Harry Harrison

Born in 1925, he became one of the most recognizable comic voices in science fiction. Before and alongside his fiction, he worked in comics and illustration, and that visual storytelling energy carried into novels that were quick, vivid, and full of movement.

His best-known creation is Slippery Jim diGriz, the charming rogue at the center of the Stainless Steel Rat series. He also wrote the Deathworld books and the antiwar satire Bill, the Galactic Hero, showing how easily he could shift from playful caper stories to pointed social commentary.

Although American-born, he spent much of his life outside the United States and was known as an international figure in the science fiction world. He died in 2012, leaving behind a body of work remembered for its wit, momentum, and refusal to take genre conventions too seriously.