A comics artist who turned to prose and created the Stainless Steel Rat, Bill the Galactic Hero and the overpopulation novel that became Soylent Green.
His 1966 novel of an overcrowded New York City of 35 million people, where a police detective investigates a murder.122 It was the loose basis for the 1973 film Soylent Green, which moved the story from 1999 to 2022.8
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Harry Harrison was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey in Stamford, Connecticut, on March 12, 1925.4 His father, a printer of mostly Irish descent, changed the family name to Harrison soon after he was born, and his mother had been born in Riga and grew up in St. Petersburg.3 As a teenager he was a founding member of the Queens Science Fiction League and attended the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939.6
He was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Second World War, where he worked as a gunsight technician and gunnery instructor and learned Esperanto.3
After the war he studied at art schools in New York and worked as a commercial artist.5 From about 1946 he worked mainly in comics as an illustrator and writer, often with Wallace Wood, and drew for EC Comics’ Weird Fantasy and Weird Science.14 He also illustrated science-fiction magazines and was the main writer of the Flash Gordon newspaper strip in the 1950s and 1960s.14
Damon Knight, editor of Worlds Beyond, bought his first story, “Rock Diver,” published in February 1951.1 Writing from Mexico in 1957, he made his first sale to John W. Campbell Jr. at Astounding: the first story about Slippery Jim diGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat.1
His first novel, Deathworld, ran in Astounding/Analog in early 1960 and came out from Bantam that September.12 It earned a Hugo nomination.4 Pyramid published The Stainless Steel Rat, built from the magazine stories, in November 1961.21 He went on writing about the Rat for almost fifty years, ending with The Stainless Steel Rat Returns in 2010.12
Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965), which first ran in Galaxy as “The Starsloggers,” satirized military science fiction.1 Its six sequels, written with other authors, followed between 1989 and the early 1990s.2
Make Room! Make Room! ran in SF Impulse in 1966 and was published by Doubleday that year.1 Set in an overcrowded New York of 1999, it follows a police detective investigating a murder.812 MGM bought the rights without Harrison being told during the negotiations, and he was contractually denied control over the screenplay.8 Charlton Heston and the producer Walter Seltzer persuaded the studio to make the film.7 Harrison later criticized the script but said that “Soylent Green” works as a film.7
With Brian W. Aldiss he founded SF Horizons, a critical journal that ran to two issues, and edited the Best SF annuals and three Decade anthologies.31 The two also created World SF, an organization of professionals meant to encourage science fiction outside the English-speaking world.3 He briefly edited Impulse, Amazing Stories and Fantastic, and four Nova anthologies in the 1970s.1
He moved often: to Mexico, then Britain, Italy and Denmark, where he lived for about seven years, then San Diego, and back to Britain by the mid-1970s.3 Later he settled in Ireland, where he helped found the Irish Science Fiction Association, and in his last years he lived in Brighton, England.3
In the 1980s he wrote the Eden trilogy, beginning with West of Eden (1984).1 In the 1990s he turned to alternate history: The Hammer and the Cross trilogy, written with Tom Shippey, and the Stars and Stripes trilogy, which began with Stars and Stripes Forever (1998).41
His wife, Joan Merkler Harrison, whom he married in 1954, died in 2002; they had two children.5 He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004 and named a Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2009.4
Harrison died on August 15, 2012, in East Sussex, England, at 87.5 His memoir, Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison!, finished shortly before his death, was published in 2014.1
In order of first publication. Each series is kept together, in reading order, starting where its first book appeared. Titles and years of first publication from Paul Tomlinson's bibliography of first editions, checked against The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction; the memoir is from the Encyclopedia.21
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Read in publication order.2
Numbered in publication order; three later books, starting with A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born, go back to Jim diGriz's early life.21
Planet of No Return is the sequel.1
The first book is Harrison's own; the six sequels were written with other authors.2
Published in the US as Tunnel Through the Deeps.1
An interactive gamebook.2
Written with Tom Shippey, credited as John Holm.1
Completed shortly before his death and published afterward.1
Rebellion published The Stainless Steel Rat – Color Omnibus, a full-colour edition of 2000 AD's comic adaptation of his novels by Kelvin Gosnell and Carlos Ezquerra.11
Richard Fleischer directed MGM's film from a screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg, with Charlton Heston and, in his last film, Edward G. Robinson.8 It moved the setting to 2022, added the cannibalism twist and won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.71
Alex Cox and six student co-directors made it at the University of Colorado Boulder, funded by a Kickstarter campaign that raised $114,957; Harrison had granted Cox an academic license.9
Kelvin Gosnell adapted three of the novels for the British comic 2000 AD, drawn by Carlos Ezquerra.10 Rebellion reissued them in full colour in 2024.11
The claimIn Make Room! Make Room!, the food called soylent turns out to be made from people, as in the film's famous ending.7
The recordThe cannibalism twist was added for the film and is absent from the novel.7 The book mentions "soylent steaks" but never "Soylent Green," the ration invented for the film.8
Born Henry Maxwell Dempsey in Stamford, Connecticut; his father soon changes the family name to Harrison.54
Attends the first World Science Fiction Convention.6
His first story, "Rock Diver," appears in Worlds Beyond.1
The first Stainless Steel Rat story appears in Astounding, sent from Mexico.1
Bantam publishes his first novel, Deathworld.2
Pyramid publishes The Stainless Steel Rat.2
Bill, the Galactic Hero is published by Doubleday.2
Doubleday publishes Make Room! Make Room!.2
MGM releases Soylent Green, loosely based on the novel.8
West of Eden begins the Eden trilogy.2
Guest of Honor at ConFiction, the 48th World Science Fiction Convention.4
Named a Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.4
Dies in East Sussex, England, aged 87.5
His memoir is published, and Alex Cox's student film of Bill, the Galactic Hero premieres in Boulder, Colorado.19
Rebellion publishes a full-colour omnibus of the 2000 AD Stainless Steel Rat comics.11
Make Room! Make Room! was first published by Doubleday in 1966, so the novel behind Soylent Green turns 60 in 2026.2