Brain Twister - Randall Garrett

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Résumé :
Mark Phillips was the pseudonym of two well-known science fiction writers: Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Jenifer. Their joint pen-name, derived from their middle names (Philip and Mark), was coined soon after their original meeting, at a science-fiction convention. Both men were drunk at the time, which explains a good deal, and only one ever sobered up. A matter for constant contention between the collaborators was which one. They collaborated for some years, and devised an interesting method of work: Mr. Garrett handled the verbs, the adverbs and the interjections, Mr. Jenifer the nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Conjunctions are a matter of joint decision, and in the case of a tie, the entire game was replayed at Fen way Park, Boston, the following year. Regardless of who wrote what, Brain Twister is a highly enjoyable novel about spies and telepathy, as only two great writers could have conceived it!

Biographie:
Randall Garrett (1927 - 1987) 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. He instructed Robert Silverberg in the techniques of selling large quantities of action-adventure science fiction and collaborated with him on two novels about Earth bringing civilization to an alien planet. Garrett is best known for the Lord Darcy books, the novel Too Many Magicians and two short story collections, set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns and references (particularly to works of detective and spy fiction: Lord Darcy is himself partially modelled on Sherlock Holmes), elements that often appear in the shorter works about the detective. Garrett wrote under a variety of pseudonyms including: David Gordon, John Gordon, Darrel T. Langart (an anagram of his name), Alexander Blade, Richard Greer, Ivar Jorgensen, Clyde Mitchell, Leonard G. Spencer, S. M. Tenneshaw, Gerald Vance. He was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, as Randall of Hightower (a pun on garret). The short novel Brain Twister, written by Garrett in conjunction with author Laurence Janifer (using the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips) was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960.