M. John Harrison
Encyclopedia
M. John Harrison known as Mike Harrison, is an English
author and critic. His work includes the Viriconium
sequence of novel
s and short stories
, (1982), Climbers
(1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract series which begins with Light
(2002). He currently resides in London.
, Warwickshire
in 1945. In an interview with Zone magazine, Harrison says "I liked anything bizarre, from being about four years old. I started on Dan Dare
and worked up the Absurdists. At 15 you could catch me with a pile of books that contained an Alfred Bester
, a Samuel Beckett
, a Charles Williams
, the two or three available J.G. Ballards, On the Road by Jack Kerouac
, some Keats, some Alan Ginsberg, maybe a Thorne Smith
. I've always been pick 'n' mix: now it's a philosophy. ("Disillusioned by the Actual: An Interview with M. John Harrison" by Patrick Hudson, http://www.zone-sf.com/mjharrison.html).
According to the jacket blurb of his first novel, he was treated to a technical education which didn't stick; he worked at various times as a groom (North Warwicks Hunt), a teacher, and a clerk for a masonic charity outfit; his hobbies included dwarfs, electric guitar
s and writing pastiches of H.H. Munro.
The New Wave science fiction movement and the Viriconium
His first short story was published in 1966 by Kyril Bonfiglioli
at Science Fantasy magazine, on the strength of which he moved to London. He there met Michael Moorcock
, who was editing new Worlds magazine.
From 1968 to 1975 he was literary editor of the New Wave
science fiction magazine New Worlds
. He was central to the New Wave movement which also included writers such as Norman Spinrad
, Barrington Bayley and Thomas M. Disch
. As reviewer for New Worlds he often used the pseudonym "Joyce Churchill" and was trenchantly critical of many works and writers published under the rubric of science fiction
.
Amongst his works of that period are three stories utilising the Jerry Cornelius
character invented by Michael Moorcock
. (These stories do not appear in any of Harrison's own collections but do appear in the Nature of the Catastrophe and New Nature of the Catastophe published under Moorcock's name.) Other early stories appearing as from 1966, featured in anthologies such as such as New Writings in SF edited by John Carnell
, and in magazines such as Transatlantic Review and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Harrison later moved to Manchester
and was a regular contributor to New Manchester Review (1978–79). David Britton
and Michael Butterworth
of Savoy Books employed him to write in their basement, commissioning what eventually became the novel In Viriconium.
His early novels, the dystopian The Committed Men, The Pastel City and the revisionist space opera
The Centauri Device have been reprinted several times. The latter was included in the SF Masterworks series, though Harrison is reputedly not fond of it. His work is profoundly leftist and committed to depicting alienated
characters in the world of late Capitalism
. Indeed, in interviews, M. John Harrison has described himself as an anarchist, 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 of The Centauri Device."
Between 1976 and 1986 he lived in the Peak District
, where his interest in rock climbing led to the autobiographical novel Climbers (1989), the first novel to receive the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
. Harrison also ghost-wrote the autobiography of one of Britain's best rock climbers, Ron Fawcett
(Fawcett on Rock, 1987, as by Mike Harrison). 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 lost sight of while writing fantasy. The differenc ein his approach can be obsrved in the stylistic differences between the first novel of the Viriconium sequence The Pastel City and the second, A Storm of Wings.
In Viriconium was nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1982. The Viriconium
sequence, influenced in its imagery by the poems of T.S. Eliot, consists of three novels and various short stories; its most complete version is the 2005 omnibus simply titled Viriconium which includes all the connected novels and most of the short stories. The graphic novel
The Luck in the Head adapts one of his short works set in the sequence.
. 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 a magical experiment gone wrong, and with an imaginary country which may exist at the heart of Europe, as well as Gnostic themes.
The novel Signs 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 with The Wild Road in 1996, he co-wrote four linked fantasies about cats with Jane Johnson, under the pseudonym "Gabriel King".
Harrison won the Richard 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.
In 2003 Harrison was on the jury of the Michael Powell Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
.
His science fiction novel Light
was co-winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award
in 2003. Its sequel, Nova Swing
(2006), won the Arthur C. Clarke Award
in 2007 and the Philip K. Dick Award in 2008.
Harrison has collaborated on short stories with Simon Ings
and with Simon Pummel on the short film Ray Gun Fun (1998). His work has been some by some as forming part of the movement dubbed the New Weird
, along with writers such as China Mieville
, though Harrison himself resists being labelled as part of any literary movement.
He recently provided material for performance by Barbara Campbell (1001 Nights Cast, 2007, 2008) and Kate McIntosh (Loose Promise, 2007).
He has taught creative writing courses in Devon and Wales, focusing on landscape and autobiography, with Adam Lively
and the travel writer James Perrin. Since 1991, Harrison has reviewed fiction and nonfiction for The Guardian
, the Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times.
His short stories have appeared in magazines as diverse as Conjunctions
("Entertaining Angels Unawares", Fall issue 2002), the Independent on Sunday ("Cicisbeo", 2003), the Times Literary Supplement ("Science and the Arts", 1999) and Women's Journal ("Old Women", 1982). They were collected in Travel Arrangements (2000) and Things That Never Happen (2002).
In 2009, Harrison shared (with Sarah Hall (writer)
and Nicholas Royle
) the judging of the Manchester Fiction Prize
.
On 6 June 2009, Harrison wrote on his official blog that he has three major works in progress. These are: "(a) a third Light novel, which will collide A.E. van Vogt with all sorts of other unlikely people" - this novel has been announced as Pearlant, for publication in April 2012;
(b) "a collection of short stories, some of which will be voiced in a familiar way, some of which won’t;"
and (c) "something I would describe as a literary seaside concept-horror novel if four-word descriptions weren’t a betrayal of everything I stand for…"
. His work has been acclaimed by writers including Angela Carter
, Neil Gaiman
, China Miéville
, and Clive Barker
, who has referred to him as "a blazing original". In a Locus magazine interview, Harrison describes his work as "a deliberate intention to illustrate human values by describing their absence."
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 seed for the novel Climbers, the novel The Course of the Heart is based on his short story "The Great God Pan", and the story "Isobel Avens returns to Stepney in the Spring" is a short version of the story expanded as the novel Signs of Life.
. "Undoing the Mechanisms: Genre Expectation, Subversion and Anti-Consolation in the Kefahuchi Tract Novels of M. John Harrison." Studies in the Fantastic. 2 (Winter 2008/Spring 2009). (University of Tampa Press). http://utpress.ut.edu/index.cfm/fuseaction/homeItem/PubId/159
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
author and critic. His work includes the Viriconium
Viriconium
Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of the cycle of novels and stories set in and around it.Viriconium is on a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of...
sequence of novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s and short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
, (1982), Climbers
Climbers (novel)
Climbers is a literary novel by the British author M. John Harrison.First published in 1989 and apparently set several years earlier, the book had been out of print for several years but was reissued in paperback by Phoenix in 2004. It has attracted considerable critical acclaim and won the...
(1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract series which begins with Light
Light (novel)
Light is a science fiction novel written by M. John Harrison and published in 2002. It received the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and a BSFA nomination in 2002, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C...
(2002). He currently resides in London.
Early years
Harrison was born in RugbyRugby, Warwickshire
Rugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, located on the River Avon. The town has a population of 61,988 making it the second largest town in the county...
, Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
in 1945. In an interview with Zone magazine, Harrison says "I liked anything bizarre, from being about four years old. I started on Dan Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
and worked up the Absurdists. At 15 you could catch me with a pile of books that contained an Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books...
, a Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, a Charles Williams
Charles Williams
-United Kingdom:* Sir Charles Hanbury Williams , Member of Parliament and satirist* Charles Williams, Baron Williams of Elvel , life peer ennobled in 1985* Charles Williams , principal of Jesus College, Oxford...
, the two or three available J.G. Ballards, On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, some Keats, some Alan Ginsberg, maybe a Thorne Smith
Thorne Smith
James Thorne Smith Jr. , was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction.He is best known today for the three Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction that sold millions of copies in the early 1930s...
. I've always been pick 'n' mix: now it's a philosophy. ("Disillusioned by the Actual: An Interview with M. John Harrison" by Patrick Hudson, http://www.zone-sf.com/mjharrison.html).
According to the jacket blurb of his first novel, he was treated to a technical education which didn't stick; he worked at various times as a groom (North Warwicks Hunt), a teacher, and a clerk for a masonic charity outfit; his hobbies included dwarfs, electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
s and writing pastiches of H.H. Munro.
The New Wave science fiction movement and the ViriconiumViriconiumViriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of the cycle of novels and stories set in and around it.Viriconium is on a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of...
sequence
His first short story was published in 1966 by Kyril BonfiglioliKyril Bonfiglioli
Kyril Bonfiglioli was born Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli in Eastbourne, to an Italo-Slovene father, Emmanuel Bonfiglioli, and English mother, Dorothy née Pallett. Having served in the army from 1947 to 1952, and been widowed, he applied to Balliol College, Oxford where he took his degree...
at Science Fantasy magazine, on the strength of which he moved to London. He there met Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
, who was editing new Worlds magazine.
From 1968 to 1975 he was literary editor of the New Wave
New Wave (science fiction)
New Wave is a term applied to science fiction produced in the 1960s and 1970s and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. The term "New Wave" is borrowed from the French...
science fiction magazine New Worlds
New Worlds (magazine)
New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine which was first published professionally in 1946. For 25 years it was widely considered the leading science fiction magazine in Britain, publishing 201 issues up to 1971...
. He was central to the New Wave movement which also included writers such as Norman Spinrad
Norman Spinrad
Norman Richard Spinrad is an American science fiction author.Born in New York City, Spinrad is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. In 1957 he entered City College of New York and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree as a pre-law major. In 1966 he moved to San Francisco,...
, Barrington Bayley and Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
. As reviewer for New Worlds he often used the pseudonym "Joyce Churchill" and was trenchantly critical of many works and writers published under the rubric of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
.
Amongst his works of that period are three stories utilising the Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional secret agent and adventurer created by science fiction / fantasy author Michael Moorcock. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous sexuality. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books...
character invented by Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
. (These stories do not appear in any of Harrison's own collections but do appear in the Nature of the Catastrophe and New Nature of the Catastophe published under Moorcock's name.) Other early stories appearing as from 1966, featured in anthologies such as such as New Writings in SF edited by John Carnell
John Carnell
Edward John Carnell , known to his friends as either Ted or John, was a British science fiction editor known for editing New Worlds in 1946 then from 1949 to 1963. He also edited Science Fantasy from the 1950s...
, and in magazines such as Transatlantic Review and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Harrison later moved to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and was a regular contributor to New Manchester Review (1978–79). David Britton
David Britton
David Britton is a British author, artist, and publisher. In the 1970s he founded Weird Fantasy and Crucified Toad, a series of small press magazines of the speculative fiction and horror genres...
and Michael Butterworth
Michael Butterworth
Michael Butterworth is a British author and publisher who has written many novels and short stories, particularly in the genre of science fiction...
of Savoy Books employed him to write in their basement, commissioning what eventually became the novel In Viriconium.
His early novels, the dystopian The Committed Men, The Pastel City and the revisionist space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
The Centauri Device have been reprinted several times. The latter was included in the SF Masterworks series, though Harrison is reputedly not fond of it. His work is profoundly leftist and committed to depicting alienated
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
characters in the world of late Capitalism
Late capitalism
"Late capitalism" is a term used by neo-Marxists to refer to capitalism from about 1945 onwards, with the implication that it is a historically limited stage rather than an eternal feature of all future human society. Postwar German sociologists needed a term to describe contemporary society...
. Indeed, in interviews, M. John Harrison has described himself as an anarchist, 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 of The Centauri Device."
Between 1976 and 1986 he lived in the Peak District
Peak District
The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....
, where his interest in rock climbing led to the autobiographical novel Climbers (1989), the first novel to receive the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature is an annual prize of £3000 awarded by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust to an author or authors for 'an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature.' It was established in memory of Peter Boardman and Joe...
. Harrison also ghost-wrote the autobiography of one of Britain's best rock climbers, Ron Fawcett
Ron Fawcett
Ron Fawcett is an English rock climber. He is noted for being amongst the outstanding rock climbers of the 1970s and 1980s, and for being one of the first professional rock climbers....
(Fawcett on Rock, 1987, as by Mike Harrison). 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 lost sight of while writing fantasy. The differenc ein his approach can be obsrved in the stylistic differences between the first novel of the Viriconium sequence The Pastel City and the second, A Storm of Wings.
In Viriconium was nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1982. The Viriconium
Viriconium
Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of the cycle of novels and stories set in and around it.Viriconium is on a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of...
sequence, influenced in its imagery by the poems of T.S. Eliot, consists of three novels and various short stories; its most complete version is the 2005 omnibus simply titled Viriconium which includes all the connected novels and most of the short stories. The graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
The Luck in the Head adapts one of his short works set in the sequence.
Later work
Subsequent novels and short stories, such as The Course of the Heart (1991) and "Empty" (1993), were set between London and the Peak DistrictPeak District
The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....
. 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 a magical experiment gone wrong, and with an imaginary country which may exist at the heart of Europe, as well as Gnostic themes.
The novel Signs 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 with The Wild Road in 1996, he co-wrote four linked fantasies about cats with Jane Johnson, under the pseudonym "Gabriel King".
Harrison won the Richard 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.
In 2003 Harrison was on the jury of the Michael Powell Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...
.
His science fiction novel Light
Light (novel)
Light is a science fiction novel written by M. John Harrison and published in 2002. It received the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and a BSFA nomination in 2002, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C...
was co-winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award
James Tiptree, Jr. Award
The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February of 1991 by science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, subsequent to a discussion at WisCon.- Background...
in 2003. Its sequel, Nova Swing
Nova Swing
Nova Swing is a science fiction novel by M. John Harrison published in 2006. It takes place in the same universe as Light. The novel won the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards in 2007.-Overview:...
(2006), won the Arthur C. Clarke Award
Arthur C. Clarke Award
The Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant from Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987...
in 2007 and the Philip K. Dick Award in 2008.
Harrison has collaborated on short stories with Simon Ings
Simon Ings
Simon Ings is an English novelist and science writer living in London. He was born in July 1965 in Horndean and educated at Churcher's College, Petersfield and at King's College London and Birkbeck College, London....
and with Simon Pummel on the short film Ray Gun Fun (1998). His work has been some by some as forming part of the movement dubbed the New Weird
New Weird
The New Weird is a literary genre that began in the 1990s and developed in a series of novels and stories published from 2001 to 2005. The writers involved are mostly novelists who are considered to be parts of the horror and/or speculative fiction genres but who often cross genre boundaries...
, along with writers such as China Mieville
China Miéville
China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...
, though Harrison himself resists being labelled as part of any literary movement.
He recently provided material for performance by Barbara Campbell (1001 Nights Cast, 2007, 2008) and Kate McIntosh (Loose Promise, 2007).
He has taught creative writing courses in Devon and Wales, focusing on landscape and autobiography, with Adam Lively
Adam Lively
Adam Lively is a British novelist.He was born in Swansea and educated in England and America. His debut novel Blue Fruit was published in 1988...
and the travel writer James Perrin. Since 1991, Harrison has reviewed fiction and nonfiction for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times.
His short stories have appeared in magazines as diverse as Conjunctions
Conjunctions
Conjunctions, is a biannual American literary journal based at Bard College. It was founded in 1981 and is currently edited by Bradford Morrow....
("Entertaining Angels Unawares", Fall issue 2002), the Independent on Sunday ("Cicisbeo", 2003), the Times Literary Supplement ("Science and the Arts", 1999) and Women's Journal ("Old Women", 1982). They were collected in Travel Arrangements (2000) and Things That Never Happen (2002).
In 2009, Harrison shared (with Sarah Hall (writer)
Sarah Hall (writer)
Sarah Hall is an English novelist, and poet. Her critically acclaimed second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was nominated for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and achieved considerable international commercial success...
and Nicholas Royle
Nicholas Royle
Nicholas Royle is an English novelist.Born in Manchester, Royle has written five novels - Counterparts, Saxophone Dreams, The Matter of the Heart, The Director’s Cut and Antwerp. He also claims to have written more than 100 short stories, which have appeared in a variety of anthologies and...
) the judging of the Manchester Fiction Prize
Manchester Fiction Prize
The Manchester Fiction Prize is a literary award celebrating excellence in creative writing. It was launched by Carol Ann Duffy and The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2009, as the second phase of the annual Manchester Writing Competition The Manchester Fiction...
.
On 6 June 2009, Harrison wrote on his official blog that he has three major works in progress. These are: "(a) a third Light novel, which will collide A.E. van Vogt with all sorts of other unlikely people" - this novel has been announced as Pearlant, for publication in April 2012;
(b) "a collection of short stories, some of which will be voiced in a familiar way, some of which won’t;"
and (c) "something I would describe as a literary seaside concept-horror novel if four-word descriptions weren’t a betrayal of everything I stand for…"
Style
Harrison is stylistically an Imagist and his early work relies heavily on the use of strange juxtapositions characteristic of absurdismAbsurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
. His work has been acclaimed by writers including Angela Carter
Angela Carter
Angela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
, Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, China Miéville
China Miéville
China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...
, and Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
, who has referred to him as "a blazing original". In a Locus magazine interview, Harrison describes his work as "a deliberate intention to illustrate human values by describing their absence."
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 seed for the novel Climbers, the novel The Course of the Heart is based on his short story "The Great God Pan", and the story "Isobel Avens returns to Stepney in the Spring" is a short version of the story expanded as the novel Signs of Life.
Fiction
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | The Committed Men | Sf novel set in a post-apocalyptic Britain |
| The Pastel City | First novel of the Viriconium Viriconium Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of the cycle of novels and stories set in and around it.Viriconium is on a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of... sequence |
|
| 1975 | The Centauri Device | Stand-alone space opera Space opera Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap... |
| The Machine in Shaft Ten | short story collection | |
| 1980 | A Storm of Wings | Second novel of the Viriconium Viriconium Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of the cycle of novels and stories set in and around it.Viriconium is on a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of... sequence, British Fantasy Award British Fantasy Award The British Fantasy Awards are administered annually by the British Fantasy Society and were first awarded in 1971. The membership of the BFS vote to determine recommendations, short-lists and winners of the awards... nominee, 1981 |
| 1982 | In Viriconium | Third novel of the Viriconium sequence, published in the US as The Floating Gods. Nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize. British Fantasy Award British Fantasy Award The British Fantasy Awards are administered annually by the British Fantasy Society and were first awarded in 1971. The membership of the BFS vote to determine recommendations, short-lists and winners of the awards... and Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 1983 |
| 1985 | Viriconium Nights | short story collection |
| The Ice Monkey | short story collection | |
| 1989 | Climbers Climbers (novel) Climbers is a literary novel by the British author M. John Harrison.First published in 1989 and apparently set several years earlier, the book had been out of print for several years but was reissued in paperback by Phoenix in 2004. It has attracted considerable critical acclaim and won the... |
winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature is an annual prize of £3000 awarded by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust to an author or authors for 'an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature.' It was established in memory of Peter Boardman and Joe... |
| 1992 | The Course of the Heart | novel |
| 1996 | Signs of Life Signs of Life (novel) Signs of Life is a novel by M. John Harrison published in 1997. The dystopian narrative centers on Mick "China" Rose, a biomedical transportation entrepreneur, and his lover Isobel Avens's dream of flying... |
novel, British SF Award nominee, 1997; British Fantasy Award nominee, 1998 |
| 1997 | The Wild Road | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson |
| 1998 | The Golden Cat | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson |
| 2000 | Travel Arrangements | short story collection |
| The Knot Garden | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson | |
| 2001 | Nonesuch | as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson |
| 2002 | Light Light (novel) Light is a science fiction novel written by M. John Harrison and published in 2002. It received the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and a BSFA nomination in 2002, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C... |
co-winner of the 2002 James Tiptree, Jr. Award James Tiptree, Jr. Award The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February of 1991 by science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, subsequent to a discussion at WisCon.- Background... ; British SF Award nominee, 2002; Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2003 |
| Things That Never Happen | omnibus edition of The Ice Monkey and Travel Arrangements, plus some previously uncollected material | |
| 2005 | Anima | omnibus edition of Signs of Life and The Course of the Heart. Its title gives a clue to the Jungian themes in Harrison's work. |
| 2006 | Nova Swing Nova Swing Nova Swing is a science fiction novel by M. John Harrison published in 2006. It takes place in the same universe as Light. The novel won the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards in 2007.-Overview:... |
Sequel to Light, Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards winner, 2007; BSFA nominee, 2006; British Fantasy and John W. Campbell Awards nominee, 2007. |
Graphic novels
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 | The Luck in the Head | A Viriconium story adapted in collaboration with illustrator Ian Miller Ian Miller (illustrator) Ian Miller is a British fantasy illustrator and writer best known for his quirkily etched gothic style and macabre sensibility, and noted for his book and magazine cover and interior illustrations, including covers for books by H.P... , based on short story of the same name |
| 2000 | Viriconium | German language adaptation of In Viriconium, illustrated by Dieter Jüdt |
Nonfiction
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Fawcett on Rock | as "Mike Harrison", ghostwritten autobiography of 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 |
Critical essays
Leigh BlackmoreLeigh Blackmore
Leigh David Blackmore is an Australian horror writer, critic, editor, occultist and musician. He served as the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association . His work has been nominated twice for the Ditmar Award, once for fiction and once for criticism...
. "Undoing the Mechanisms: Genre Expectation, Subversion and Anti-Consolation in the Kefahuchi Tract Novels of M. John Harrison." Studies in the Fantastic. 2 (Winter 2008/Spring 2009). (University of Tampa Press). http://utpress.ut.edu/index.cfm/fuseaction/homeItem/PubId/159
External links
- mjohnharrison.com, M. John Harrison's official web site
- ambientehotel.wordpress.com, M. John Harrison's blog
- Infinity Plus interview with David Mathew
- "Climbing to Viriconium: The Work of M. John Harrison", by Rhys HughesRhys HughesRhys Henry Hughes , is a Welsh writer and essayist.Born in Cardiff, Hughes is a prolific short story writer with an eclectic mix of influences, which include Italo Calvino, Milorad Pavić, Jorge Luis Borges, Stanisław Lem, Flann O'Brien, Felipe Alfau, Donald Barthelme and Jack Vance...