Stars and Stripes Forever (Stars and Stripes 1)
General Peter Champion Commander of British Invasion Forces
Major General Bullers Infantry Commander
Colonel Oliver Phipps-Hornby Commander 62nd Foot
Lieutenant Saxby Athelstane Cavalry officer
General Harcourt Garrison Commander of Quebec
BRITISH NAVY
Admiral Alexander Milne
Captain Nicholas Roland Commander of HMS Warrior
Commander Sydney Tredegar Royal Marines
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
Jefferson Davis President
Judah P. Benjamin Secretary of State
Thomas Bragg Attorney General
James A. Seddon Secretary of War
Christopher G. Memminger Secretary of the Treasury
Stephen Mallory Secretary of the Navy
John H. Reagan Attorney General and Postmaster General
Stephen Murray Secretary of the Navy
John Slidell Confederate Commissioner to France
William Murray Mason Confederate Commissioner to England
CONFEDERATE ARMY
General Robert E. Lee Commander-in-Chief
General P.G.T. Beauregard
General Albert Sidney Johnston
CONFEDERATE NAVY
Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan Captain CSS Virginia
AN INTERVIEW WITH HARRY HARRISON
Harry Harrison’s career as a science fiction writer has virtually spanned the history of the genre. Born is Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925, he grew up reading Astounding Science Fiction in the Borough of Queens in New York City. Following WWII, in which he served as gunnery instructor in Laredo, Texas, volunteering every month for overseas service, Harrison attended a number of art schools, then worked for some years as a commercial artist and art director. From this he moved on to publishing and editing, sold articles and stories, and started his first novel. Finding New York City an impossible place in which to write, he and his wife, Joan, and unprotesting year-old son, Todd, moved to Mexico in 1956. From there to England in 1957. To Italy in 1958. After a quick visit to New York in 1959, where daughter Moira was born, the family moved to Denmark in 1959. The peripatetic Mr. Harrison, at present, resides in Ireland. He is the author of more than forty novels, among them The Stainless Steel Rat books, the acclaimed West of Eden trilogy, Make Room! Make Room! (made into the movie Soylent Green), and, most recently, Stars Stripes Forever, the first in a new alternate history series. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages, including that perennial favorite, Esperanto. He received the Nebula Award in 1973.
We spoke with him recently about his distinguished career, his memories of the past and thoughts of the future, his long love affair with alternate history, and cannibalism.
Q: What was it like to be an SF writer in the ’40s and ’50s? The Hydra Club, John W. Campbell, Jr., and Astounding — was there a sense among the people involved that you were creating something special and important, making up the golden age as you went along?