Mark Clifton
Mark Clifton was a businessman turned science-fiction writer, born in 1906, who gained posthumous recognition for his contributions to the genre. Spending much of his career as a personnel officer, Clifton's extensive experience in psychology informed his character development, particularly in his most notable recurring character, Ralph Kennedy, a psychologist exploring human-alien interactions. Clifton's writing career was relatively brief, with his first story, "What Have I Done?", published in 1952. He achieved significant success in 1953, publishing nine stories, primarily in collaboration with Alex Apostolides, including the introduction of two iconic characters: Bossy the computer and Ralph Kennedy. Clifton's most acclaimed work, "They'd Rather Be Right," co-written with Frank Riley, won the Hugo Award and delved into themes of technology and human psychology. His solo effort, "When They Come From Space," released in 1962, offered a unique twist on the alien invasion narrative. Despite his early death in 1963 at the age of fifty-seven, Clifton's influence continued, as his first novel remained in print, while his shorter works were rediscovered and published in 1980.
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Mark Clifton
Author
- Born: 1906
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Died: 1963
Biography
Mark Clifton was a businessman who briefly, at the end of his life, became a best-selling science-fiction writer. Born in 1906, Clifton spent most of his adult life as the personnel officer of a large corporation. The knowledge of practical psychology that the job entailed often showed in his characterization. Having conducted more than 100,000 interviews in his forty-year career, Clifton learned a great deal about what made people tick. Moreover, Clifton’s most frequently recurring character, Ralph Kennedy, was a psychologist concerned with human-alien relations.
As a science-fiction writer, Clifton had a relatively short career, and most of his successes were in collaboration with other authors: His solo efforts did not do as well. Clifton’s first published story, “What Have I Done?” appeared in the May, 1952, issue of Astounding Science Fiction. He published two additional stories that same year, but 1953 was his breakthrough year: he published nine quality stories, among them two that introduced characters which would become Clifton’s trademarks. Yet of those nine stories, eight were cowritten with Alex Apostolides.
Clifton’s two best-known characters debuted only a month apart. In the August, 1953, issue of Astounding, a master computer known as Bossy made his first appearance in “Crazy Joey” (cowritten with Apostolides). Bossy acquired his name from his job, managing other computers, displaying quirks that look suspiciously like human arrogance. In the next issue, September, 1953, the Clifton-Apostolides story “What Thin Partitions” introduced the extraterrestrial psychologist Ralph Kennedy.
Bossy the computer appears in Clifton’s most successful novel, a collaboration with Frank Riley serialized in Astounding in 1954 and winner of the Hugo Award for best novel: They’d Rather Be Right (republished a decade later as The Forever Machine). In this psychological thriller, the government creates a computer that is supposed to anticipate accidents and eliminate human error. However, the story’s protagonist, Joe Carter, realizes that the machine could also unleash ordinary people’s psychic powers, and make them effectively immortal.
Ralph Kennedy’s only appearance in a novel was in Clifton’s third and last novel, a solo effort called When They Come From Space (1962). This novel takes the cliché of the alien invasion story and turns it against type by making the alien visitors not radically different from human beings, but in fact, rather like their own ideal self- image: tall, handsome Hollywood-model types. Extraterrestrial psychologist Ralph Kennedy is suspicious of their too-perfect nature, and his suspicions turn out to be well-founded.
The following year, 1963, Clifton died at the age of fifty- seven. The Hugo Award determined that his first novel would stay in print, but his shorter fiction fell into obscurity until science-fiction historians Barry N. Malzberg and Martin H. Greenburg collected and published the tales in 1980.