war, 'The Tenants'- a subtle and fragile fantasy, 'The Sevant Problem'- an astounding and frighteningly funny tale of power manipulation among tha powerful elite of a totalitarin society top strata, 'Time in Advance' has criminals do time for commiting the crime, seven years in this case for murder, who find themselves in demand by people who'd like them to snub out somebody for them and held in fear by those that've wronged them int he past. Other classics include the famous 'Brooklyn Project', the horrorifying 'Wednesday's Child' ( a supperior sequel to the much anthologised 'Child's Play'). Others to note are 'The Generation of Noah''Winthrop was Stubborn' , 'Null-P'and his personal favourite 'The Custodian'. 'Lisborn Cubed' may remind some of the film 'Men in Black' but is vastly more rewarding. A master craftmans, most of his stories seem to have been painstakling put together and the general opinion is of a humanitarian (he almost always sides with the underdog or minorities) taking a aceberic look at the sheer blinding egotistical hyprocrisy of human kind. A blissful way to be entertained. It's companion volume is also a must.

A few years ago I searched the used book stalls and dealer's rooms and slowly assembled the complete sf works (all out of print) of William Tenn, and proceeded to read and review them. You can find these reviews on the Web. The stories were great fun, but what struck me most was that the satires had not lost their edge despite the passage of time. Why? Because Tenn addressed his satire to the underlying conflicts, which are timeless, rather than to the transitory phenomena that tend to be the focus of most humorists, satirists, and social critics. Just as important, Tenn's satirical sword usually has two edges, and will, to mix a metaphor, have gored everybody's ox before he's finished with his tale. First rate stuff. So the question I kept asking myself was: why isn't this guy's stuff in print?? Well now it is, in a handsome volume with an introduction by Connie Willis, and comments on each story by the Author himself. What's not to love?

I purchased this book before moving to Nashville and it was a tremendous help. The City Smart series breaks down a town into sections or even communities and then tells the reader what is available in that immediate area in a number of categories: entertainment, food, lodging, tourist attractions and more. All the places with in the book have been rated according to the author's personal criteria but when she said Brown's Diner has the best burger in Nashville, she wasn't kidding. Her rating scale is fair and very accurate. Easy to read maps are included in each section, with a larger one at the back which makes learning and navigating a new town a cinch! I found this book to be an invaluable resource for my relocation to Nashville. I tend to have lots of friends and family visit and it's been a fabulous tool for that. I've purchased other books in the City Smart series as well and was quite pleased with them, also. Even though I lived in Kansas City for 30 years, I found things in the City Smart Kansas City book I was completely unaware of. I am certain the City Smart Nashville book has increased my pleasure of living in Nashville. If you are visiting Nashville, looking into one of Nashville's fine colleges or moving here, you NEED this book!

"Cassina Gambrel Was Missing" is a uniquely told, fresh vision of one man's experience of a sometimes mythical modern South. It's a short novel, but in the space of a relative few pages, author William Watkins manages to pack more than a few punches about friendship, the drag that the past exerts on the present, and what happens to people as they move from their salad days to the more serious and cynical territory called "approaching forty."

There are too many twists in the narrative to give an accurate plot outline without being a "spoiler". Briefly, though, it's about a young conservative student named Jackson Taylor who by chance meets an older black woman named Cassina Gambrel. Cassina is one of those eye-opening kind of women in that she's got a unique perspective on every event and doesn't hesitate to tell Jackson what it is. Those events range from the serious: a harrowing strike by police and firemen that threaten to cripple a city; to the ribald: young Jackson's loss of his virginity on a memorably mosquito-ridden night. Jackson's college roomate, an artist named Braden O'Brien, is also integral to the story and it's in the revealing of the complex nature of this relationship that William Watkins presents himself as a writer of keen insight and skill.

I particularly enjoyed this author's ability to capture and reveal characters within a few sentences. I felt that I knew the minor characters very quickly and was always intrigued enough by the more complex nature of the major characters as their true natures are slowly revealed to keep turning the pages long after I should have turned off the lights and gone to sleep.

I was reminded of another Southern author, Peter Taylor and his masterpiece, "A Summons to Memphis," when I read "Cassina Gambrel Was Missing." Yes, the stories are both set in Memphis, Tennessee, but William Watkins also displays Taylor's fine aptitude for subtlety, especially when it comes to the more treacherous aspects of the highly nuanced relationship between the two young men in the novel.

I should mention also that this story does a dance through time. Some years after the characters have left college, Taylor gets a call from O'Brien informing him that their old friend Cassina is missing. This is when the novel really moves to a different level altogether. What had been a generally light, often side-splittingly funny tale of innocence lost, becomes a darker story of relationships rent asunder. Watkins handles all this deftly with at least two scenes occuring in the same venue but years apart presented back to back. The deja vu feeling that Jackson Taylor is experiencing is understandable and right on the money in its telling. How many of us have returned to a place and people that meant so much to us and have lost for a moment the sense of whether we're in the present or the past? This was beautifully handled in a cinematic style and adds a layer of poignancy to what is ultimately a very sad story that is also reminiscent in its own way of "The Great Gatsby."

I recommend this book to any reader looking for a story that will stay with them long after they've finished reading it. The more you think about this one, the better it gets.

They used to call books like CASSINA GAMBREL WAS MISSING "picaresque." Now, we might call them "cinematic." I am a film buff, and when I first read this extraordinary novel I thought surely the author must be Italian. He thinks like the great filmakers of Italy, the Rosselinis and Fellinis. He unfolds his narrative in the manner of the masters. Scenes shift from the poignant to the grotesque to the comic to the vulgar with the payoff being a first rate portrait of an era and its effects on a man. Surely the city-character of Memphis that William Watkins paints here is the literary equivalent of the Rome of Rosselini's, ROME - OPEN CITY.

What a profound achievement this book is! I am deeply impressed and eagerly await the next work of this highly promising author.

This book made me immediately drive to the Smokies and search out the many logging camps described in great detail. Bill Hooks makes this book a "must have" for the Smoky Mountain Hiker types. The information on the ancient town of Elkmont was fantastic. I will be using this book along with my trail maps to find the many 'turn-of-the-century' archaeological spots tucked away in the National Park.

Hooks and Schmidt have written the definitive history of the Little River Railroad and Lumber Companies with Whistle Over the Mountain. Hooks has spent most of his 80 years researching the natural and human history of the Smokies. Packed with maps and vintage photos. This has become our "Bible" here at the Little River Museum in Townsend, and is a must for any railroad, logging or hiking fan. Beautifully designed and very well written.

Some fans of Faulkner have bemoaned the fact that his final novel is not a profound summation of his heftier, more philosophical works (as though Faulkner could have foreseen his own death and owed his readers that much). While it is true that The Reivers is a much lighter (and more comical) work than those commonly regarded as Faulkner's "masterpieces," it is still worthy of attention. For one thing, The Reivers is Faulkner at his most entertaining; unburdened by the need to address the darker symptoms of the human condition, he is free to let his imagination run wild: the trials and triumphs of young Lucius Priest and his travelling companions make for some hilarious scenes and leave the reader feeling far more bouyant at the novel's close that, say, at the end of The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom!. The Reivers also features two additional benefits: the divine Miss Reba (second only to Granny Millard as Faulkner's most entertaining and resourceful female character); and the much-appreciated absence of that nosy and annoying popinjay Gavin Stevens. While one might read The Reivers as a Bildungsroman (Lucius's growth and awakening to the realities of the world around him are clearly underscored throughout the novel), I prefer to see it as a simple, amusing and satisfying story from a man who, by the end of his life, had done more to explore the human condition than most writers ever attempt - and was content to leave it at that.

Have you ever read a novel or a short story and felt an urgency to finish it but also an urgency to never finish? That's how I felt while reading Faulkner's The Reivers. This Pulitzer prize novel concerns one eleven-year-old white boy named Lucius Priest. Through the mediation of his father's underlings--Boon Hoggenbeck and Ned McCaslin--Lucius comes of age in the art of non-virtue. While Lucius's grandfather is away, the three of them "borrow" the old man's automobile and embark on a bumpy journey to Memphis. On the trip, Lucius sees it all--whoredom, lust, theft, profanity, gambling--and struggles with these things in the context of a southern religious tradition. Though he has every opportunity to turn back and forgo the trip, he presses on and convinces himself that it's all too late. Non-virtue has already embraced him. On the other hand, Boon and Ned have no doubts of their lack of virtue, and when they see Lucius drinking from evil's muddy waters, they just nod their heads (don't think that the story is grim, for it's down right funny at times). The story is addictive, even though the language is rocky and convoluted at times. Faulker was no Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway; conversely, he was the ultimate practitioner of the compound-complex sentence. The dialogue was so real, especially with Ned and other black folks. I felt as though I were standing around the campfire chewing tobacco and thumbing my suspenders and talking about horse racing. No wonder this novel hooked the Pulitzer. It's quality stuff.

I remember reading Faulkner's Sound and the Fury as a college sophmore and swearing never to read another book by him again. I happened to find the Reivers in my local library and decided to give his Pulitzer Prize winning book a try. It is a charming book that tells the story of a stolen car, a stolen horse, a horse race, and the life changing experiences of an 11 year old boy in the course of a week. Although Faulkner employs colons and semicolons more than any writer, and his sentences seem to continue on indefinitely, the effort of adjusting to his style rewards the reader with a wonderful tale. I highly reccomend this book, and hope to try another Faulkner book in the near future. Maybe I will even attempt the Sound and the Fury someday.

This novel recalled for me a Thomas M. Disch novel that I read back in high school. I'm not sure of the title at the moment, but I think it was The Puppies of Terra. Tenn's novel could easily be retitled The Cockroaches of Terra. Earth has been invaded, and conquered, by giant beings. Mankind is still alive--underground and in the walls of the houses built by the monsters. The first part of the book reads like your typical post-holocaust story: young man seeks acceptance in the new order of society, which gives the author plenty of chance to show you how things have changed. Luckily, Tenn has an agenda, and we quickly move beyond the standard hunter/gatherer phase into a darkly satiric view of humans. Tenn is supposedly a very funny author, but in Of Men and Monsters, it's all black (as in Disch's novels).

I read this book as a teenager, and my feelings about it are mixed. On the one hand, I would not put it up with the works of the best sci-fi authors -- Le Guin, Bradbury, Wells, etc. The prose has that vaguely chummy tone that to my mind mars Heinlein and other authors whose cleverness of ideas outweighs their elegance of expression. The presentation of the monsters is absurdly comical -- but it might be seen as working in a sort of Swiftian satirical tradition.

Tenn is good at exploding human pretensions, and this is really where "Of Men and Monsters" finds its stride. A simple mental flip-flop -- what if men were pests, the cockroaches to another, larger species? -- allows Tenn to take our race down a notch, and have fun doing it.

This is not the classic work of sci-fi that some have made it out to be, but it's a good read nonetheless.

I read this book two decades ago, and I still remember it vividly. The images of human beings living in the walls of gigantic alien houses will stay with you for a long time. It would also make a great movie! Although the book is not available in the US, it has just been re-released in the UK and is available from Amazon UK. So don't hesitate to get it. If you are looking for a remarkable science fiction classic, you will not be disappointed.

Jackson, Tennessee (Madison County) is located ninty miles east of Memphis; a rail, distribution and agricultural center for Western Tennessee.

Settled in the late 1700's-early 1800's; this area produced Davey Crockett, many Civil War heroes, Casey Jones, and Carl Perkins.

A wonderful look at a fine quality-of-life area that has grown from "small town" to the fifth largest city in Tennessee.

Emma Inman Williams was not only a shepherd of the book but a layer of the city's foundation.

I knew her and loved her.