They'd Rather Be Right

Frank Riley was the pseudonym of Frank Rhylick, an American science fiction author best known for co-writing the novel They'd Rather Be Right, which won a Hugo Award for Best Novel during 1955. He was a syndicated travel columnist and editor for the Los Angeles Times, and editor of the Los... Angeles Magazine. He also wrote advertisements for See's Candies, screenplays, short fiction such as the "Father Anton Dymek" mysteries and was a host of a radio program in the Los Angeles area. From Frank Riley's obituary in the Los Angles Times, April 30, 1996: As travel editor of Los Angeles magazine and an award-winning contributor to several other publications, Riley traveled the world and frequently wrote with his wife of nearly 60 years, Elfriede. In 1976, the couple walked and biked the 800 miles of the 1776 De Anza expedition from Mexico to San Francisco and wrote the resulting book, "De Anza's Trail Today." Born in Hibbing, Minn., Riley grew up in Wausau, Wis., and attended college in Ripon, Wis. He began his career as a reporter for the New York Daily News, eventually covering the White House.
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Mark Clifton was an American science fiction writer. About half of his work falls into two series: the "Bossy" series, about a computer with artificial intelligence, was written either alone or in collaboration with Alex Apostolides or Frank Riley; and the "Ralph Kennedy" series, which is more... comical, and was written mostly solo, including the novel When They Come From Space, although there was one collaboration with Apostolides. Clifton gained his greatest success with his novel They'd Rather Be Right , co-written with Riley, which was serialized in Astounding during 1954, and which was awarded the Hugo Award, perhaps the most contentious novel ever to win the award. Clifton began publishing during May 1952 with the widely anthologized story "What Have I Done?". Clifton's other most popular short story is "Star Bright," the first of three appearances in Horace Gold's Galaxy , about a super-intelligent toddler with psi abilities. From Clifton's correspondence we know that Gold "editorially savaged" the story, which appeared in severely truncated or altered form.
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