From archive (archive) Subject: Harry Harrison From: ccmj@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Claire Jones) Date: 5 Dec 88 13:24:18 GMT Has SF come out of the closet - read this and see what you think. (Sorry it's so long, and no he hasn't died although it did appear on the obituaries page). Reproduced (without permission) from `The Guardian' Nov 30th 1988. In 1944 an Irish-Jewish teenager from New York found himself drafted into the US Army Air Force and sent to Laredo, Texas. He emerged two years later as a sergeant with the rating 678-3, `specialist in the power-operated turret and computing gunsight'. It was an experience which left Harry Harrison with two abiding motifs on which to build a writing career: hatred of complex human organisations, especially military ones, and delight in complex electro-mechanical systems, including ones which have not yet been invented. The hero by whom he first made his name was Slippery Jim DiGriz, alias `The Stainless Steel Rat', so called because while ordinary rats may make a living in the joists and cellars of plain old wooden houses, for the buildings and bureaucracies of the future, something more indestructible is required. The `Rat' books (now six of them, with a computer game in the works) have kept going since 1957, appealing continuously through their lack of reverence for any social contract whatsoever. The same quality, though, long past controllability, has kept him dancing on the edge of disaster. Earlier this year, for instance, a squad of Marines in training were being chivvied along the beach at San Diego, largest naval base in the world. But to the snarls of their sergeant were added, suddenly, equally authentic-sounding but contradictory snarls. As the beach filled with angry Marines and embarrassed spectators, a white-haired respectable figure was hustled off on a metaphorical choke-chain, frothing and growling. When he recovered to face his friends' reproaches, Harrison said: `I've no sympathy for those guys. You know what those guys are?' Pause for contempt.`Volunteers !' Risk hung round the literary career too. In the early 1960s science fiction was full of right-wing militarism, Robert Heinlein creating a best-seller on the premise that only military service gave the right to vote, and on the plot (very like An Officer and A Gentleman) of the spoilt brat learning to love his sergeant. By the time this had gone through Harrison's hand (in Bill, The Galactic Hero), literature also had the figure of Deathwish Drang, bullying NCO par excellence, and the touching scene where Bill finds out the good old Deathwish's projecting canines are in fact artificially implanted, to show what a softy he is underneath, Heinlein and his friends were not amused. So had they ever been sergeants, asked Harrison? Harry Harrison has won few literary awards, but stayed in print constantly with scores of books. The prize-giving ceremony for Soylent Green, the Charlton Heston film made from Make Room! Make Room!, was marred by public dispute between author and scriptwriter, the former irked that the latter had decided to make New York in 2000 AD more exciting by working in cannibalism. `What's wrong with cannibalism ? I'll tell you what's wrong with it. Won't work. Humans put on meat too slowly.' Harrison's view of the future was more chilling, in reality, because it was based on the premise that all human indicators, like population growth, would stay the same, but that there would be no technology to match. That there will be, or could be, technology to save the day is also a Harrison article of faith, though again it seems less like faith than uncontrollable yearning. Who can forget the coal-fired flying boat of A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah? The submarine to Mars ? The cannon-ball firing spaceships (he is a Hornblower fan) ? The innumerable gadgets of the latest West of Eden series, developed by intelligent dinosaurs on an entirely biological basis ? More prosaically, Harrison now owns seven computers, scattered around the world from his base in Co. Wicklow, Ireland, the end of a long search through Europe and America - previous candidates Denmark, Italy, Mexico - for a government that would leave him alone and never draft him, his children, grandchildren or remote descendents ever again. He speaks several languages fluently, but has for 40 years been a devoted Esperantist, for which language he has written its first science fiction story `Ni venos, Dr. Zamenhof, ni venos' (`we will come, founder of Esperanto, we will come'). The day when governments don't exist and we all talk Esperanto is a long time coming, and if iy comes it might be rather dull. There is no doubt, though, of Harrison's visceral antipathy to nations and nationalism, nor of the tensions which come from being intellectually unmilitary and temperamentally warlike. A passionate opponent of blood sports, Harrison is a dead shot with all weapons. By Tom Shippey From archive (archive) Subject: Author Lists: Harry Harrison From: JWenn.ESAE@XEROX.COM Date: 20 Feb 89 11:31:44 GMT Harry Harrison seems to vary from funny [The Stainless Steel Rat, Bill, the Galactic Hero, Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers] to straight SF [The Deathworld Trilogy, West of Eden, Make Room! Make Room!]. [C] == Short Story Collection. [J] == The book is for juveniles (however you define them) [NSF] == Not SF [O] == Omnibus. Includes other books. includes == This book wholely includes the other rev == revision of an older title /John arpa: JWenn.ESAE@Xerox.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Harrison, Harry [Maxwell] [U.S.A., 12/03/1925- ] The Deathworld Trilogy [1974] [O] Deathworld [1960] [aka "Deathworld 1"] Deathworld 2 [1964] [aka "The Ethical Engineer"] Deathworld 3 [1968] To the Stars [1981] [O] Homeworld [1980] Wheelworld [1981] Starworld [1981] The Stainless Steel Rat Series: The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat [1977] [O] The Stainless Steel Rat [1961] The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge [1970] The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World [1972] The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! [1978] The Stainless Steel Rat For President [1982] A Stainless Steel Rat is Born [1985] The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted [1988] Eden Series: West of Eden [1984] Winter in Eden [1986] Return to Eden [1988] In Series: Planet of the Damned [1962] [aka "Sense of Obligation"] Planet of No Return [1981] In Series: [J] Man from P.I.G. [1968] The Man from P.I.G. and R.O.B.O.T. [1974] [includes "Man from P.I.G."] War with the Robots [1962] [C] Two Tales and Eight Tomorrows [1965] [C] Bill, the Galactic Hero [1965] Plague From Space [1965] [aka "The Jupiter Legacy"] Make Room! Make Room! [1966] [filmed as "Soylent Green"] The Technicolour Time Machine [1967] Captive Universe [1969] One Step From Earth [1970] [C] Prime Number [1970] [C] The Daleth Effect [1970] [aka "In Our Hands the Stars"] Spaceship Medic [1970] [J] Tunnel Through the Deeps [1972] [aka "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!"] Montezuma's Revenge [1972] [NSF] Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers [1973] Queen Victoria's Revenge [1974] [NSF] The California Iceberg [1975] [J] Skyfall [1976] The Best of Harry Harrison [1976] [C] Planet Story [1979] The QE2 is Missing [1980] [NSF] Invasion: Earth [1982] The Jupiter Plague [1982] [rev. of "Plague From Space"] A Rebel in Time [1983] Harrison, Harry [Maxwell] & Dickson, Gordon R[upert] The Lifeship [1976] [aka "Lifeboat"] Harrison, Harry [Maxwell] & Stover Stonehenge [1972]