Mark Phillips (author)
Encyclopedia
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
used by science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writers Laurence Mark Janifer
Laurence Janifer
Laurence M. Janifer was an American science fiction author, with a career spanning over 50 years.-Biography:Janifer was born in Brooklyn, New York with the surname of Harris, but in 1963 took the original surname of his Polish grandfather.Though his first published work was a short story in Cosmos...
and Randall Philip Garrett
Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a prolific contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s...
in the early 1960s. Together they authored several humorous short novels in the so-called "Psi-Power" series: Brain Twister (1962), The Impossibles (1963), and Supermind (1963). For Brain Twister they were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Hugo Award for Best Novel
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1960 (under the novel's original title, "That Sweet Little Old Lady"). They also co-authored the novel Pagan Passions (1959) with Garrett using his own name and Janifer using his Larry M. Harris pseudonym.
Laurence Janifer and Randall Garrett
Laurence Janifer was a prolific science fiction author, with a career spanning over 50 years. Though his first published work was a short storyShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
in Cosmos
Cosmos (magazine)
Cosmos is an Australian popular science magazine that is published six times a year. It is subtitled "the science of everything" and is described as "a magazine of ideas, science, society and the future"....
magazine in 1953, his career as a writer can be said to have started in 1959 when he began writing for Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
. Janifer's best known work is the "Survivor" series, comprising five novels and many short stories.
In the early 1960s Janifer teamed with Randall Garrett, a prolific contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines who is today best known for the Lord Darcy
Lord Darcy (fiction)
Lord Darcy is a detective in an alternate history, created by Randall Garrett. The first stories were asserted to take place in the same year as they were published, but in a world very different from our own.-Title character:...
books. In hopes of replicating the success of spy
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
stories such as James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
(which were hugely popular at the time), the pair decided to combine a traditional spy narrative with humor and extra-sensory perception
Extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers, and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and...
to appeal to readers of science fiction.
Psi-Power Series
The first story they wrote in this so-called "Psi-Power" series was "That Sweet Little Old Lady," published in the Sept./Oct. 1959 edition of Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact. Subsequent stories including "Out Like a Light" (Analog, Apr./May/June 1960), and "Occasion for Disaster" (Analog, Nov./Dec. 1960 and Jan./Feb. 1961). All of the stories were novellaNovella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
length and were subsequently reprinted in 1962 and '63 by Pyramid Books under different titles ("That Sweet Little Old Lady" as Brain Twister, "Out Like a Light" as The Impossibles, and "Occasion for Disaster" as Supermind).
"That Sweet Little Old Lady" (Brain Twister) was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Hugo Award for Best Novel
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1960 but lost out to Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published as a serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published hardcover in December, 1959.The first-person narrative is about a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his...
by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
.
Laurence Janifer and Randall Garrett did not work together on any other stories after the completion of the Psi-Power series.
Texts online
- Brain Twister , Pyramid Publications, (1962). http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22332
- The Impossibles, Pyramid Publications, 1963, 2nd edition, 1966. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22338
- Supermind, Pyramid Publications, (1963). http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22342