author
M. I. Mayfield
A little-known science fiction writer remembered for a clever, witty short story about research, records, and the strange ways information can go astray. The surviving public record is sparse, but the work that remains has kept this name in circulation with classic SF readers.
1 Audiobook
On Handling the Data
by M. I. Mayfield
About the author
Very little biographical information about M. I. Mayfield appears to be publicly available from reliable, easily verifiable sources. What can be confirmed is that Mayfield is credited as the author of On Handling the Data, a science fiction story that Project Gutenberg describes as having been written in the late 1950s.
That story has had a modest afterlife online through Project Gutenberg and later publisher listings, which suggests that Mayfield's reputation rests mainly on this concise, memorable piece rather than on a large widely documented body of work. Its format as a series of letters and its focus on scientific confusion give it a playful, idea-driven style that still appeals to readers of vintage speculative fiction.
Because dependable biographical details are so limited, it is best to think of M. I. Mayfield as one of those elusive mid-century authors known more through a surviving story than through a well-preserved public biography.