Harry Harrison, science fiction satirist and author of ‘Stainless Steel Rat,’ dies aged 87

LONDON – American science fiction writer Harry Harrison has died in Britain. He was 87.

A friend, Michael Carroll, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he learned of Harrison’s death from the author’s daughter, Moira. Harrison died in England, but further details weren’t immediately available.

Harrison was a prolific author best known for his “Stainless Steel Rat” series, starring the free-spirited anti-hero Slippery Jim DiGriz, and his dystopian novel “Make Room! Make Room!” — a sci-fi take on the horrors of overpopulation that helped inspire the 1973 film “Soylent Green.”

Born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925, Harrison served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II before working freelance as a commercial artist and eventually embarking on a long career as one of science fiction’s leading writers.