Science Fiction has lost another Grand Master. Harry Harrison died
at the age of 87. For those who don’t know who he was, Harry Harrison
created the Stainless Steel Rat series, Bill the Galactic Hero, and that
Charlton Heston movie “Soylent Green,” was based on his novel, “Make
Room! Make Room!”
I met, or rather saw Harry Harrison once when
the World Con was last held in Toronto. He was a panelist and getting
ready to sit when an older gentlemen came up to the Grand Master,
smiling and started talking in German. Mr. Harrison returned the smile,
shook the man’s hand and said, “Yes, of course, I remember you.”
The
rest of the conversation was essentially nods and some broken English.
Coming from a European heritage, I’m very familiar with such
conversations, and this one stuck in my head over the years because it
could have gone a very different way. I’ve seen rude brush offs,
uncomfortable silences, and comical attempts to communicate using sign
language or just speaking loud and slow.
There was none of
this. The two men seemed to have a kind of fannish bond and it wasn’t
so much that Mr. Harrison politely waited until the German fellow took
his seat, but that he enjoyed that brief time being in each other’s
presence.
I’m probably reading too much into it, but it was one
of those moments you only get at a World Con, and one I will always
remember.
Mike
I saw him at a distance at the now defunct con in Calgary (The gap is partly filled by the professional con When Words Collide) Harry was in love with life. He recommended we all learn Esperanto, like in his Stainless Steel Rat series.
ReplyDelete( A series so funny, I once read a part out loud to my housemates... or else I just described it blow by blow--where, during a howling blizzard, Slippery Jim thinks he can hide from the grey men in the attic, no, on the roof, no, hanging by a fishing line from a discrete nail)
Harry said enthusiastically, regarding Esperanto speakers, "They are all like you: Really smart and really poor!"