Out Like a Light

Psi-Power Trilogy #2

by Mark Phillips

Pseudonym Mark Phillips
In two words Im Possible.
First, late-model cars began driving themselves away - with nobody at the wheel...
Then, valuables began vanishing from locked rooms...
It was a new kind of crime. And Malone, the Government's expert on "impossibilities," was afraid it was a new kind of criminal...one who could disappear at will, walk through walls, and thumb his nose at the police.
And Malone was dead right...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy

ebook

First published January 28, 1960

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
(2)Science Fiction

Mark Phillips is a pseudonym for the authors Laurence M. Janifer and Randall Garrett, for the works they wrote together.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, a silly sci-fi romp in a similar style to Douglas Adams. I loved that the main character doesn't think of himself as a great detective, and yet his bullheaded determination to keep asking absolutely everyone for help or information felt extraordinary to me.

I chose this book because I've set an impossible goal for myself: to read 100 books in 2025, more than I've ever read in a single year!

But in the words of one of my favorite people (quoting Walt Disney, but I always hear it in my friend's voice): "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

He closed his eyes again and waited patiently for his head to go away.

Kenneth Malone is an FBI agent in the future, in a world where psionic power is just beginning to be understood, and its exploitation is a matter of national security. Even if the psychic thinks they’re Queen Elizabeth, as in one of Malone’s previous cases.

It’s entirely possible that Malone himself is psychically lucky, although it may also be that he merely suffers imposter syndrome.

“Relaxation?” Malone said, feeling just a little bit pleased. Of course, he didn’t deserve any of the praise he was getting, he knew. He’d just happened to walk in on the Gorelik kidnapers because his telephone had been out of order. And the Transom ring hadn’t been just his job. After all, if other agents hadn’t managed to trace the counterfeit bills back to a common area in Cincinnati, he’d never have been able to complete his part of the assignment. But it was nice to be praised, anyhow. Malone felt a twinge of guilt, and told himself sternly to relax and enjoy himself.

In his current case, he’s in New York City to investigate the mysterious thefts and occasional returns of red 1972 Cadillacs. When police investigate them, they tend to either drive themselves off without a driver, with a disappearing driver, or after the cop falls unconscious next to the vehicle.

Including Malone, which is where the book starts and why Malone is waiting patiently for his head—or at least the painful throbbing that it represents—to go away.

This is apparently a 1963 book probably adapted from a late fifties or early sixties serial appearance. It features a 1972 (or late 1971) in which push-button car starters can be shorted across to hotwire cars, 3-D television is the latest popular media that people can look down on (and which can also be installed in both the front and back seats of red Cadillacs), and in which video calls are relatively commonplace. Much of the government’s psychic research is at Yucca Flats, although how his relates to the nuclear testing that occurred there in the real world was probably explained in previous Malone stories.

It is a very typical retro future with an atypically interesting detective as its protagonist. Taking typical settings and making them atypically interesting is something Garrett excels at.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second in the Psi-Power trilogy, featuring hapless FBI agent Ken Malone. This one makes more of the then-futuristic setting of 1974 than the first one, with various ingenious bits of technology on show besides the videophones from the previous book, and it expands on the psychic powers, introducing two new ones.

It turns out that Malone isn't just "lucky," he has precognition, which is why he ends up in the right place at the right time to make progress on his case - a convenient plot device that also makes sense in the setting, so I'll allow it. The other power introduced, and the focus of the book, is teleportation. I noticed that Malone believes near the end that he's (probably) telepathic, something the authors backed off from in the third book - which I've already read, out of sequence; he didn't believe he was telepathic at the start of that story.

There's a dropped notebook which provides important clues (Malone really is lucky as well), and what's written on which pages of the notebook changes each time it's mentioned; these are continuity errors rather than another speculative element, but that's a minor annoyance. As with the other books in the trilogy, there's an apparently insoluble bizarre problem which Malone chips determinedly, if sometimes hopelessly, away at and eventually figures out, along the way encountering some colourful minor characters, dropping a few beautifully constructed metaphors couched in hilarious sentences, getting involved in several well-described action sequences (in this case, mostly also slapstick), and meeting a lovely woman who has more to her than meets the eye. It's in the true noir tradition, but with layers of SF and comedy, both of which, for me, worked well.

[Vincent · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as charming as the first book (That Sweet Little Old Lady). Here the psi power demonstrated is teleportation. I do enjoy that Ken Malone is somewhat of an anti-James Bond in that he is often very unsure of himself, and is not suave with ladies in any way (though he, of course, still gets the girl). I'm sure there is a lot of satire that I am missing because I am not familiar enough with mid-Century America.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teen teleports. A period piece, LOTS of drinking, a bit sexist though not as awful as it might have been (the two female characters both show some agency in the story), and goes down easy.

[Sue Chant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite entetaining in an old-fashioned way.

[Emmalyn Renato · Rating 3 out of 5]

Red Cadillacs apparently driving away with no one behind the steering wheel. A series of thefts under seemingly impossible circumstances. FBI agent Malone is assigned to try to discover what's going on.

Two and a half stars rounded up to three. Published in 1963, and a followup to the Hugo nominated novel "Brain Twister" (which I enjoyed reading over 30 years ago), this one is definitely not as good, and it hasn't aged well. If this hadn't been such a short novel, I'm sure I would have DNF'ed it. The plot was thin. I didn't really like Malone. Not a smart person anywhere. You the reader are way ahead of "the detectives". It's very unlikely I'll bother with the third one.

[Adam Meek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kenneth J. Malone of the Queen's Own FBI rides again in this charming sequel to Brain Twister. This light-hearted work examines a mysterious crime wave in the near future... of 1972. If you enjoy classic SF, Garrett's Psi-Power trilogy is well worth examining, especially considering that it's available legally at no cost from gutenberg.org and manybooks.net.

[Alechia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't as good as the first in the series, but it was still interesting. The first one was only better because of Queen Elizabeth.

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but didn't think it was quite as good as Brain Twister, the other book of theirs I've read.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine for what it is: a fun yet dated romp through what people thought in the early 1960's what New York City in the early 1970's would be.

[William Ritch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun book by Garrett and Janifer.

Once again the FBI and Ken Malone are engrossed in a case of psychic abilities and impossible crimes. I miss Pyramid Books

[Steve Smoot · Rating 3 out of 5]

may be the best of the series, note the series is $0.80 on Kindle...

[Kevin Connery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second in the series