Whipped Cream Difficulties

Various sources, including John Scalzi and the Onion A/V Club, are reporting the passing of noted SF writer and SFWA Grand Master Harry Harrison.

I never met Mr. Harrison (though I suspect we attended some of the same Worldcons) and I wasn’t well read in much of his work. I should probably get a copy of Make Room! Make Room!

But I was a big fan of the first five “Stainless Steel Rat” books, especially The Stainless Steel Rat for President, the first one I read in the series. What’s not to like about a super-competent intergalactic con man turned quasi-good guy (and who manages to pick up a little on the side in between saving the universe)?

There was a quote in the first book that I found rather striking at the time:

We are the rats in the wainscoting of society – we operate outside of their barriers and outside of their rules. Society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as the old wooden buildings had more rats than the concrete buildings that came later. But they still had rats. Now that society is all ferroconcrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps between the joints, and it takes a smart rat to find them. A stainless steel rat is right at home in this environment.
It is a proud and lonely thing to be a stainless steel rat – and it is the greatest experience in the galaxy if you can get away with it. The sociological experts can’t seem to agree why we exist, some even doubt that we do. The most widely accepted theory says that we are victims of delayed psychological disturbance that shows no evidence in child-hood when it can be detected and corrected and only appears later in life. I have naturally given a lot of thought to the topic and I don’t hold with that idea at all.
A few years back I wrote a small book on the subject – under a nom de plume of course – that was rather well received. My theory is that the aberration is a philosophical one, not a psychological one. At a certain stage the realisation striked through that one must either live outside of society’s bonds or die of absolute boredom. There is no future or freedom in the circumscribed life and the only other life is complete rejection of the rules. There is no longer room for the soldier of fortune or the gentleman adventurer who can live both within and outside of society. Today it is all or nothing. To save my own sanity I chose the nothing.

When I first started using BBS systems, back in the early 80s, I took my online pseudonym from Harrison’s character, for precisely those reasons.

Rest in peace, Mr. Harrison.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2012 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Books, Obits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.