The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn (Future Science Fiction, May 1953) gets off to an intriguing start:
This, then, is the story of our liberation. Suck air and grab clusters. Heigh-ho, here is the tale.
August was the month, a Tuesday in August. These words are meaningless now, so far have we progressed; but many things known and discussed by our primitive ancestors, our unliberated, unreconstructed forefathers, are devoid of sense to our free minds. Still the tale must be told, with all of its incredible place-names and vanished points of reference.
Why must it be told? Have any of you a better thing to do?
We have had water and weeds and lie in a valley of gusts. So rest, relax, and listen. And suck air, suck air. p. 29
After this the (far-future Earth) narrator tells his audience of the arrival of a large, cigar-shaped alien spaceship over France many years previously. We learn of the efforts made by the UN to communicate with the visitors, the Dendi, and how, after an Indian member of the secretariat notices a similarity between a Bengali dialect and their language, a breakthrough is made.
However, once the humans begin communicating with the Dendi, they find out in fairly short order that (a) Earth is considered a backwater by their Galactic Federation (and has been subject to benevolent ostracism), (b) the Dendi are at war with the rebel Troxxt (the reason they have broken the embargo on Earth is to use the planet as a communications hub for their military), and, finally, (c) the Dendi don’t want any help from humanity. This latter notwithstanding, the Dendi later order everyone to move out of Washington as they want to use area to build a large hall. Subsequently the Americans discover that the building is to be used as a Dendi recreation centre, and that their esteemed visitors are the equivalent of a patrol squad led by the equivalent of an NCO.
The satire intensifies when the Dendi’s Troxxt enemies are detected elsewhere in the solar system and proceed to invade Earth. During this millions of humans are killed, and the Dendi retreat from the planet. The victorious Troxxt abduct and train translators, and humanity is informed that the Dendi are actually the bad guys and that Earth has been liberated! The Troxxt go on to tell their side of the story, purge the collaborators who assisted the Dendi, and proceed to use those humans that are left as slave labour. Many more die.
Then the Earth is re-liberated by the Dendi, during which Australia is disintegrated and vanishes into the Pacific (and Venus is also destroyed, which affects the Earth’s orbit).
A few more “liberations” later the Earth has become a pear-shaped lump with hardly any atmosphere left, and is barely habitable. The narrator’s mordant final observation is:
“Looking about us, we can say with pardonable pride that we have been about as thoroughly liberated as it is possible for a race and a planet to be!” p. 40
This supposed classic was apparently written in response to the Korean War and, according to the author, was difficult to place because of its politics1—presumably this is why it ended up in the poorly paying Future magazine.
I wonder, however, if the reason it struggled to sell was because is a bit of a mixed bag: while the last third or so is a blackly humorous satire, the first half is a slightly dull and probably overlong First Contact story. As to the supposedly troublesome political content, I note that Horace Gold published an anti-McCarthy story in the same year that this was published (Mr Costello, Hero by Theodore Sturgeon, Galaxy, December 1953). Whatever the reason, the idea of liberating armies as a bad thing must have seemed rather peculiar so soon after the end of WWII.
*** (Good). 6650 words.
1. Tenn apparently mentions this in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume 1 (2001).