John T. Phillifent


John Thomas Phillifent was an English electrical engineer and author of science fiction and fantasy. 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. series, his short stories published in the magazine Analog, and a number of late novels. Most of his novels were issued together with the works of other authors as Ace Doubles.

Rackham's Law

American author Frederik Pohl credits Phillifent with a comprehensive definition of science fiction 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" 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.

Space Puppet series

  • Space Puppet
  • Jupiter Equilateral
  • The Master Weed
  • ''Alien Virus''

Chappie Jones series

Other novels

  • Watch on Peter
  • We, the Venusians
  • Danger From Vega
  • The Beasts of Kohl
  • Time To Live
  • The Double Invaders
  • Alien Sea
  • The Proxima Project
  • Ipomoea
  • Treasure of Tau Ceti
  • The Anything Tree
  • Flower of Doradil
  • Beyond Capella
  • Dark Planet
  • Earthstrings
  • Genius Unlimited
  • Beanstalk
  • Hierarchies
  • King of Argent
  • Life with Lancelot expanded from "The Stainless-Steel Knight"

Other short stories

  • "Drog"
  • "One-Eye"
  • "Cadet"
  • "Curse Strings"
  • "If You Wish"
  • "Nulook"
  • ""
  • "Point"
  • "The Stainless-Steel Knight" expanded to Life with Lancelot
  • "The Trouble with Honey"
  • "Ethical Quotient"
  • "Fire and Ice"
  • "Dr. Jeckers and Mr. Hyde"
  • "The Last Salamander"
  • "What You Don't Know"
  • "With Clean Hands"
  • "Flying Fish"
  • "God Killer"
  • "Hell-Planet"
  • "Room with a Skew"
  • "Advantage"
  • "Bring Back a Life"
  • "Finnegan's Knack"
  • "A Way with Animals"
  • "Computer's Mate"
  • "The God-Birds of Glentallach"
  • "Poseidon Project"
  • "Aim For the Heel"
  • "Catharsis"
  • "The Divided House"
  • "Incorrigible"
  • "The Rites of Man"
  • "All Fall Down"
  • "The Fine Print"
  • "Stoop to Conquer"
  • "Wise Child"
  • "Owe Me"
  • "The Halted Village"
  • "Heal Thyself"

Nonfiction

  • "That Moon Plaque "