The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

One of our books of the month is Deathworld 1 by Harry Harrison. I'm enjoying this book so much I wanted to find out more about the author. Wikipedia and the standard internet sources are available to provide one point of view on him. However, I'm a college student and have access to a bit more information than just that. Harrison wrote an autobiography, completed just before his death, that reveals more than what is generally known about Harry. I thought you would find this as interesting as I do, so I'll share:

Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison! By Harry Harrison. Nov. 2014. 368p. illus. Tor, $25.99 (9780765333087); e-book (9781429967280). 813.

The blurb on this book is copywritten by David Pitt, so I can't just post it. Here are the main points though:

Harrison was a fan of SF from his early years.

He was in WWII and after finishing service took an art class and teamed up with not-yet-famous Wally Wood to start drawing comic books. Wally Wood is the artist I remember for doing a lot of early Daredevil work.

Harrison then illustrated and edited SF magazines, wrote short stories, ghostwrote at least one novel -- anyone have any idea which? -- and then became a full-time SF author.

The autobiography, according to Pitt, "covers not only Harrison's life but also the modern history of science fiction. It's an outspoken book. At one point, Harrison calls Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry a 'schlock merchant'".

Many years ago I read West of Eden, Winter in Eden and Return to Eden which depict a different evolutionary process on Earth.
I haven't reread them, but I thought they were fascinating at the time.

Thanks, Dan. Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison!: A Memoir is the link to the book. It's $8 as an Amazon Kindle book & half that used on Abebooks.com. If anyone reads it, I'd be interested in reading about it. My TBR pile is a bit too tall for me to add it at this time.

For those who may be unaware, the title of the book is supposedly an allusion to Make Room! Make Room! by Harrison, which it turn was a basis for Soylent Green movie

If you're curious about Harry Harrison as an artist, I found an 8-page story he drew reproduced here: http://creatfeatforever.blogspot.com/... You can see his signature (last name) on the art on page 1. He also drew a number of issues of the comic book titled "A moon... A girl... Romance".

That's really cool, Dan. Not a great story or artwork, but really neat nonetheless.

He seems to have done a bit of everything. He has a book on sex in SF imagery called "Great Balls of Fire", and a choose-your-own-adventure book "You Can Be the Stainless Steel Rat".

And he co-edited (with Brian Aldiss) many collections of SF stories.

Rosemarie wrote: "Many years ago I read West of Eden, Winter in Eden and Return to Eden which depict a different evolutionary process on Earth...."

... and apparently has a sex scene between a dinosaur and human.

Sex between a human & a dinosaur? Wow. SF authors can be a kinky lot. I wonder if we should make a topic on sex in SF? It's interesting how it has progressed. It was pretty much banned in the 50s & then came out in the 60s. It's gotten further out there all the time. Look at RAH & how he went from promoting the Boy Scouts in his juveniles to promoting incest in his later books. Sturgeon's "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let Your Brother Marry One?" is another take on that topic. I couldn't get through many pages of Samuel Delany's Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. It was just too gross.

In the Eden books, the female dinosaurs were the leaders.

I'm starting to remember those Eden books now. I read them around thirty years ago. As I recall, a loving relationship, I don't recall dinosex, between a reptilian based lifeform person (they weren't true dinosaurs but had evolved) and a certain human-like person took place and was really poignantly done. Who you work with, who you come to know, spend time with, laugh with, is who you can come to fall in love with was Harrison's social point as I recall. Didn't that happen in the 1990s on that TV series "V" as well? It didn't seem that weird to me somehow, but then we can be pretty open-minded when we're in our 20s. I remember mostly rooting for them to make it work somehow.

Jim wrote: "Sex between a human & a dinosaur? Wow. SF authors can be a kinky lot...."

I just copied that info from some random review. I'm sure it is actually more nuanced than that. Probably no more salacious than Madame Vastra on Dr. Who.