Randall Garrett (1927–1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, best remembered for pioneering the "detective in a magical world" subgenre. Born in Lexington, Missouri, he became one of the most prolific contributors to the pulp magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, publishing under more than twenty pseudonyms, including Darrell T. Langart, David Gordon, and Ivar Jorgensen. With frequent collaborator Laurence M. Janifer, writing as "Mark Phillips," he produced popular comic science fiction such as The Impossibles (1960), Occasion for Disaster (1961), and Brain Twister (1962). His solo novels include Anything You Can Do (1963) and The Highest Treason (1961).
Garrett's enduring achievement is the Lord Darcy series: alternate-history mysteries in which a brilliant sleuth serves the still-powerful Plantagenet Empire, an Anglo-French realm where magic, governed by scientific laws, has replaced technology. The novel Too Many Magicians (1967) and the collections Murder and Magic (1979) and Lord Darcy Investigates (1981) won wide acclaim; Michael Kurland later continued the series after Garrett's death.
Stricken by viral encephalitis in 1979, Garrett never wrote again. He remains celebrated for his wit, ingenuity, and genre-blending innovation.