I think he just aged. Also look at the later Stainless Steel Rat novels compared with the original, however they are still readable possibly because there is no real world to compare against.
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Least favorite alt-history story?
- Thread starter Resurgam
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Also look at the later Stainless Steel Rat novels compared with the original
My biggest feeling when reading some of the Stainless Steel Rat novels was an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. That's because a great many scenes and lines were things I'd read before in other works by different authors. Eric Frank Russell, Poul Anderson, and Isaac Asimov were three authors he borrowed from.
Harrison claimed the similarity was in homage to those authors. To me, it came across as nearly-but-not-quite plagiarism.
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
My biggest feeling when reading some of the Stainless Steel Rat novels was an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. That's because a great many scenes and lines were things I'd read before in other works by different authors. Eric Frank Russell, Poul Anderson, and Isaac Asimov were three authors he borrowed from.
Harrison claimed the similarity was in homage to those authors. To me, it came across as nearly-but-not-quite plagiarism.
harrison was a fairly good comic writer - the stainless steel rat books aren’t meant to be serious. He was much less capable at writing serious books and it shows.
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harrison was a fairly good comic writer - the stainless steel rat books aren’t meant to be serious.
Oh, it wasn't the quality or otherwise of the Stainless Steel Rat books I was grumbling over, but the borrowing of scenes almost entire from other authors.
JesterBL
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Is he particularly egregious?Oh, it wasn't the quality or otherwise of the Stainless Steel Rat books I was grumbling over, but the borrowing of scenes almost entire from other authors.
I feel like in a lot of pulpy genre fiction there is A LOT of this, and it isn't really viewed as a bad thing. I'm thinking of George R.R. Martin in particular here, who lifts large parts of say, ASOIAF, from more well-known things like Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (Red Priests, prophesied red asteroids, the Prince That Was Promised, the White Walkers), to obscure pulp stuff like Leigh Brackett's Black Amazon's of Mars (a protagonist named John Stark scaling an ice wall, fighting off ice zombies, returning with a prophecied weapon)
Tovarich
a sinking dumpling. He/Him.
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I bet it was you wrote to Tharg around xmas '79, pointing out that the New Thrill! wasn't all-original work from TMO's Droids.Oh, it wasn't the quality or otherwise of the Stainless Steel Rat books I was grumbling over, but the borrowing of scenes almost entire from other authors.
Which is ironic* considering your complaint about swiping in the original books.
*(or maybe the opposite of ironic. Like 99% of anglophones, I always get those mixed-up.)
theflyingmgoose
Well-known member
I don't actually hate The Death of Russia inherently as a concept (trust me, I'm writing a TL where the USSR and China destroy each other in nuclear fire) but the fact that the dude who wrote it also wrote a Mussolini apologist clowncar makes me doubt the motives were in good faith.
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I think even if it wasn’t written by a person who wrote Fascist apologia, the death of Russia would still be a crap timeline. I do think we need to put the kibosh on ‘What If 90s Russia but with ethnic cleansing” type stories.I don't actually hate The Death of Russia inherently as a concept (trust me, I'm writing a TL where the USSR and China destroy each other in nuclear fire) but the fact that the dude who wrote it also wrote a Mussolini apologist clowncar makes me doubt the motives were in good faith.
Eh maybe we need more Russia’s akin to @Callan Plus Debris or @Meppo lists where at least the chance of a somewhat free democracy occurs. Like less Zhirovsky’s and more Colour Revolutions.
Elektronaut
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Theoretically I'm fine with disaster!Russia timelines and I think OTL might be the 'getting off lightly' timeline when you consider all that was happening. In the space of a few years in the nineties there were two failed coups, one shelling of the parliament building by the government, massive financial and economic dislocation and general political radicalisation and instability.
The issue is that there's clearly a centrality to Russia you can't avoid in timelines at the same time as there's a serious lack of expertise. If I was writing a timeline focused on Russia in the nineties then I'd have to go away for at least a few years to read up on the subject. Obviously the people writing the disaster timelines aren't really doing that.
The issue is that there's clearly a centrality to Russia you can't avoid in timelines at the same time as there's a serious lack of expertise. If I was writing a timeline focused on Russia in the nineties then I'd have to go away for at least a few years to read up on the subject. Obviously the people writing the disaster timelines aren't really doing that.
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Redshank Galloglass
Well-known member
I've been off disaster Russia timelines just because it might hit a little too close to home in the immediate future
Alexander Rooksmoor
Well-known member
I agree. It was as if, at any stage when he could have chosen an interesting or feasible path he went dogmatic instead. I think you have to be a zealous US nationalist to accept the successive lines he adopted.Blackadder Season One, you mean. Utterly incompetent.
His entire trilogy left me deeply disappointed. I thought he was better than that pile of offal.
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Finally started reading Draka. Just gave up. couldn't quite put my finger on why. Both horrific but also rather dull
Enjoyed book one of Emberverse a reasonable amount. Started on book two, something about it timeskipping eight years forward when book one had some tension about the Lord Protector and whatnot I thought robbed it of so much tension.
It didn't help that the audiobook reader cannot read English accents to save his life (the full cast audiobook isnt any better in that respect) and bloody hell Stirling doesnt know how English people speak.
Enjoyed book one of Emberverse a reasonable amount. Started on book two, something about it timeskipping eight years forward when book one had some tension about the Lord Protector and whatnot I thought robbed it of so much tension.
It didn't help that the audiobook reader cannot read English accents to save his life (the full cast audiobook isnt any better in that respect) and bloody hell Stirling doesnt know how English people speak.
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and bloody hell Stirling doesnt know how English people speak.
Back in the day on soc.history.what-if, he never paid attention to what anyone from England said, so it's not a big surprise.
Alexander Rooksmoor
Well-known member
Reflecting on the Stainless Steel Rat books and indeed the Stars & Stripes ones, I have a sense now that Harry Harrison was effectively a YA author before that term was in use. If we look at those books they are very much wish fulfillment for teenage boys. While he might not have been explicit about it, he (or his agent) knew his market well and so he wrote effectively for it. If you think of whose bookshelves you would have seen those books on, he was right on target with his demographic, but as we are showing here, less likely to actually appeal to/satisfy a wider audience.I think he just aged. Also look at the later Stainless Steel Rat novels compared with the original, however they are still readable possibly because there is no real world to compare against.
Finally started reading Draka. Just gave up. couldn't quite put my finger on why. Both horrific but also rather dull
My reaction was basically "Really? All the internet fuss was over this? "
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My reaction was basically "Really? All the internet fuss was over this? "
Part of the Internet fuss was that rather than saying: "Yeah, it's not realistic but who cares? It's just a dark historical fantasy," he defended it's plausibility and conducted some fairly unpleasant personal attacks against people who pointed out the gaping holes in the storyline.
Strange to relate, people reacted poorly.
Things weren't helped by his Islamophobia becoming fairly extreme.
Possibly but there are other series that seemed better.Reflecting on the Stainless Steel Rat books and indeed the Stars & Stripes ones, I have a sense now that Harry Harrison was effectively a YA author before that term was in use. If we look at those books they are very much wish fulfillment for teenage boys. While he might not have been explicit about it, he (or his agent) knew his market well and so he wrote effectively for it. If you think of whose bookshelves you would have seen those books on, he was right on target with his demographic, but as we are showing here, less likely to actually appeal to/satisfy a wider audience.
The one I really liked was Order of Hammer and The Cross which was a Saxon using a few classical weapons like ballistas and using a version of Norse priest to improve ironwork etc to defeat the Vikings and expell Christianity, albeit this was with a co-author.
Others of his early novels also are a bit more than YA. e.g. 'Make Room! Make Room!' from which we get Soylent Green, Bill, the Galatic Hero was a parody of super heros.
As a well known SF quote goes
see QI's researchThe Golden Age of science fiction is twelve.
So yes much pulp SF is YA.
However the quote is from 1960.
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Marching through Georgia possibly just because of how wanked the Draka are. I never read the later books and I don't know if I want to.
Oh, I apparently read Marching through Georgia five years ago and completely forgot. I dont know if thats testiment to the book or my memory or both
I read extracts from Marching through Georgia in some magazine, enough to find it very disturbing, but not enough to realise that
This seems the bigger, iffier red flag, if the alleged super-fascist baddies are also living in a Really Cool House with their Cool Stuff and having Cool Sex, Also Here's Some More Sex, Phwoar.
Marching Through Georgia is the most book for teen boys book I ever read, and as a teen boy at the time I enjoyed it a treat, but it didn't leave me with much of an urge to read what my friend assured me were the more gritty serious followup stories.