John Thomas Phillifent was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 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...

 author. He wrote as John T. Phillifent and under the pen name John Rackham. Most of his work was published as by Rackham, the main exceptions being three novels related to The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1964, to January 15, 1968. It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international espionage and law-enforcement...

series, his short stories published in the magazine Analog

Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...

, and a number of late novels. Most of his novels were issued together with the works of other authors as Ace Doubles.

He was born in Durham

Durham

Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Rackham's Law

American author Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...

 credits Phillifent with a compehensive definition of 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...

 that he dubs "Rackham's Law". According to Pohl, Phillifent's opinion of "the diagnostic cut ... between science fiction and all other forms of writing" was that science fiction "was unique in that it was invariably written by 'the science-fiction method' analogous to the 'scientific method' which ... underpins all science." Pohl's own description of "the science-fiction method" (which Phillifent himself never troubled to define) is that "it consists in looking at the world around us, dissecting it into its component parts, throwing some of those parts away and replacing them with invented new ones - and then reassembling that new world and describing what might happen in it. And I think that every SF writer who ever lived has used precisely that method."

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

• The Mad Scientist Affair (1966)
• The Corfu Affair (1967)
• The Power Cube Affair (1968)

Other novels

• Danger From Vega (1965) (as John Rackham)
• We, the Venusians (1965) (as John Rackham)
• The Beasts of Kohl (1966) (as John Rackham)
• Time To Live (1966) (as John Rackham)
• The Double Invaders (1967) (as John Rackham)
• Alien Sea (1968) (as John Rackham)
• The Proxima Project (1968) (as John Rackham)
• Ipomoea (1969) (as John Rackham)
• Treasure of Tau Ceti (1969) (as John Rackham)
• The Anything Tree (1970) (as John Rackham)
• Flower of Doradil (1970) (as John Rackham)
• Beyond Capella (1971) (as John Rackham)
• Dark Planet (1971) (as John Rackham)
• Earthstrings (1972) (as John Rackham)
• Genius Unlimited (1972)
• Beanstalk (1973) (as John Rackham)
• Hierarchies (1973)
• King of Argent (1973)
• Life with Lancelot (1973)

Short stories

• "Drog" (1958) (as John Rackham)
• "One-Eye" (1958) (as John Rackham)
• "Cadet" (1959) (as John Rackham)
• "Curse Strings" (1959) (as John Rackham)
• "If You Wish" (1959) (as John Rackham)
• "Nulook" (1959) (as John Rackham)
• "The Black Cat's Paw" (1960) (as John Rackham)
• "Idea Man" (1960) (as John Rackham)
• "Ankh" (1961) (as John Rackham)
• "Point" (1961)
• "The Stainless-Steel Knight" (1961) (as John Rackham)
• "The Trouble with Honey" (1961) (as John Rackham)
• "The Veil of Isis" (1961) (as John Rackham)
• "Ethical Quotient" (1962)
• "Fire and Ice" (1962) (as John Rackham)
• "Dr. Jeckers and Mr. Hyde" (1963) (as John Rackham)
• "The Last Salamander" (1963) (as John Rackham)
• "What You Don't Know" (1963) (as John Rackham)
• "With Clean Hands" (1963) (as John Rackham)
• "Flying Fish" (1964)
• "God Killer" (1964) (as John Rackham)
• "Hell-Planet" (1964) (as John Rackham)
• "Room with a Skew" (1964) (as John Rackham)
• "Advantage" (1965) (as John Rackham)
• "Bring Back a Life" (1965) (as John Rackham)
• "Finnegan's Knack" (1965)
• "A Way with Animals" (1965) (as John Rackham)
• "Computer's Mate" (1966) (as John Rackham)
• "The God-Birds of Glentallach" (1966) (as John Rackham)
• "Poseidon Project" (1966) (as John Rackham)
• "Aim For the Heel" (1967)
• "Catharsis" (1968) (as John Rackham)
• "The Divided House" (1968) (as John Rackham)
• "Incorrigible" (1968)
• "The Rites of Man" (1968)
• "All Fall Down" (1969)
• "The Fine Print" (1971)
• "Stoop to Conquer" (1971) (as John Rackham)
• "Wise Child" (1973) (as John Rackham)
• "Owe Me" (1974)
• "The Halted Village" (1975) (as John Rackham)
• "Heal Thyself" (1975) (as John Rackham)

General references