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Author Harry Harrison Has Died

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Ubutumwa 6

ururimi: English

RiotNrrd (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 16 Nyandagaro 2012 03:54:06

Looks like science fiction Grand Master Harry Harrison died today, at the age of 87.

Harrison was an avid Esperantist, and his Stainless Steel Rat series of stories featured Esperanto fairly prominently. It was the common language spoken throughout his fictional galaxy. He also provided information about learning Esperanto in the appendices of those books, and was a proponent of it in numerous interviews. He has no doubt been responsible for a good sized number of science-fiction fans getting into Esperanto, over the years.

creedelambard (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 16 Nyandagaro 2012 05:28:15

I think I remember reading that ELNA/E-USA got more inquiries about the language from the blurbs in the back of the Stainless Steel Rat books than from any other source. Maybe all other sources.

sandyduggan (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nyandagaro 2012 00:56:26

I looked up Harry Harrison because of your message. He wrote the book that the movie Soylent Green was based on (Make Room! Make Room!)

erinja (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nyandagaro 2012 01:27:36

That's true, though Soylent Green only bore a shadow of a resemblance to Make Room! Make Room!

(similarly, Blade Runner bore only a slight resemblance to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick, and "I, Robot", only took a general idea from Asimov's robot stories. This seems to be incredibly common in science fiction, though I wonder if I only notice it because this is mainly what I read)

NJ Esperantist (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nyandagaro 2012 10:45:09

Likewise the Riverworld TV miniseries only bore a shadow of a resemblance to the Riverworld book series by Jose Phillip Farmer. I couldn't even stand to watch it.

creedelambard (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nyandagaro 2012 15:24:26

It's not just restricted to science fiction. Hollywood often starts with an existing idea and for many reasons, some technical, some logistical, some inscrutable, comes up with something quite a bit different from what the original author had in mind. Sometimes this works out quite well (The US TV series M*A*S*H comes to mind); unfortunately, often it doesn't.

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