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Sci-fi Author Harry Harrison Dies at 87

Posted by Soulskill on from the rest-in-peace dept.

tmjva writes "Per BBC's Entertainment page, author Harry Harrison died today at the age of 87. His body of work included Make Room! Make Room!, (the inspiration for Soylent Green), The Stainless Steel Rat, and Bill the Galactic Hero. From the article: 'Harrison's first novel, Deathworld, was published in 1960, while the first book in the Stainless Steel Rat series was published a year later. The last of the series was published just two years ago in 2010 and the books are widely regarded as producing one of science fiction's great anti-heroes, Slippery Jim diGriz, aka The Stainless Steel Rat. The author also parodied the sci-fi genre in his seven Bill the Galactic Hero books, which were first seen in 1965. He saw his work as anti-war and anti-militaristic.'"

6 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sad by Toe,+The · · Score: 5, Insightful

    by jdigriz (676802)

    Seriously, jdigriz gets first post? How appropriate is that?

  2. Stainless Steel Rat by sandytaru · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The adventures of Jim di Griz were as formative in my teenage years as any other book I could name. I love the idea that in the future, when poverty and war was more or less eliminated and even murderers could be (mostly) rehabilitated, the government itself would allow a few of the brightest criminal minds to slip through the cracks and cause a little chaos (and occasionally stop bigger chaos from leaking off various planets.) The world was mildly dystopian, but still a much more tongue in cheek vision of the future than it was outright depressing. Rest in peace, Harry Harrison.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  3. Don't eat the biscuits at the funeral.... by jrmcc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think you know what THEY'RE made of...

  4. Re:Sad by mindwhip · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I remember reading the SSR books in my teens the late 80s. I was very surprised when I realised how OLD the first few were as some of the ideas/concepts in the books were just becoming mainstream/reality.

    Harry Harrison will be missed.

    --
    [The Universe] has gone offline.
  5. Some public domain stuff for you to try by steveha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Harry Harrison wrote quite a bit of stuff during the days when copyright actually could expire.

    http://www.feedbooks.com/books/search?query=harry+harrison

    Noteworthy: "The Misplaced Battleship" (the first Stainless Steel Rat story) Deathworld (the first Deathworld novel)

    It would be cool to see the Stainless Steel Rat adventures turned into movies. I'd love to see what a .75 calibre recoilless pistol would look like as a prop.

    steveha

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  6. RIP by VynlSol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mi gutted sciante ke vi estas ne en la mondo ie, pensante. Ripozi en paco!