Just found the cover of A Stainless Steel Trio on Amazon.com! We still haven't
seen the book, but it's listed as a nice chunky hardcover - 432 pages.
The first copies of Harry Harrison: An Annotated Bibliography by Paul Tomlinson
have arrived! After languishing in development hell for a decade and a half, as
you might imagine the author is rather relieved.
Click here for more details on the book.
As you may have heard, Harry's wife Joan died on April 21.
Joan Harrison was without a doubt one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Apart from having a remarkable memory for names, faces, times, dates, and locations, Joan was a font of good advice and great wisdom. She was also incredibly knowledgable about the SF world, and could always be relied on to instantly recall anything about any SF editor, writer, artist or publisher - particularly all the great juicy stories that never saw print (you wouldn't believe some of the things those SF authors in the fifties and sixties got up to)! More than once, Joan said that one day she'd write a tell-all book exposing the "wicked truth" behind all the best scandals.
Joan was also, I should point out, the world's greatest authority on the works of Harry Harrison: she was the first reader of Harry's books, and as such quickly became an experienced and efficient copy-editor (Joan even offered to proof-read my own books!).
Joan was generous to a fault. It was impossible to leave her presence without books, a piece of furniture or a bag of groceries, or, at the very least, cooking tips.
I last spoke to Joan shortly after we heard that she had cancer. Despite the painful treatment she was undergoing, Joan was as fiery and zestful as ever. She dismissed my concerns about her illness as though she had nothing more debilitating than a cold: "I'm fine, I'm fine. Anyway, how are you? How's Leonia?" She then offered us an armchair.
Joan and Harry were married for forty-eight years, and had been planning a major celebration for their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 2004.
Joan Harrison will be greatly missed. The world seems colder, emptier, and a lot less fun without her.
Mike Carroll
Coming soon (we hope!) from Cosmos Books is Paul Tomlinson's comprehensive and entertaining
Harry Harrison: An Annotated Bibliography, a greatly expanded version of the bibliography
on this site.
As you may have read in Paul's introduction to this site's version of the bibliography (here), Paul's been working on the bibliography since 1987. It was originally scheduled to be published by Borgo Press in the Winter of 1990.
The Cosmos Books edition includes a brief biography of Harry Harrison, the first appearance in book form of Harry's short story A Dog and His Boy, plus extensive details of almost everything Harry has written, edited or drawn in his career, packed into 364 pages. The rather excellent cover (right) was created by Paul Tomlinson himself.
We'll have more details on the book closer to the publication date, plus ordering information.
That elusive Russian Deathworld trilogy (co-written by
Harry and Ant Skalandis) has been joined by a seventh volume. The co-author
this time is Mikhail Ahmanov, and there is another on the way.(First reported by our old friend Metz, who kindly supplied the coverscan on the right).
On the subject of the Russian books, a lot of people have been wondering
whether they are going to be translated into English... Unfortunately, the
answer is that right now, there are no plans to translate the books.
However, if this changes, we'll let you know.
The UK release of Stars & Stripes Triumphant is scheduled for June 2002. The US edition will be released in October 2002. As with Stars & Stripes in Peril, the specially commissioned illustrations will appear in the US edition only.
Once we get definite dates of publication, we'll announce them on the website!
A good number of Harry Harrison fans (your webmaster included)
discovered his work through the serialisation of The Stainless Steel Rat
in 2000 AD. Now the excellent 2000 A.D. website
has been updated to include info on Slippery Jim and Harry himself.
Directed by J. Wayne Ryker II, and presented by the Waimea Community Theatre,
the event takes place February 15th, 16th 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th at Parker School
Auditorium, Waimea, Hawaii.Alongside the adaptation of Harry's story (which has been retitled "For the Sake of Peace") are three plays by Michael Folie and one co-authored by Sharon Spilman and director Wayne Ryker. For more details, visit the WCT website: http://www.waimeastage.org