Harry Harrison
At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005
Born	Henry Maxwell Dempsey (1925-03-12) March 12, 1925 (age 87) Stamford, Connecticut, United States
Occupation	Fiction writer - short stories, novellas, novels, et cetera
Nationality	American
Genres	Science fiction
Spouse(s)	Joan Merkler Harrison (1930–2002) - end with her death
Children	Moira Harrison, Todd Harrison
www.harryharrison.com

Harry Harrison (born March 12, 1925) is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973). He is also (with Brian Aldiss) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.

Career [link]

Before becoming an editor, Harrison started in the science fiction field as an illustrator, notably with EC Comics' two science fiction comic books, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science. He has used house names such as Wade Kaempfert and Philip St. John to edit magazines, and has published other fictions under the names Felix Boyd, Leslie Charteris, and Hank Dempsey (but see Personal Life below). Harrison also wrote for syndicated comic strips, creating the Rick Random character. Harrison is now much better known for his writing, particularly his humorous and satirical science fiction, such as the Stainless Steel Rat series and the novel Bill, the Galactic Hero (which satirises Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers).

During the 1950s and 1960s, he was the main writer of the Flash Gordon newspaper strip. One of his Flash Gordon scripts was serialized in Comics Revue magazine. Harrison drew sketches to help the artist be more scientifically accurate, which the artist largely ignored.

Not all of Harrison's writing is comic, though. He has written many stories on serious themes, of which by far the best known is the novel about overpopulation and consumption of the world's resources Make Room! Make Room! which was used as a basis for the science fiction film Soylent Green (though the film changed the plot and theme).

Harrison for a time was closely identified with Brian Aldiss. The pair collaborated on a series of anthology projects. Harrison and Aldiss did much in the 1970s to raise the standards of criticism in the field.^{[citation needed]} In particular, the two edited nine volumes of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthology series^[1] as well as three volumes of the Decade series, collecting science fiction of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s respectively.^[2]

In 1990, Harrison was professional Guest of Honour at ConFiction, the 48th World SF Convention, in The Hague, Netherlands, together with Joe Haldeman and Wolfgang Jeschke.

Harrison is a writer of fairly liberal worldview. Harrison's work often hinges around the contrast between the thinking man and the man of force, although the "Thinking Man" often needs ultimately to employ force himself.

Harrison was selected by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as the 2009 recipient of their Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.^[3]

Personal life [link]

Harrison was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey (although he did not know this until he was 30, at which point he legally changed his name to Harry Max Harrison).^[4] He was born in Stamford, Connecticut, but has lived in many parts of the world including Mexico, England, Ireland, Denmark and Italy. He is an advocate of Esperanto (the language often appears in his novels, particularly in his Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld series) and was formerly the honorary president of the Esperanto Association of Ireland, as well as holding memberships in other Esperanto organizations such as Esperanto-USA (formerly the Esperanto League for North America), of which he is an honorary member, and the Universala Esperanto-Asocio (World Esperanto Association), of whose Honorary Patrons' Committee he is a member. He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II as a gunsight mechanic and gunnery instructor. He lives in the Republic of Ireland and maintains a flat in Brighton for visits to England.

Harrison married Joan (nee Merkler) in 1954 in New York, a marriage that lasted until her death of cancer in 2002. They had two children, Todd (b. 1955) and Moira (b. 1959), to whom he dedicated the book Make Room! Make Room!.

Bibliography [link]

Novels [link]

Novellas [link]

• The Man from P.I.G. and The Man from R.O.B.O.T. (1974) These two linked novellas, featuring interstellar intelligence agents, were comedy-drama take-offs on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The first tells of an agent of the Porcine Interstellar Guard, who performs his missions with the help of several pigs. The second tells of Henry Venn, an agent for "Robot Obtrusion Battalion — Omega Three", who poses as an interplanetary robot salesman while searching for a missing Galactic Census official on a planet populated by paranoid colonists. The latter was originally published as a short story in Analog, July 1969.

• Planet Story (1978), published as a large format book with colour illustrations by Jim Burns

Short story collections [link]

See List of Harry Harrison Short Stories

• Two Tales and Eight Tomorrows (1965)
• War with the Robots (1967)
• Prime Number (1970)
• One Step from Earth (1970)
• The Best of Harry Harrison (1976)
• Stainless Steel Visions (1992)
• Galactic Dreams (1994)
• 50 In 50 (2001)
• The Men From P.I.G. and R.O.B.O.T.

Omnibus volumes [link]

• The Deathworld Trilogy (1974): Omnibus of Deathworld, Deathworld 2 & Deathworld 3) (vt. The Deathworld Omnibus, 1999) (the BenBella [2005] edition adds the short story `The Mothballed Spaceship' from Astounding: The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology (1973))
• The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat (1978) - omnibus collection of The Stainless Steel Rat, The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge and The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World
• To the Stars (1991) - omnibus collection of the three "To The Stars" novels
• Warriors of the Way (1995), with "John Holm", a pseudonym of Tom Shippey: Omnibus of The Hammer and the Cross and One King's Way
• A Stainless Steel Trio (2002) - omnibus collection of A Stainless Steel Rat is Born, The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted and The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues

Comics [link]

• Rick Random with artist Ron Turner (trade paperback: October 2008, ISBN 1-85375-673-3)
• Flash Gordon (1958–1964)
• The Stainless Steel Rat (1979–1985) was adapted into a comic strip in the magazine 2000 AD by Kelvin Gosnell, with artist Carlos Ezquerra (trade paperback: July 2010, ISBN 1-906735-51-4)
• Harry Harrison's Bill, The Galactic Hero Comics; 3 issues

Miscellanea [link]

• You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat: An Interactive Game Book 1988 - choose your own adventure style

Non-fiction books [link]

• Great Balls of Fire: A History of Sex in Science Fiction Illustration (1977)
• Mechanismo (1977)
• Spacecraft in Fact and Fiction (1979)

Anthologies (as editor) [link]

• John W. Campbell: Collected Editorials from Analog (1966)
• Nebula Award Stories No. 2 (1967) (with Brian Aldiss) (vt, Nebula Award Stories 1967)
• Apeman, Spaceman (1968) (with Leon Stover)
• Best SF: 1967 (1968) (vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Farewell Fantastic Venus (1968) (abr as vt, All About Venus, 1968)
• SF: Author's Choice (1968) (vt, A Backdrop of Stars)
• Best SF: 1968 (1969) (rev vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 2) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Blast Off: SF for Boys (1969)
• Four for the Future (1969)
• Worlds of Wonder (1969)
• Best SF: 1969 (1970) (vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 3) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Nova 1 (1970) (rev edition 1976, UK hc)
• SF: Author's Choice 2 (1970)
• The Year 2000 (1970)
• Best SF: 1970 (1971) (vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 4) (with Brian Aldiss)
• The Light Fantastic (1971)
• SF: Author's Choice 3 (1971)
• The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume One (1972) (with Brian Aldiss) (later split into two paperbacks: The Astounding-Analog Reader, Book 1 & The Astounding-Analog Reader, Book 2)
• Ahead of Time (1972)
• Best SF: 1971 (1972) (vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 5) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Nova 2 (1972)
• The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume Two (1973) (with Brian Aldiss) (only one edition; NOT the same book as The Astounding-Analog Reader, Book 2 above)
• Astounding: The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology (1973) (vt, The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology)
• Best SF: 1972 (1973) (vt, The Year's Best S.F. 1972) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Nova 3 (1973) (vt, The Outdated Man)
• A Science Fiction Reader (1973) (with Carol Pugner)
• Best SF: 1973 (1974) (abr vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 7) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Nova 4 (1974)
• SF: Author's Choice 4 (1974)
• Best SF: 1974 (1975) (abr vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 8) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Decade: The 1940s (1975) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Hell's Cartographers: Some Personal Histories of Science Fiction Writers (1975) (with Brian Aldiss) (memoirs by SF writers)
• Science Fiction Novellas (1975) (with Willis E. McNelly)
• Best SF: 1975, The Ninth Annual (1976) (vt, The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 9) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Decade: The 1950s (1976) (with Brian Aldiss)
• Decade: The 1960s (1977) (with Brian Aldiss)
• There Won't Be War (1991) (with Bruce McAllister)

References [link]

External links [link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Harry Harrison

• Official website
• Official Harry Harrison News Blog
• "Worlds Beside Worlds" (Harry Harrison describes how "Tunnel through the Deeps" was written)
• Interview with Harry Harrison 6 July 1997, Dublin, Ireland
• Samples of works published as e-books

Biography and criticism

• Harry Harrison biography at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame

Bibliography and works

• Harry Harrison at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Harry Harrison Papers at the University of South Florida
• Works by Harry Harrison at Project Gutenberg