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Ripozu En Paco: Harry Harrison, 87
Aug. 15th, 2012 06:51 pmThe following news on the BBC news website is already old news.
( Ad Astra )
( How io9 reports his passing )
Tonight, I mourn. Harry Harrison was one of my childhood heroes. When college was getting unbearable back in the Eighties, the Stainless Steel Rat was one of the few sources of love and joy that kept me going. I have good friends from that time, who will remember how things were for me - and who will remember how, unlike some pretentious hobby that people drop "to fit in," science fiction was, for me, my raison d'etre.
The news of Harry Harrison's passing this morning hit me like a freight train. I find myself remembering how I met him, once, back in the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool, the weekend I dated one of my exes, Ann Bingley. I remember altering the breakfast menu at the carvery, appending "made with fresh Soylent Green" to the bottom.
I remember being so utterly tongue tied I could hardly get a word out. Something that some people might find hard to imagine, but it was so.
And now I will never see him again. And nor will anybody else. And wherever he is, I hope his spirit will wander far from us, across the stars, and maybe incarnate in the body of a healthy, vibrant, anarchic, light-fingered, adventurous sort, some time out there in the far, far future, out amongst the stars.
A bold, slippery young Stainless Steel Rat called Jim.
Ripozu en paco, Harry. Night night. I will miss you.
Harry Harrison Died
( Ad Astra )
( How io9 reports his passing )
Tonight, I mourn. Harry Harrison was one of my childhood heroes. When college was getting unbearable back in the Eighties, the Stainless Steel Rat was one of the few sources of love and joy that kept me going. I have good friends from that time, who will remember how things were for me - and who will remember how, unlike some pretentious hobby that people drop "to fit in," science fiction was, for me, my raison d'etre.
The news of Harry Harrison's passing this morning hit me like a freight train. I find myself remembering how I met him, once, back in the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool, the weekend I dated one of my exes, Ann Bingley. I remember altering the breakfast menu at the carvery, appending "made with fresh Soylent Green" to the bottom.
I remember being so utterly tongue tied I could hardly get a word out. Something that some people might find hard to imagine, but it was so.
And now I will never see him again. And nor will anybody else. And wherever he is, I hope his spirit will wander far from us, across the stars, and maybe incarnate in the body of a healthy, vibrant, anarchic, light-fingered, adventurous sort, some time out there in the far, far future, out amongst the stars.
A bold, slippery young Stainless Steel Rat called Jim.
Ripozu en paco, Harry. Night night. I will miss you.
