William Tenn's "Down Among the Dead Men" (novelette, management): A team leader builds a team out of hostile recruits
Mankind is fighting a was with insect-like Eoti, & losing. Too many men are dying, & in spite of liberal population increase measures, there simply aren't enough men.
So powers that be are manufacturing zombies from the organs of dead men, & giving them appearance of famous war heroes. Only they've forgotten to teach sensitivity to men training these almost-human zombies; trainers keep referring to their wards with insulting epithets.
Narrator, a war veteran, is now assigned a war mission he must complete with 4 of these newly minted zombies. Only his team mates are badly hurt & insulted at their low social status, & the boss must fix their psychological issues to actually get a team...
Collected in.
- Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 16 (1954)" (anthology).
Fact sheet.
First published: Galaxy, June 1954.Rating: A.
Related: Stories of William Tenn.
4 comments:
One of the greatest SF short stories ever written.
A classic. And the setting and story are fantastic. I could read tomes of it!
Pity there is only this one short story - epic though it is, it is simply not enough!
Thank you, that was just an awesome post!!!.....
This piece and The Marching Morons are the two greatest pieces of social science fiction ever written (the space opera aspects are just a framework). A stunning examination of the human condition.
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