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Harry Harrison (1925 - ) was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey to Henry Leo and Ria (Kirjassoff) Harrison. During the Depression,
the elder Harrison worked intermittently as a newspaper compositor and proof-reader. He first introduced Harry to science
fiction as a seven-year-old, giving him a copy of the large-format pulp magazine Amazing Stories. At the age of thirteen,
Harry became a founding member of the Queens Chapter of the Science Fiction League; at the age of fifteen, he wrote his first
fan letter, published in the Fall 1940 issue of Captain Future.
Upon graduating from Forest Hills High School (NY), Harrison was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps. In 1944, while stationed
in Laredo, Texas, he began studying the international language Esperanto, a lifelong pursuit and an influence on his later
writings. Discharged in 1946, Harrison eventually began studying art, attending the Manhattan Cartoonists and Illustrators
School. The young illustrator teamed up with Wally Wood, and the two garnered the attention of Bill Gaines at E.C. Comics.
Wood and Harrison persuaded Gaines to create a science fiction comic, and the editor responded with Weird Science.
Harrison’s gradual move from illustration to writing began in the early 1950s when he was a member of the legendary New York
Hydra Club (1946-1957/58), founded in Frederick Pohl’s Greenwich Village apartment. During this period, Harrison developed
an illness that limited his drawing abilities. Using a typewriter, he wrote a short story called “I Walk through the Rocks,”
which he sold to fellow Hydra member Damon Knight for $100. Worlds Beyond published the story under the title “Rock Diver”
in February 1951. Harrison’s second science fiction story, published under the pseudonym Felix Boyd, appeared in the September
1953 issue of Rocket Stories.
In June 1954, Harrison married Joan Merkler, a dress designer and ballet dancer. Harrison worked as an art director, a freelance
comics script-writer and editor until the mid-1950s, when the scandal of Congressional hearings focused on Bill Gaines resulted
in backlash, censoring, and the demise of E.C. Comics. Harrison moved his family to Cuautla (Morelos) Mexico in 1956, so
that he could work on Deathworld, his first full-length science fiction novel. In August of the following year, Harrison
published the short story, “The Stainless Steel Rat,” in John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction. This work introduced
Harrison’s most famous character, James Boliver, alias ‘Slippery Jim’ DiGriz. Campbell’s positive reception buoyed Harrison
into writing more science fiction stories. He rapidly became one of “Campbell’s writers,” a group writers now equated with
the Golden Age of American science fiction.
During the early 1960s, Deathworld, Planet of the Damned and Vendetta for the Saint appeared in serialized form. A novel
he provisionally entitled If You Can Read This, You’re Too Damn Close appeared in Frederick Pohl’s Galaxy as “Starsloggers”
and in Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds under the title “Bill, the Galactic Hero.” In 1965, he published his first short story
collection, Two Tales and Eight Tomorrows, with an introduction by Brian Aldiss. The two writers became lifelong friends
and collaborators on over 20 science fiction anthologies. Their most famous collaboration, the Best SF Series, was published
consistently from 1967-1976.
During the late 1960s, the Harrisons returned to the United States, residing in San Diego, California. Harrison’s novels
Plague from Space, The Technicolor Time Machine, Captive Universe, Spaceship Medic and Make Room! Make Room! appeared in print.
The latter formed the basis of the 1973 film, Soylent Green, for which Harrison received a “Best Dramatic Presentation” Nebula
Award (1973).
In the 19270, Harrison taught science fiction at San Diego State College and contributed to two college texts: A Science Fiction
Reader (1973) and Science Fiction Novellas (1975). During the decade, he edited 25 science fiction anthologies, including
one in honor of his mentor-patron, John W. Campbell, who died in 1971. Two years later, he and Brian Aldiss honored Campbell
by establishing the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, an annual international juried award for the best science fiction novel.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Harrison published his West of Eden trilogy, the first part of his Stars and Stripes Forever
trilogy, five Bill, the Galactic Hero novels, and a number of short stories. During this period, he formed collaborations
with Tom Shippey, Jack Cohen, Robert E. Myers, and Marvin Minsky. The first full-length study of Harrison’s work, Harry Harrison
by Leon Stover, appeared in 1990.
A prolific author, editor, fan, critic and historian of science fiction, Harrison’s professional career spans more than five
decades. He was the first president of the World SF (1978-80) and has been nominated for three Nebula Awards and two Hugo
Awards. In 2001, Harrison celebrated his 50th anniversary as a science fiction writer by publishing 50 in 50, an anthology
of his finest short stories. He was inducted into the SF Hall of Fame in 2003. Today he resides in the United Kingdom and
makes frequent appearances at international science fiction conferences.
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