Biblio Library

Supermind is a science fiction novel by Randal Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer under the pen-name of ”Mark Phillips”, first published under the title Occasion for Disaster in 1960/61. This is the book edition published in 1963. 

This third book after BrainTwister and The Impossibles concludes the story around FBI agent Ken Malone.

Kenneth Malone lives in a world where psionic powers such as telepathy and teleportation exist. He must cope with them as well as an FBI Director who leaves Malone continually confused about what situation he is being asked to handle and what he is expected to do about it.

Someone or something is causing confusion in the U.S. Government, Unions, The Mafia, and other sectors of society and Malone has been given the job of finding the source of the confusion. A good story composed of science fiction and slap stick comedy with a bit of romance thrown into the mix.

Supermind is the third part of their ”Psi-Power series” and was first published as Occasion for Disaster in Analog, November/December 1960 and January/February 1961.The first story they wrote in the series was Brain Twister (first published as That Sweet Little Old Lady, published in the Sept./October 1959 edition of Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact. Subsequent stories include The Impossibles (first published as Out Like a Light in Analog, April/May/June 1960).

This series is one of the highlights of 1960s SF, and still highly recommended.

Randall Garrett (1927-1987) 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.

Laurence M. Janifer (1933-2002) was an American science fiction author, with a career spanning over 50 years. Though his first published work was a short story in Cosmos magazine in 1953, his career as a writer can be said to have started in 1959 when he began writing for Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction. He co-wrote the first novel in the "Psi-Power" series: Brain Twister, written with Randall Garrett under the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips.