Unpredictable, sporadic and addictive

“Writing's like gambling. Unpredictable and sporadic successes make you more addicted, not less.” – M. John Harrison

Born on this date in 1945, Michael John Harrison is an English author and literary critic whose work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories, the multiple award-winning 1989 novel Climbers, and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, its third book Nova Swing winning the Arthur C. Clarke award, given annually for the best science fiction work published in the United Kingdom.  The book also won the Philip K. Dick Award in the U.S.       

                            Among his many awards for Climbers was the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, the first work of fiction to win the prize.

Widely considered one of the major stylists of modern fantasy and science fiction, Harrison’s reach is into all genrés and he has been twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.   “He writes fantasy and science fiction … of a form, scale and brilliance that it shames not only the rest of the field, but most modern fiction,” noted 3-time Arthur C. Clarke winner China Tom Miéville.

Harrison’s works cross the writing spectrum and he also is a noted teacher of creative writing, focusing on landscape and autobiography.  “Every moment of a science fiction story,” he said,  “must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.”

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