The Eyes Have It: Science Fiction Matster
About this ebook
Sir Pierre stepped out into the corridor, walked along the carpeted flagstones, and cast a practiced eye around him as he walked. These old castles were difficult to keep clean, and my lord the Count was fussy about nitre collecting in the seams between the stones of the walls. All appeared quite in order, which was a good thing. My lord the Count had been making a night of it last evening, and that always made him the more peevish in the morning. Though he always woke at the Angelus, he did not always wake up sober.
Sir Pierre stopped before a heavy, polished, carved oak door, selected a key from one of the many at his belt, and turned it in the lock. Then he went into the elevator and the door locked automatically behind him. He pressed the switch and waited in patient silence as he was lifted up four floors to the Count's personal suite.
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About the author
Randall Garrett (December 16, 1927 – December 31, 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. Michael Kurland wrote two additional Lord Darcy novels.
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.
An inveterate punster (defining a pun as "the odor given off by a decaying mind"), he was a favorite guest at science fiction conventions and friend to many fans, especially in Southern California. According to various anecdotes in a tribute volume, Garrett was a renowned womanizer. He introduced himself to Marion Zimmer Bradley with an obscene Latin phrase which left her speechless and to a pregnant Anne McCaffrey with "sly innuendoes" which horrified her. Philip José Farmer recounted an anecdote where Garrett was punched by his then-wife for having a pair of lace underpants in his pocket, and later ran naked through a hotel after being caught having sex with another woman in the wrong room. Frank Herbert said "You could follow his movements around this creative Anachronists' picnic by the squeals of the women whose bottoms he had just pinched." Isaac Asimov referred to Garrett's offending Judith Merril enough that she emptied an ashtray over his head.
Garrett suffered an attack of encephalitis in the summer of 1979; he spent the last 8 years of his life in a coma.
In 1999, Randall Garrett won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History Special Achievement Award for the Lord Darcy series.
He was also ordained in the Old Catholic Church.
Glen Cook's private detective character Garrett P.I. is named in honor of Garrett.
