Editing Randall Garrett (section)

==Biography and writing career==
{{stack|
[[File:Fantastic 196201.jpg|thumb|Garrett's novelette "Hepcats of Venus" was the cover story on the January 1962 ''[[Fantastic (magazine)|Fantastic]]''.]]
[[File:Randall Garrett - Unwise Child - book cover.jpg|thumb|Cover of ''Unwise Child'' by Garrett.]]
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Garrett is best known for the [[Lord Darcy (character)|''Lord Darcy'']] books — the novel ''[[Too Many Magicians]]'' and two short story collections — set in an [[alternate history (fiction)|alternate world]] where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a [[Plantagenet]] dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references (particularly to works of [[detective fiction|detective]] and [[spy fiction]]: Lord Darcy is modeled on [[Sherlock Holmes]]), elements often appearing in the shorter works about the detective. [[Michael Kurland]] wrote two additional Lord Darcy novels after Garrett's death.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Michael_Kurland|title=Summary Bibliography: Michael Kurland|author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= |publisher= |access-date=June 2, 2024|quote=}}</ref>

Garrett wrote under a variety of [[pseudonym]]s, including: David Gordon; John Gordon; Darrel T. Langart (an [[anagram]] of his name); Alexander Blade; Richard Greer; Ivar Jorgensen; Clyde Mitchell; Leonard G. Spencer; S. M. Tenneshaw; and Gerald Vance. He was also a founding member of the [[Society for Creative Anachronism]] (SCA), as "Randall of Hightower" (a pun on "[[garret]]"). The short novel ''Brain Twister'', written by Garrett with author [[Laurence Janifer]] (using the joint pseudonym [[Mark Phillips (author)|Mark Phillips]]), was nominated for the [[Hugo Award for Best Novel]] in 1960.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/1960-hugo-awards/|title=1960 Hugo Awards - The Hugo Awards|author=<!--Not stated--> |date= July 26, 2007|website= |publisher= |access-date=June 2, 2024|quote=}}</ref>

An inveterate punster (defining a pun as "the odor given off by a decaying mind"), Garrett was a favorite guest at science fiction conventions and a friend to many fans, especially in Southern California. According to various anecdotes in a tribute volume, Garrett was cherished by his friends, who often repeated anecdotes of his behavior, but horrified many women, to whom he routinely introduced himself with obscene propositions.<ref name="Best">'Robert Silverberg, ed., 'The Best of Randall Garrett'', 1982 Pocket Books {{ISBN|0-671-83574-2}}</ref> For example, he introduced himself to [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] with the Latin sentence "[[Coito ergo sum]]",<ref name="IROSF">{{cite web|date=September 2009|title=The Clown Prince of Science Fiction: Inside the Wild and Undisciplined Mind Of Randall Garrett|first=Mark|last=Cole|url=http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10578|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324014006/http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10578|archive-date=March 24, 2018|website=Internet Review of Science Fiction}}</ref> ([[sic]]) which she did not understand until it was explained to her some time later as an obscenity, and at another time to a pregnant [[Anne McCaffrey]] with "sly innuendoes" that horrified her. [[Philip José Farmer]] recounted an anecdote where Garrett was punched by his then-wife for having a pair of someone else's lace underpants in his pocket, later being seen running naked through a hotel after having been caught having sex with another woman in the wrong room (presumably also the wrong woman).<ref name=PJFarmer>"The Man Who Came For Christmas", by [[Philip José Farmer]], in ''The Best of Randall Garrett'' (pp. 7 - 9); edited by [[Robert Silverberg]]; published 1982 by [[Timescape Books]]</ref>

[[Frank Herbert]] said: {{quote|"You could follow his movements around this [[Society for Creative Anachronism|Creative Anachronists']] picnic by the squeals of the women whose bottoms he had just pinched."}}

[[Isaac Asimov]] referred to Garrett's offending [[Judith Merril]] to the point where she emptied an ashtray over his and Garrett's heads.<ref name="Best"/>

Garrett, [[Poul Anderson]] and other friends were members of the Elves', Gnomes' and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society, centered in Berkeley, California.<ref>https://fancyclopedia.org/Little_Men</ref> One of those members was Geoff Kidd, to whom [[Poul Anderson]] dedicated his book "The Earth Book of Stormgate".

Kidd, who is currently{{when|date=July 2024}} a proofreader for [[Baen Books]], recalls a quatrain that Garrett declaimed at one of the Little Men meetings:
<blockquote>
"There are thousands of laws legislators have spoken,<br>
A few the Creator sent.<br>
The former are being continually broken<br>
The latter can't even be bent."
</blockquote> <!--He thinks it should be officially attributed.-->

Garrett was married to fellow author [[Vicki Ann Heydron]], who largely wrote the ''Gandalara Cycle'' fantasy series credited to both spouses;<ref>{{cite news |last1=Davis Nicoll |first1=James |title=Fighting Erasure: Women SF Writers of the 1970s, Part III |url=https://www.tor.com/2018/03/14/fighting-erasure-women-sf-writers-of-the-1970s-part-iii// |access-date=April 28, 2020 |work=[[Tor.com]] |date=April 28, 2020}}</ref> they met in 1975, at the home of their mutual [[literary agent|agent]], and were married in December 1978.<ref name=AboutTheAuthors>"About the authors" (p. 181) in ''The Steel of Raithskar''; published 1981 by [[Bantam Books]]; {{ISBN|0-553-14607-6}}</ref> In 1986, Heydron specified that she had been Garrett's third wife "and at least his sixth collaborator".<ref name=Takeoff-p2>Introduction, by [[Vicki Ann Heydron]], in ''Takeoff Too!'', p. 2; published March 1987 by [[Starblaze Graphics]]; {{ISBN|0-89865-455-6}}</ref>

In 1999, Randall Garrett was posthumously awarded the [[Sidewise Award for Alternate History]] Special Achievement Award for the Lord Darcy series. He was also ordained in the [[Old Catholic Church]].<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20000818091835/http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_christian_edman.html Adherents.com]}}</ref><ref name="IROSF"/> [[Glen Cook]]'s private detective character [[Garrett P.I.]] is named in honor of Garrett.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/newsletters/040808-xml-news.html |title=Understanding XML: Reinventing wheels |work=[[O'Reilly Media]] |date=2008-04-08 |accessdate=2012-11-16 }}</ref>