Harry Harrison, 1925-2012

[the_archfiend]

Words fail, so I'll let John Scalzi perform the tribute:

When I got to the lounge, there was an older fellow sitting at one of the tables by himself, so I sat down and said something along the lines of, Hi, I’m John Scalzi, I’m a new member of SFWA. And he said, hello, I’m Harry Harrison. And I thought, Holy CRAP, because, you know, Harry Harrison. Within a minute of sitting down in the SFWA Suite, I was talking with one of the living legends of the genre. He was gracious enough to give me some of his time and to suffer my interminable rambling, because even though I referred to this as my first peer-t0-peer conversation, come on. My first novel wouldn’t be released for two years yet; meanwhile Harry Harrison had dozens to his name. The fact he treated me like a peer, however, was something I appreciated and noted well for future reference.

Yes, I was a fan of Harry Harrison’s. When SFWA named him a Grand Master, I was very well pleased. I think it’s worth noting that in his storied career, Harrison never won a Hugo (he was nominated twice, in the Novel category) and had a share in only a single Nebula (for Soylent Green, adapted from his book). The measure of someone’s influence and stature as a writer is not always immediate; the Grand Master award was a fine way of noting that Harrison’s work and reputation built over an entire career. And that’s an encouraging thing.