Rog Phillips


Roger Phillip Graham was an American science fiction writer who was published most often using the name Rog Phillips, but also used other names. Of his other pseudonyms, only Craig Browning is notable in the genre. He is associated most with Amazing Stories and is known best for short fiction. He was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1959.

Biography

Roger Phillip Graham was born in Spokane, Washington, on February 20, 1909. His family changed its residence frequently during the Great Depression, as his father, John Alfred Graham, moved around the country looking for work. Roger's sophomore year was spent at Kingfisher High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He returned to Spokane for college, graduating from Gonzaga University in 1931. He also studied at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Graham was a power plant engineer until the beginning of World War II, when he worked as a shipyard welder and longshoreman. After the war he became a full-time writer, using twenty different pseudonyms: Clinton Ames, Drew Ames, Robert Arnette, Franklin Bahl, Alexander Blade, Craig Browning, Gregg Conrad, P.F. Costello, Sanandana Kumara, Charles Lee, Charles Mann, Milton Mann, Inez McGowan, Melva Rogers, Chester Ruppert, William Carter Sawtelle, A.R. Steber, Gerald Vance, John H. Wiley, and Peter Worth.
On October 8, 1938, Graham married Eleanor Cora Smith, with whom he lived in Kirkland, Washington. The couple had divorced by 1946.

Writing career

Graham's first published work was a detective story, "Murder Note," as by Charles Mann, that appeared in the Winter 1943 issue of The Masked Detective. Raymond A. Palmer, editor of Amazing Stories, started Graham's science fiction career in 1945, with a $500 advance for his story, "Let Freedom Ring!" To facilitate more work with Palmer and his associate editor, William Hamling, Graham moved to Evanston, Illinois.
In response to falling sales, due to the Shaver Mystery Hoax, Palmer instituted a column of fan news and fanzine reviews in the March 1948 issue of Amazing Stories. Called The Club House, it was intended to create a sense of community among readers. Graham, now an official staff columnist for Ziff Davis, edited the feature under the name Rog Phillips, publishing 57 editions.
Phillips experienced the height of his success between 1946 and 1953. His entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. 2: Who's Who, M-Z, lists several stories of interest from this period, including “Atom War” ; “So Shall Ye Reap!” ; “M’Bong-Ah” ; “The Cyberene”. A recurring character, Lefty Baker, appears in six stories with a humorous tone: “Squeeze Play" ; “The Immortal Menace” ; “The Insane Robot” ; “It’s Like This” ; “Lefty Baker’s Nuthouse” ; “…But Who Knows Huer, or Huen?”.
Phillips' 1949 work, Time Trap, published by Century Pocket Books in mass-market rack size, has been cited as being one of the first original science fiction paperbacks ever printed, if not the very first. Century Books followed Time Trap by publishing Worlds Within and World of If.
On October 24, 1951, Phillips married Mari Wolf in Chicago. As a wedding gift, William Hamling hired Wolf to write a column identical to The Club House, Fandora's Box, for his fledgling science fiction magazine, Imagination. Phillips and Wolf divorced in 1955.
In his July 1952 Club House column, Phillips announced that Melvin Korshak of Shasta Publishers was going to publish his book Frontiers in the Sky. Shasta subsequently went out of business, having been caught up in a scandal when it failed to pay Philip José Farmer for winning a writing contest, and Phillips' book was never printed.
Howard Browne, the new editor of Amazing Stories, fired Phillips in 1953. A Club House installment was published in that year's March issue, and Phillips submitted a short story some months later. He made no further appearances in the magazine until the editorship of Paul W. Fairman, who accepted eight of Phillips' stories between 1957 and 1959.
The Club House column was taken up by Universe Science Fiction, another Ray Palmer publication. It first appeared in the July 1954 issue and made five appearances before Universe folded in March 1955. Other Worlds Science Stories, a further Palmer publication, ran five more installments of the column between May 1955 and April 1956, before it too went out of business.
With the dwindling acceptance of his fiction, Phillips wrote a series of articles for Mystic magazine, yet another Palmer publication, with such philosophical topics as "Searching for the Elixir of Life," written under the pseudonym Drew Ames.
In 1957 Phillips married again, to Honey Wood. Both were members of Outlanders, a noted West Coast science fiction fan club, and in 1958 Phillips was made Program Director when the group hosted the Solacon. Phillips also manufactured the Hugo Award trophies for 1958.
During this time Phillips reemerged as a front-running science fiction writer with such notable stories as: "Game Preserve", and "The Yellow Pill". His psychological thriller, "Rat in the Skull", received a Hugo Award nomination.
Phillips' only hardbound novel, The Involuntary Immortal, enlarged from a Fantastic Adventures novelette, was published by Avalon in 1959.

Final years

Phillips' final publications were seven detective stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. His last official public appearance was as Guest of Honor at Westercon XIII in Boise, Idaho, during the July 3–5, 1960 weekend.
Phillips had been under a doctor's care for the last six years of his life and was scheduled to have heart surgery to replace a defective valve. After being hospitalized for a preoperative period in late February 1966, he entered a coma from which he never recovered. He died on March 2, 1966, of heart complications, at the age of 56.

Speculative short stories

A nearly complete listing of Roger Phillip Graham's speculative fiction can be found at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database website.
What follows is a short list of some of his better known works out of the 205 stories he wrote. As well as 19 early reprints, 20 articles, 1 cite, at least 8 fanzine articles, 67 The Club House columns, 3 paperbacks, and 1 hardcover.
  • Let Freedom Ring!, Amazing Stories
  • Atom War, Amazing Stories
  • The Mutants, Amazing Stories
  • Battle of the Gods, Amazing Stories
  • The House, Amazing Stories
  • So Shall Ye Reap!, Amazing Stories
  • Starship from Sirius, Amazing Stories
  • Cube Root of Conquest, Amazing Stories
  • Tillie, Amazing Stories
  • The Unthinking Destroyer, Amazing Stories
  • Unthinkable, Amazing Stories
  • Bubastis of Egupt, Other Worlds Science Stories
  • The Old Martians, If Worlds of Science Fiction
  • From This Dark Mind, Fantastic
  • Ye of Little Faith, If Worlds of Science Fiction
  • The Yellow Pill, Astounding
  • Rat in the Skull, If Worlds of Science Fiction
  • The Gallery, Amazing Stories

Works Other Than Speculative

  • Murder Note. as by Charles Mann, The Masked Detective
  • Frame for a Fed, F.B.I. Detective Stories
  • To Dream of Murder, Famous Detective Stories
  • Portrait of the Artist's Wife, as by Inez McGowan, Ladies' Home Journal
  • A Case of Homicide, Keyhole Mystery Magazine
  • Good Sound Therapy, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine
  • The Full Treatment, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
  • The Egg Head, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
  • First Come, First Served, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
  • Justice, Inc., Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
  • Experience is Helpful, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
  • Legacy of Office, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
  • The Hypothetical Arsonist, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Free works

  • The Gallery
  • Unthinkable

Paperbacks

  • Time Trap, Century Books
  • Worlds Within, Century Books
  • World of If, Merit Books

Hardcover

  • The Involuntary Immortals, Avalon

Posthumous works

  • The Essential Rog Phillips
33 short stories spanning Phillips' career
  • Rog Phillips’ The Club House
Containing all 67 appearances of The Club House
Author: Roger Phillip Graham
Edited and with an introduction: Earl Terry Kemp
Introduction: “Roger Phillip Graham: The Man Who Was Rog Phillips,” by Earl Terry Kemp; pp. xv-xxiii
Afterword: “Roger Phillips,” by Robert Silverberg; pp. 573–578
The Last Stand; October 2014; softcover; cover artist: Steve Stiles
630 pages; with black and white illustrations; 8 ½ x 11 inches
  • The Complete Lefty Baker
Author: Rog Phillips
Edited and with an introduction: Earl Terry Kemp
Introduction: by Earl Terry Kemp; pp. xi-xii
Goldleaf Books; October 2012; softcover; cover artist: Earl Terry Kemp
113 pages
Author: Rog Phillips
Edited and with an introduction: Earl Terry Kemp
Introduction: by Earl Terry Kemp; pp. xi-xii
Goldleaf Books; January 2013; softcover; cover artist: Earl Terry Kemp
181 pages
  • The Best of Rog Phillips, Volume III
Containing: Time Trap and Worlds Within
Author: Rog Phillips
Edited and with an introduction: Earl Terry Kemp
Introduction: by Earl Terry Kemp; pp. xi-xii
Goldleaf Books; March 2013; softcover; cover art and design: Earl Terry Kemp
254 pages
  • The Best of Rog Phillips, Volume IV
Containing: World of If, Game Preserve, The Yellow Pill, and The Rat in the Skull
Author: Rog Phillips
Edited and with an introduction: Earl Terry Kemp
Introduction: by Earl Terry Kemp; pp. xi-xiii
Goldleaf Books; October 2014; softcover; cover art and design: Earl Terry Kemp
211 pages