M. John Harrison | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Harrison in 2017 | |
| Born | Michael John Harrison (1945-07-26)26 July 1945 (age 80) Rugby, Warwickshire, England |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Period | 1966–present |
| Genre | Science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, autofiction |
| Notable awards | 1989Boardman Tasker Prize 2002J. Tiptree Jr. Award 2007Arthur C. Clarke Award 2007Philip K. Dick Award 2016 Honorary doctorate, University of Warwick 2020Goldsmiths Prize 2025 Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature |
| Website | |
| ambientehotel | |
Michael John Harrison (born 26 July 1945), known for publication purposes primarily asM. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic.[1] His work includes theViriconium sequence of novels and short stories (1971–1984),Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists ofLight (2002),Nova Swing (2006) andEmpty Space (2012).
He is widely considered one of the major stylists of modernfantasy andscience fiction, and a "genre contrarian".[2]Robert Macfarlane has said: "Harrison is best known as one of the restless fathers of modern SF, but to my mind he is among the most brilliant novelists writing today, with regard to whom the question of genre is an irrelevance."[3] TheTimes Literary Supplement described him as "a singular stylist" and theLiterary Review called him "a witty and truly imaginative writer".[4]
Harrison was born inRugby, Warwickshire, in 1945 to an engineering family.[2] His father died when he was a teenager and he found himself "bored, alienated, resentful and entrapped", playing truant from Dunsmore School (nowAshlawn School).[2] An English teacher introduced him toGeorge Bernard Shaw which resulted in an interest in polemic.[2] He ended school in 1963 at age 18; he worked at various times as a groom (for theAtherstone Hunt), a student teacher (1963–65), and a clerk for the Royal Masonic Charity Institute, London (1966). His hobbies includedelectric guitars and writing pastiches ofH. H. Munro.[5]
His first short story was published in 1966 byKyril Bonfiglioli atScience Fantasy magazine, on the strength of which he relocated to London. He there metMichael Moorcock, who was editingNew Worlds magazine.[2] He began writing reviews and short fiction forNew Worlds, and by 1968 he was appointed books editor.[2] Harrison was critical of what he perceived as the complacency of much genre fiction of the time. During 1970, Harrison scripted comic stories illustrated by R.G. Jones for such forums asCyclops andFinger.[5] An illustration by Jones appears in the first edition of Harrison'sThe Committed Men (1971).
In an interview withZone magazine, Harrison said: "I liked anything bizarre, from being about four years old. I started onDan Dare and worked up to the Absurdists. At 15 you could catch me with a pile of books that contained anAlfred Bester, aSamuel Beckett, aCharles Williams, the two or three availableJ. G. Ballards,On the Road byJack Kerouac, someKeats, someAllen Ginsberg, maybe aThorne Smith. I've always been pick 'n' mix: now it's a philosophy."[6]
From 1968 to 1975 he was literary editor of theNew Wave science fiction magazineNew Worlds, regularly contributing criticism. He was important to the New Wave style which also included writers such asNorman Spinrad,Barrington Bayley, Langdon Jones andThomas M. Disch. As a reviewer forNew Worlds he often used the pseudonym "Joyce Churchill" and was critical of many works and writers published using the rubric ofscience fiction. One of his critical pieces, "By Tennyson Out of Disney" was initially written forSword and Sorcery Magazine, a publication planned byKenneth Bulmer but which was never published; the piece was printed inNew Worlds 2.
Amongst his works of that period are three stories utilising theJerry Cornelius character invented byMichael Moorcock. These stories do not appear in any of Harrison's own collections but do appear in theNature of the Catastrophe andNew Nature of the Catastrophe. Other early stories published from 1966 were featured in anthologies such asNew Writings in SF, edited byJohn Carnell, and in magazines such asTransatlantic Review,The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,New Worlds, andQuark.
A number of Harrison's short stories of this early period remain uncollected, gathered neither in his first collectionThe Machine in Shaft Ten, nor in his later collections.
The novelThe Committed Men (1971) (dedicated toMichael Moorcock and his wifeHilary Bailey) is an archetypal British New-Wave vision of a crumbling future with obvious debts to the work of Michael Moorcock andJ. G. Ballard. It is set in England after the apocalypse. Social organisation has collapsed, and the survivors, riddled with skin cancers, eke out a precarious scavenging existence in the ruins of the Great Society. A few bizarre communities try to maintain their structure in a chromium wilderness linked by crumbling motorways. But their rituals are meaningless clichés mouthed against the devastation. Only the roaming bands of hippie-style "situationalists" (presumably a reference to the then contemporaneoussituationist group) have grasped that the old order, with its logic, its pseudo-liberalism and its immutable laws of cause and effect, has now been superseded. Among the mutants are a group of reptilian humans – alien, cancer-free but persecuted by the 'smoothskins'. When one of them is born of a human mother in Tinhouse, a group of humans sets off to deliver it to its own kind – a search of the committed men for the tribes of mutants. David Pringle called the novel "brief, bleak, derivative – but stylishly written."[7]
Harrison's first novel of theViriconium sequence,The Pastel City was also published in 1971. Harrison would continue adding to this series until 1984. During 1972, the story "Lamia Mutable" appeared inHarlan Ellison's anthologyAgain, Dangerous Visions; while this tale forms part of the Viriconium sequence, it has been omitted from omnibus editions of the Viriconium tales to date.
During 1974 Harrison's third novel was published, thespace operaThe Centauri Device (described prior to its publication, byNew Worlds magazine, as "a sort of hippie space opera in the baroque tradition ofAlfred Bester andCharles Harness). An extract was published inNew Worlds in advance of the novel's publication, with the title "The Wolf That Follows". The novel's protagonist, space tramp John Truck, is the last of the Centaurans, victims of a genocide. Rival groups need him to arm the most powerful weapon in the galaxy: the Centauri Device, which will respond only to the genetic code of a true Centauran.
Harrison himself has said of this book:
I never liked that book much but at least it took the piss out of sf’s three main tenets: (1) The reader-identification character always drives the action; (2) The universe is knowable; (3) the universe is anthropocentrically structured & its riches are an appropriate prize for
the colonialistpeople like us. TCD tried to out space opera as a kind of counterfeit pulp which had carefully cleaned itself of Saturday night appetite, vacuuming out all the concerns of real pulp fiction to keep it under the radar of the Mothers of America or whatever they called themselves. Pulp’s lust for life was replaced, if you were lucky, by a jaunty shanty & a comedy brawl. Otherwise, it was lebensraum & a cadetship in the Space Police (these days it’s primarily low-bourgeois freedom motifs & nice friendly sexual release).[8]
Harrison's first short story collectionThe Machine in Shaft Ten (1975) collects many (but not all) of his early short tales, from such sources asNew Worlds Quarterly,New Worlds Monthly,New Writings in SF,Transatlantic Review and others. "The Lamia and Lord Cromis" is an earlyViriconium tale. The moody "London Melancholy" features a ruined future London haunted by winged people. None of the stories, with the exception of "Running Down", (a psychological horror tale about a man who is literally a walking disaster area), have been reprinted in his subsequent short story collections. "The Bringer with the Window" features Dr Grishkin, a character also appearing inThe Centauri Device, seemingly in Harrison's recurring fictional city of Viriconium.
Harrison's early novelsThe Committed Men,The Pastel City andThe Centauri Device have been reprinted several times. The latter was included in theSF Masterworks series.
Harrison later relocated toManchester and was a regular contributor toNew Manchester Review (1978–79).David Britton andMichael Butterworth of Savoy Books employed him to write in their basement (where he did so "amidst stacks of antiqueEagles,Freindz,New Worlds andStyng. A basement that reverberates with indecent exposures of stolen sound, bootlegs sucked from hidden mikes, stacked in neat piles.").[9][10] The commissioned work, originally announced in Savoy publications asBy Gas Mask and Fire Hydrant, eventually became the novelIn Viriconium.
During the decade of 1976–1986, Harrison lived in thePeak District.[11] In 1983, he published his second short story collection,The Ice Monkey and Other Stories, containing seven tales which capture the pathos, humour, awe, despair, pain and black humour of the human condition.The Ice Monkey was praised byRamsey Campbell, who stated "M. John Harrison is the finest British writer now writing horror fiction and by far the most original".[12] In "The Incalling", a story of seedy suburban magic which in some ways foreshadows his later novelThe Course of the Heart, an editor is haunted by an author's attempts to cure himself of cancer by faith healing.[12]
In 1980 Harrison contributed an introduction to Michael Moorcock's early allegorical fantasy, written by Moorcock at age 18, entitledThe Golden Barge and published by Savoy Books. That same year he released his second novel in the Viriconium sequence,A Storm of Wings. Set eighty years later thanThe Pastel City, stylistically it is denser and more elaborate. A race of intelligent insects is invading Earth as human interest in survival wanes. A third novel, entitledIn Viriconium (1982) (US title:The Floating Gods), was nominated for theGuardian Fiction Prize during 1982. It is a moody portrait of artistic subcultures in a city beset by a mysterious plague.
The short story "A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium" (1985, later retitled "A Young Man's Journey to London") is set in our world and concerns the idea of escape from it.
Harrison's interest in rock climbing resulted in his semi-autobiographical novelClimbers (1989), the first novel to receive theBoardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Harrison alsoghost-wrote the autobiography of one of Britain's best rock climbers,Ron Fawcett (Fawcett on Rock, 1987, as by Mike Harrison).[13] Harrison has repeatedly affirmed in print the importance of rock climbing for his writing as an attempt to grapple with reality and its implications, which he had largely neglected while writing fantasy. The difference in his approach pre- and post-Climbers, can be observed in the extreme stylistic differences between the first novel of the Viriconium sequenceThe Pastel City and the second,A Storm of Wings. Around the time of writingClimbers, he declared that he had abandoned science fiction forever.[14]
Robert Macfarlane wrote an introduction to the 2013 reissue ofClimbers. Writing about the book inThe Guardian, he said: "...it is surely the best novel about rock-climbing ever written – though such a description drastically limits its achievement".[3]
Subsequent novels and short stories, such asThe Course of the Heart (1991) and "Empty" (1993), were set between London and thePeak District. They have a lyrical style and a strong sense of place, and take their tension from characteristically conflicting veins of mysticism and realism.
The Course of the Heart deals in part with an experiment inritual magic gone wrong, and with an imaginary country which may exist at the heart of Europe, as well asGnostic themes such as thePleroma. It weaves together mythology, sexuality, and the troubled past and present of Eastern Europe. The origin of the narrative lies in the occasion when three Cambridge students perform a ritualistic act (never shown or fully described) that changes their lives. Years later, none of the participants can remember what exactly occurred; but their vague memories can't rid them of an overwhelming sense of dread. Pam Stuyvesant is an epileptic haunted by strange sensual visions. Her husband Lucas believes that a dwarfish creature is stalking him. Self-styled sorcerer Yaxley becomes obsessed with a terrifyingly transcendent reality. The narrator, the seemingly least affected participant in the ritual (who is haunted by the smell of roses) attempts to help his friends escape the torment that has engulfed their lives. Joel Lane has describedThe Course of the Heart as "a brilliant use of supernatural themes to explore humanity mortality and loss."[12] The novel incorporates versions of several other Harrison stories including "The Great God Pan", "The Quarry" and "The Incalling".
The novelSigns of Life (1996) is a romantic thriller which explores concerns about genetics and biotechnology amidst the turmoil of what might be termed a three-way love affair between its central characters.
Beginning withThe Wild Road in 1996 and concluding withNonesuch (2001), Harrison coauthored four associated fantasies about cats withJane Johnson, under the jointpseudonym of "Gabriel King".[15]
Harrison has collaborated on several short stories withSimon Ings, and withSimon Pummel on theshort film "Ray Gun Fun" (1998). His work has been classified by some as forming part of the style dubbed theNew Weird, along with writers such asChina Miéville, though Harrison himself resists being labelled as part of any literary style.
Harrison won theRichard Evans Award in 1999 (named after the near-legendary figure of UK publishing) given to the author who has contributed significantly to the SF genre without concomitant commercial success.
Harrison continued to publish short fiction in a wide variety of magazines through the late 1990s and early 21st century. Such tales were published in magazines as diverse asConjunctions ("Entertaining Angels Unawares", Fall issue 2002),The Independent on Sunday ("Cicisbeo", 2003),The Times Literary Supplement ("Science and the Arts", 1999) andWoman's Journal ("Old Women", 1982). They were collected in his major short story collectionsTravel Arrangements (2000) andThings That Never Happen (2002).
During 2007 Harrison provided material for performance by Barbara Campbell (1001 Nights Cast, 2007, 2008[16]) andKate McIntosh (Loose Promise, 2007[17]).
In 2002,Light marked a return to science fiction for Harrison and marked the beginning of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy.Light was co-winner of theJames Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2003. Its sequel,Nova Swing (2006), which contained elements ofnoir, won theArthur C. Clarke Award in 2007[18] and thePhilip K. Dick Award in 2008.[19] The third novel,Empty Space: A Haunting, was published in August 2012.
Harrison published two short stories on Kindle:Cave and Julia (2013) andThe 4th Domain (2014).
In 2014, Rhys Williams and Mark Bould organised a conference on Harrison's work at the University of Warwick, UK, called "Irradiating the Object: M. John Harrison". The keynote speakers were Fred Botting (Kingston University) and Sara Wasson (Edinburgh-Napier University).[20] The conference papers, including the keynote address byTim Etchells, was published asM. John Harrison: Critical Essays edited by Rhys Williams and Mark Bould.[21]
In 2016, he received an honorary D. Litt. from the University of Warwick, UK.[22]
A collection of short stories,You Should Come With Me Now, was published in November 2017.[23]
2020 saw two new books: a novel,The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again[24] andSettling the World: Selected Stories 1970-2020.[25]The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again won the 2020Goldsmiths Prize,[26] and was longlisted for the 2020BSFA Award.
In 2023, Harrison releasedWish I Was Here, an "anti-memoir".[27]
For Harrison's work inNew Worlds magazine, see above. The bulk of his reviews were collected in the volumeParietal Games (2005; see below).
Since 1991, Harrison has reviewed fiction and nonfiction forThe Guardian,TheDaily Telegraph, theTimes Literary Supplement andTheNew York Times.
During 2003 Harrison was on the jury of the Michael Powell Award at theEdinburgh International Film Festival.
He has taught creative writing courses in Devon and Wales, focusing on landscape and autobiography, withAdam Lively and the travel writerJim Perrin.
In 2009, Harrison shared (withSarah Hall andNicholas Royle) the judging of theManchester Fiction Prize.
His work has been acclaimed by writers includingAngela Carter,[28]Neil Gaiman,[29]Iain Banks (who called him "a Zen master of prose"),[30]China Miéville,[31]William Gibson,[32]Robert Macfarlane[3] andClive Barker, who has referred to him as "a blazing original".[33]Olivia Laing has said of him: "No one alive can write sentences as he can. He’s the missing evolutionary link between William Burroughs and Virginia Woolf".[34] In aLocus magazine interview, Harrison describes his work as "a deliberate intention to illustrate human values by describing their absence."[35]
Many of Harrison's novels include expansions or reworkings of previously published short stories. For instance, "The Ice Monkey" (title story of the collection) provides the basis for the novelClimbers (1989); the novelThe Course of the Heart (1992) is based on his short story "The Great God Pan". The story "Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring" is expanded as the novelSigns of Life (1996); the short story "Anima", first published inInterzone magazine, also forms one of the central thematic threads ofSigns of Life.
In interviews, Harrison has described himself as an anarchist,[36] and Michael Moorcock wrote in an essay entitled "Starship Stormtroopers" that, "His books are full of anarchists – some of them very bizarre like the anarchist aesthetes ofThe Centauri Device."[37]
China Miéville has written: "That M. John Harrison is not a Nobel laureate proves the bankruptcy of the literary establishment. Austere, unflinching and desperately moving, he is one of the very great writers alive today. And yes, he writes fantasy and sf, though of a form, scale and brilliance that it shames not only the rest of the field, but most modern fiction."[38]
David Wingrove has written of Harrison: "Making use of forms fromsword-and-sorcery,space opera andhorror fiction, Harrison pursues an idiosyncratic vision: often grim, but with a strong vein of sardonic humour and sensual detail. Typically, his characters make ill-assorted alliances to engage in manic and often ritualistic quests for obscure objectives. Out of the struggle, unacknowledged motives emerge, often to bring about a frightful conclusion, which, it is suggested, was secretly desired all along. Harrison's vivid, highly finished prose convinces the reader of everything."[39]
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | The Committed Men | Science fiction novel set in apost-apocalyptic Britain. London: Hutchinson and New York: Doubleday. Dedicated toHilary Bailey andMichael Moorcock. The Doubleday edition has textual differences. | |
| The Pastel City | First novel of theViriconium sequence. London: NEL, 1971 (pbk, first edition); New York: Avon Books, 1971; New York: Doubleday, 1972 (first hc edition). These editions are dedicated to Maurice & Lynette Collier and Linda & John Lutter. Reprint: London: Unwin, 1987 (dedicated to Dave Holmes). | ||
| 1975 | The Centauri Device | Stand-alonespace opera. New York: Doubleday, 1974; London: Panther, 1975. The first ed is dedicated to John Price. Reprints: London: Orion/Unwin, 1986 (dedicated to Jon Price); London: Millennium, 2000 (Sf Masterworks series) (no dedication). | |
| The Machine in Shaft Ten and Other Stories | Short story collection. London: Panther, 1975. Dedicated to 'Diane'. Contains: "The Machine in Shaft Ten"; "The Lamia and Lord Cromis"; "The Bait Principle"; "Running Down"; "The Orgasm Band"; "Visions of Monad"; "Events Witnessed from a City"; "London Melancholy"; "Ring of Pain"; "The Causeway'; "The Bringer with the Window"; "Coming from Behind". Note: "Running Down" was later revised for its appearance inThe Ice Monkey and Other Stories. | ||
| 1980 | A Storm of Wings | Second novel of theViriconium sequence. London: Sphere,1980 (dedicated to John Mottershead, Mike Butterworth, Tom Sheridan and Dave Britton) and New York: Doubleday, 1980 (dedicated toHarlan Ellison).British Fantasy Award nominee, 1981[40] Reprint: London: Unwin, 1987 (dedicated to Chris Fowler). | |
| 1982 | In Viriconium | Third novel of the Viriconium sequence. London: Gollancz, 1982 (dedicated to Peter Weatherburn and Joyce Middlemiss). Published in the US asThe Floating Gods, New York: Pocket Books, 1983 (dedicated toFritz Leiber). Nominated for theGuardian Fiction Prize.British Fantasy Award andPhilip K. Dick Award nominee, 1983[41] | |
| 1985 | Viriconium Nights | Collection of short stories adding to theViriconium sequence. New York: Ace (paperback), 1984 (dedicated toAlgis Budrys); revised/definitive edition, (1st hardcover ed) London: Gollancz, 1985 (dedication to Budrys removed). The stories in the British hardcover edition are revised and the author's preferred texts. The Ace and Gollancz editions, while they have five stories in common, are effectively different books under the same title. Stories in the Ace ed are: "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", "Lamia Mutable", "Viriconium Knights", "Events Witnessed from a City", "The Luck in the Head", "The Lords of Misrule", "In Viriconium"(an abbreviated version of the 1982 novel of that title), "Strange Great Sins". The Gollancz ed presents its stories in a different running order; it also omits "Lamia Mutable", "Events Witnessed from a City", and "In Viriconium". "The Lords of Misrule" is retitled "Lords of Misrule" in the Gollancz ed. The Gollancz ed contains stories not in the Ace ed, i.e. "The Dancer from the Dance" and "A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium". | |
| The Ice Monkey | Short story collection. London: Gollancz, 1983. Contents reprinted in toto inThings That Never Happen (2002). The version ofRunning Down included is a version revised from its early appearance inThe Machine in Shaft Ten and Other Stories. | ||
| 1989 | Climbers | Winner of theBoardman Tasker Prize. Harrison was the first writer to win this award with a work of fiction. Reissued in 2013 with an introduction byRobert Macfarlane. | |
| 1992 | The Course of the Heart | novel. UK: Gollancz, Flamingo. The 2004 Night Shade Books edition (first US edition) adds the short story "The Great God Pan" which Harrison describes in a note as a 'rehearsal' for the novel. The UK ed (Gollancz, 1992) is dedicated "To JJ with love" although this dedication is not reproduced in the 2004 edition. | |
| 1996 | Signs of Life | novel, British SF Award nominee, 1997;[42] British Fantasy Award nominee, 1998[43] | |
| 1997 | The Wild Road | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration withJane Johnson | |
| 1998 | The Golden Cat | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration withJane Johnson | |
| 2000 | Travel Arrangements | short story collection. Contents reprinted in toto inThings That Never Happen (2002). | |
| The Knot Garden | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration withJane Johnson | ||
| 2001 | Nonesuch | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration withJane Johnson | |
| 2002 | Light | working titleThe Kefahuchi Discontinuity (as witness the entry on Harrison in David Pringle, ed.The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy. London: Carlton Books, 1998, 2002, 2006, p. 175) | co-winner of the 2002James Tiptree, Jr. Award; British SF Award nominee, 2002;[44] Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2003[45] Winner,Tähtivaeltaja Award, 2005 |
| Things That Never Happen | Omnibus edition ofThe Ice Monkey andTravel Arrangements, plus some previously uncollected material; the author's choice of his best stories, arranged in chronological order of composition. Intro byChina Miéville. Only around 600 copies of the trade ed were produced. The limited edition version (150 copies) is signed by both authors and has laid in a separate booklet,The Rio Brain (a collaboration between Harrison andSimon Ings). | ||
| 2005 | Anima | omnibus edition of the novelsSigns of Life andThe Course of the Heart. Its title gives a clue to the Jungian themes in Harrison's work. | |
| 2006 | Nova Swing | Gollancz 2006; limited edition Easton Press; sequel toLight,Arthur C. Clarke andPhilip K. Dick Awardswinner, 2007;[46] BSFA nominee, 2006;[47] British Fantasy and John W. Campbell Awards nominee, 2007.[46] | |
| 2012 | Empty Space | novel; third in the Kefahuchi Tract sequence begun withLight andNova Swing | |
| 2017 | You Should Come With Me Now: Stories of Ghosts | short story collection;Comma Press, 2017. | |
| 2020 | The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again | novel; Gollancz, June 2020. | |
| 2020 | Settling the World: Selected Stories 1970-2020 | short story collection; Comma Press, August 2020 |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 | The Luck in the Head | A Viriconium story adapted in collaboration with illustratorIan Miller, based on the short story of the same name |
| 2000 | Viriconium | German language adaptation ofIn Viriconium, illustrated byDieter Jüdt |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Fawcett on Rock | as "Mike Harrison", a ghostwritten autobiography of a legendary British rock climber |
| 2005 | Parietal Games | edited by Mark Bould and Michelle Reid, compiles Harrison's reviews and essays from 1968 to 2004 as well as eight essays on Harrison's fiction by other authors |
| 2023 | Wish I Was Here | an 'anti-memoir' |
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