Remembering Harry Harrison

The last time I saw Harry Harrison was in 2004, at the Campbell Conference hosted by James Gunn at the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Harry was there to be inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (after that year, those ceremonies were moved to Seattle) and his good friend Brian Aldiss was there; both men were founders of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, given annually for the best sf novel of the year. Harry spoke at the conference, which was attended by such luminaries as Greg Benford, Greg Bear, Joan Slonczewski, Jack McDevitt, Kij Johnson, Chris McKitterick, Betty Ann Hull, George Zebrowski, Fred Pohl, and Donna Shirley, former manager for Mars exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. My last glimpse of Harry was of him and Brian Aldiss enjoying a lunch and a couple of bottles--maybe three--of wine, another reminder of how much this witty, outgoing man enjoyed life.

He's best known for the movie Soylent Green, adapted from his novel Make Room! Make Room!, but he wrote a number of other intelligent and vastly entertaining novels (one of my favorites was West of Eden) and he was an unrelenting opponent of war and advocate for reason. A detailed obituary for the Guardian by Christopher Priest (coincidentally one of this year's Campbell Award winners) is here.