CLIFTON, Mark

(1906-1963)

   US writer and businessman, for many years occupied in personnel work, putting together many thousands of case histories from which he extrapolated conclusions after the fashion of Kinsey and Sheldon; these conclusions MC reportedly used to shape the arguments of his sf, most of which was published in ASF, beginning with "What Have I Done?" (1952).Much of his fiction is comprised of two series. The Bossy sequence - "Crazy Joey" (1953) with Alex Apostolides (1924-), "Hide! Hide! Witch!" (1953) with Apostolides, and They'd Rather be Right (1954 ASF; edited version 1957; vt The Forever Machine 1958; text restored under original title 1982) with Frank RILEY - concerns an advanced COMPUTER named Bossy who is almost made ineffective by the fears of mankind about her, even though she is capable of conferring IMMORTALITY. They'd Rather be Right won the 1955 HUGO award for Best Novel. MC's second series, the Ralph Kennedy sequence - "What Thin Partitions" (1953) with Alex Apostolides, "Sense from Thought Divide" (1955), "How Allied" (1957), "Remembrance and Reflection" (1958) and When They Come from Space (1962) - is rather lighter in tone, focusing initially on Kennedy's dealings with psi phenomena (PSI POWERS) in his role as the investigative personnel director for a cybernetics firm, and moving on in the novel which concludes the series to deal with a typical ASF target, inflated Federal bureaucracy. The long-suffering Kennedy is appointed "extraterrestrial psychologist" and is forced to cope with a team of aliens which is mounting hoax INVASIONS.MC's only out-of-series novel is Eight Keys to Eden (1960), in which an E-man, or Extrapolator, is sent to the colony planet of Eden to extricate it from an apparently insuperable problem: the problem turns out to be normal human civilization, not the paradise. Despite a slightly awkward prose style and an occasionally heavy wit, MC's novels and stories - a convenient selection is The Science Fiction of Mark Clifton (coll 1980) under the editorship and advocacy of Barry N. MALZBERG - convey a comfortable lucidity and optimism about the relation between technology and progress; his attempts to apply the tone of HARD SF to subjects derived from the SOFT SCIENCES reflect ASF's philosophical bent in the 1950s under John W. CAMPBELL Jr's editorial guidance.

   JC

   See also: AUTOMATION; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; DIMENSIONS; ECOLOGY; INTELLIGENCE; PASTORAL.