M. John Harrison

M. John Harrison
Born	Michael John Harrison (1945-07-26) 26 July 1945 Rugby, Warwickshire, England
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	British
Period	1966–present
Genre	Science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction
Literary movement	New Wave
Notable awards	1989 Boardman Tasker Prize 2002 J. Tiptree Jr. Award 2007 Arthur C. Clarke Award 2007 Philip K. Dick Award

Michael John Harrison (born 26 July 1945), known primarily by his pen name M. John Harrison, is an English author and critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories, (1982), Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy which consists of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space (2012). He is widely considered one of the leading stylists in modern fantasy and science fiction, and a 'genre contrarian'. He lives in London.

Early years

Harrison was born in Rugby, Warwickshire in 1945 to an engineering family. His father died when he was a teenager and he found himself "bored, alienated, resentful and entrapped", playing truant from Dunsmore School (now Ashlawn School). An English teacher introduced him to George Bernard Shaw and he was immediately "hooked on polemic". He left school in 1963 at age 18; he worked at various times as a groom (Atherstone Hunt), a student teacher (1963–65), and a clerk for the Royal Masonic Charity Institute, London (1966). His hobbies included dwarfs, electric guitars and writing pastiches of H. H. Munro. His early interest in dwarfs continued through various of his novels, via characters such as Arm the Dwarf in The Committed Men, Choplogic the dwarf in the Viriconium series, and so on.

His first short story was published in 1966 by Kyril Bonfiglioli at Science Fantasy magazine, on the strength of which he moved to London. He there met Michael Moorcock, who was editing New Worlds magazine. He began writing reviews and short fiction for New Worlds, and by 1968 he was appointed books editor. Harrison was ferociously critical of what he perceived as the complacency of much genre fiction of the time; the bulk of his reviews have been collected in the volume Parietal Games. In 1970, Harrison scripted comic stories illustrated by R.G. Jones for such forums as Cyclops and Finger. An illustration by Jones appears in the first edition of Harrison's The Committed Men (1971), published when he was living in "the least trendy part of Camden".

In an interview with Zone magazine, Harrison says "I liked anything bizarre, from being about four years old. I started on Dan Dare and worked up to the Absurdists. At 15 you could catch me with a pile of books that contained an Alfred Bester, a Samuel Beckett, a Charles Williams, the two or three available J. G. Ballards, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, some Keats, some Allen Ginsberg, maybe a Thorne Smith. I've always been pick 'n' mix: now it's a philosophy."

The New Wave science fiction movement

From 1968 to 1975 he was literary editor of the New Wave science fiction magazine New Worlds, regularly contributing criticism. He was central to the New Wave movement which also included writers such as Norman Spinrad, Barrington Bayley, Langdon Jones and Thomas M. Disch. As reviewer for New Worlds he often used the pseudonym "Joyce Churchill" and was trenchantly critical of many works and writers published under the rubric of science fiction. One of his critical pieces, "By Tennyson Out of Disney" was initially written for Sword and Sorcery Magazine, a publication planned by Kenneth Bulmer but which never appeared; the piece was printed in New Worlds 2.

Amongst his works of that period are three stories utilising the Jerry Cornelius character invented by Michael Moorcock. (These stories do not appear in any of Harrison's own collections but do appear in the Nature of the Catastrophe and New Nature of the Catastophe published under Moorcock's name.) Other early stories appearing from 1966, featured in anthologies such as New Writings in SF edited by John Carnell, and in magazines such as Transatlantic Review, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, New Worlds and Quark.

A number of Harrison's short stories of this early period remain uncollected, gathered neither in his first collection The Machine in Shaft Ten, nor in his later collections.

The 1970s

The Committed Men (1971) (dedicated to Michael Moorcock and his wife Hilary Bailey) is set in England after the apocalypse. Social organisation has collapsed, and the survivors, riddled with skin cancers, eke out a precarious scavenging existence in the ruins of the Great Society. A few bizarre communities try to maintain their structure in a chromium wilderness linked by crumbling motorways. But their rituals are meaningless cliches mouthed against the devastation. Only the roaming bands of hippie-style situationists have grasped that the old order, with its logic, its pseudo-liberalism and its immutable laws of cause and effect, has now been superseded. Among the mutants are a group of reptilian humans - alien, cancer-free but persecuted by the 'smoothskins'. When one of them is born of a human mother in Tinhouse, a group of humans sets off to deliver it to its own kind - a search of the committed men for the tribes of mutants.

Harrison's first novel of the Viriconium sequence (see below), The Pastel City also appeared in 1971. Harrison would continue adding to this series until 1984. In 1972, the story "Lamia Mutable" appeared in Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions; while this tale forms part of the Viriconium sequence, it has been omitted from omnibus editions of the Viriconium tales to date.

1974 saw the publication of Harrison's third novel, the space opera The Centauri Device (described prior to its publication, by New Worlds magazine, as "a sort of hippie space opera in the baroque tradition of Alfred Bester and Charles Harness). An extract was published in New Worlds in advance of the novel's publication, under the title "The Wolf That Follows". The novel's protagonist, space tramp John Truck is hunted down by a cast of bizarre characters: General Alice Gaw, ruthless head of the Israeli World Government; Gadaffi ben Barka, terrorist supreme of the Union of Arab Socialist Republics; and Dr Grishkin, leader of the weird Opener cult. Truck's mother was a Centauran, one of the last before the Centauri genocide. Now Truck is the last Centauran and the rival groups need him to arm the most powerful weapon in the galaxy: the Centauri Device, which will respond only to the genetic code of a true Centauran.

Harrison's first short story collection The Machine in Shaft Ten (1975) collects many (but not all) of his early short tales, from such sources as New Worlds Quarterly, New Worlds Monthly, New Writings in SF, Transatlantic Review and others. "The Lamia and Lord Cromis" is an early Viriconium tale. None of the stories, with the exception of the classic "Running Down", have been reprinted in his subsequent short story collections. The Bringer with the Window features Dr Grishkin, a character also appearing in The Centauri Device.

Harrison later moved to Manchester and was a regular contributor to New Manchester Review (1978–79). David Britton and Michael Butterworth of Savoy Books employed him to write in their basement, commissioning what eventually became the novel In Viriconium.

His early novels, the dystopian The Committed Men, The Pastel City and the revisionist space opera The Centauri Device have been reprinted several times. The latter was included in the SF Masterworks series, though Harrison is reputedly not fond of it. His work is profoundly leftist and committed to depicting alienated characters in the world of late Capitalism. Indeed, in interviews, M. John Harrison has described himself as an anarchist, and Michael Moorcock wrote in an essay entitled "Starship Stormtroopers" that, "His books are full of anarchists -- some of them very bizarre like the anarchist aesthetes of The Centauri Device."

The 1980s

Between 1976 and 1986 he lived in the Peak District. In 1983 he published his second short story collection, The Ice Monkey and Other Stories, containing seven tales which capture the pathos, humour, awe, despair, pain and black humour of the human condition. In "The Incalling", a story of seedy suburban magic which in some ways foreshadows his later novel The Course of the Heart, an editor is haunted by an author's attempts to cure himself of cancer by faith healing. This is one of the few of Harrison's tales (aside from "Running Down") in which a male character is ill; in many of his fictions, women are damaged - physically or emotionally ill.

Harrison's interest in rock climbing led to his semi-autobiographical novel Climbers (1989), the first novel to receive the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Harrison also ghost-wrote the autobiography of one of Britain's best rock climbers, Ron Fawcett (Fawcett on Rock, 1987, as by Mike Harrison). Harrison has repeatedly affirmed in print the importance of rock climbing for his writing as an attempt to grapple with reality and its implications, which he had lost sight of while writing fantasy. The difference in his approach pre- and post-Climbers, can be observed in the extreme stylistic differences between the first novel of the Viriconium sequence The Pastel City and the second, A Storm of Wings.

Around 1985 Harrison moved in with Jane Johnson, with whom he would later write the "Gabriel King" books.

The Viriconium sequence

Harrison's enduring fantasy sequence centering on the fictitious city of Viriconium consists of stories and novels written between 1971 and 1984. Viriconium is known as the Pastel City. Both universal and particular, the city has a shifting topography and history, and is sometimes known under names such as 'Uroconium' (though there seems to be no connection with the old Roman town of Viroconium).

The Viriconium sequence, heavily influenced in its imagery by the poems of T. S. Eliot, consists of three novels and various short stories; a somewhat complete published version is the 2005 omnibus simply titled Viriconium (Millennium Books, Fantasy Masterworks Series) which includes all three connected novels and various of the short stories (though it excludes some stories such as "Lamia Mutable", "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", and "Events Witnessed from a City" which were in the Ace Books ed of Viriconium Nights). The 2005 Millennium omnibus is not to be confused with the earlier, identically-titled omnibus Viriconium published by Unwin Paperbacks (1988), with an introduction by Iain Banks; the Unwin omnibus consists only of the novel In Viriconium together with the stories of Viriconium Nights (the Gollancz 1985, not the Ace 1984 contents).

The graphic novel The Luck in the Head adapts one of his short works set in the sequence and is illustrated by Ian Miller.

The first book The Pastel City, presents a civilization in decline where medieval social patterns clash with the advanced technology and superscience energy weapons that the citizens of the city know how to use but have forgotten how to engineer. Harrison's leading character, Lord tegeus-Cromis, fancies himself a better poet than swordsman; yet he leads the battle to save Viriconium, the Pastel City, from the brain-stealing automatons known as the geteit chemosit from Earth's past. The decadence Harrison describes is reminiscent of Michael Moorcock's vision of the far future in The End of All Songs.

The second novel of the Viriconium sequence is A Storm of Wings. Fay Glass and Alstath Fulthor of the Reborn try to alert the powers of Viriconium that the northern highlands are overrun by insectile armies. A race of intelligent insects is invading Earth as human interest in survival wanes. Fay brings the severed head of an invading locust-like giant insect to show the extent of the disaster. Harrison brilliantly depicts the workings of civilization on the verge of collapse and the heroic efforts of individuals to help it sustain itself a little longer.

The novel In Viriconium (US title: The Floating Gods) was nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1982. It is a moody portrait of Viriconium beset by a mysterious plague. As artist Audsley King slowly dies from the plague, her friend Ashlyme tries to save her. Yet his efforts are purposeless and his adventures misdirected. Where the previous books in the series held some sword and sorcery elements, In Viriconium goes beyond black humour into a coma of despair.

Harrison has frequently used the Tarot as a motif in his work, as in Viriconium Nights (which is divided into sections named after cards of an imaginary Tarot) and in his story The Horse of Iron (and How We Can Know It and Be Changed by It Forever). The collection Viriconium Nights consists of various stories (the number varies depending whether one considers the Ace 1984 edition or its variant, the Gollancz 1985 ed - see below). All are vignettes of night life in the Pastel City.

In "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", tegeus-Cromis (later the protagonist of The Pastel City), a dwarf, and a man named Dissolution Kahn travel to a poisonous bog to destroy a dangerous Lamia.

In the story "Viriconium Knights", the elderly swordsman Osgerby Practal is defeated in a duel by Ignace Retz, an unpopular servant of the Queen. Retz uses a power knife, a relic of previous times when high technology was used, but which is now ill understood; the badly-functioning power knife gives off floating motes which harm the wielder. (In this, Harrison invents his own variant of Moorcock's soul-draining magic swords in the Elric stories). The Queen is the grotesque Mammy Vooley, whose "body was like a long ivory pole about which they had draped the faded purple gown of her predessor. On it was supported a very small head which looked as if had been partly scalped, partly burned, and partly starved to death in a cage suspended above the Gabelline Gate. One of her eyes was missing. She sat on an old carved wooden throne with iron wheels, in the middle of a tall limewashed room that had five windows.". Retz has ambitions to seek treasure in the broad wastes south and west of Viriconium, and petitions the Queen to allow him to keep the power knife so he may defend himself against his enemies. When she refuses, he uses the knife to cut off her hand, and flees, hunted through the city by various factions of "aristocratic thugs" such as the Locust Clan and the Yellow Paper Men. Taking refuge in the house of an old man who shows him a strange tapestry, he beholds various visions of himself, seemingly at different periods in the city's history, before trying to steal a metal eagle from the old man's room. The metal eagle comes to life, attacking him, and Retz barely escapes. Later, he finds himself on a wasteland where some men are trying to bury a body with a fish-mask on its head. Retz steals the clothes and mask from the body and continues on his way.

In "The Luck in the Head", in the Artists' Quarter, the poet Ardwick Crome has been having a recurring dream about a ceremony called "the Luck in the Head." He wants these disturbing dreams to stop, so he goes looking for one of the women in the dream.

"Strange Great Sins" is the story of the weak and silly man Baladine Prinsep, who falls fatally in love with the ballet dancer Vera Ghillera and wastes away. The story is told at one remove through the memories of his nephew, an unnamed sin-eater, and through those of his mother and of the singer Madame de Maupassant. In this story the motif of the Mari Lwyd is central. This story looks at the city of Viriconium from the perspective of outsiders who know that those who go there either are, or will become, decadent and self-absorbed.

In "The Dancer From the Dance" the ballerina Vera Ghillera from "Strange Great Sins" visits Allman's Heath where strange things are afoot.

"A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium", set in our world, explains that Viriconium is a real place and tells you exactly how to get there, in case you want to go. The doorway is a mirror in a bathroom in a café in England.

"Lords of Misrule", narrated in the first person by Harrison's continuing character Lord Cromis, deals with Cromis's visit to a country house where the Yule Greave, formerly a fighter with the Feverfew Anschluss faction of Viriconium, and his wife, live with their young servant Ringmer. An unidentified enemy is gradually encroaching on the country lands and Cromis appears to be surveying their progress. During his visit, he is shown one of the ancient and highly decorated Mari - a version of the Mari Lwyd - used by the people in the 'mast horse ceremony', which Ringmer's father used to operate.

Work of the 1990s

Subsequent novels and short stories, such as The Course of the Heart (1991) and "Empty" (1993), were set between London and the Peak District. They have a lyrical style and a strong sense of place, and take their tension from characteristically conflicting veins of mysticism and realism.

The Course of the Heart deals in part with a magical experiment gone wrong, and with an imaginary country which may exist at the heart of Europe, as well as Gnostic themes. It weaves together mythology, sexuality, and the troubled past and present of Eastern Europe. It begins on a hot May night, when three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Years later, none of the participants can remember what exactly occurred; but their clouded memories can't rid them of an overwhelming sense of dread. Pam Stuyvesant is an epileptic haunted by strange sensual visions. Her husband Lucas believes that a dwarfish creature is stalking him. Self-styled sorcerer Yaxley becomes obsessed with a terrifyingly transcendent reality. The seemingly least effected participant in the ritual (who is haunted by the smell of roses) attempts to help his friends escape the torment that has engulfed their lives.

Since 1991, Harrison has reviewed fiction and nonfiction for The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times.

The novel Signs of Life (1996) is a romantic thriller which explores concerns about genetics and biotechnology amidst the turmoil of what might be termed a three-way love affair between its central characters. Mick "China" Rose starts up a medical courier service with associate Choe Ashton, who's given to erratic behavior and gnomic utterances. Their first job is illegally to dump a load of hazardous medical waste. Meanwhile, waitress Isobel Avens, China's live-in lover, dreams, literally, of flying. But as his business expands, Isobel becomes increasingly unhappy, complaining that she can no longer fly in her dreams; soon she leaves China for rich doctor Brian Alexander (one of China's clients) and disappears into Brian's Miami clinic. In a rare moment of candor, Choe tells China about a transcendental experience he once had at beautiful Jumble Wood involving a green-eyed woman. Unable either to comprehend or repeat the experience, Choe makes an annual pilgrimage to the spot. Then Isobel phones. Rejected by Brian, she's now almost constantly ill after mysterious—and illegal—treatments in Miami. Slowly, horrifyingly, China watches as the treatments begin to take effect: Isobel grows feathers while her metabolism turns birdlike; but she still can't fly and attempts suicide. China takes her to Brian and demands help. Eventually, Isobel recovers, physically, but she can't, or won't, give up her dream, and China leaves her. Choe, meanwhile, now rich through an association with gangsters, has bought Jumble Wood and turned it into a toxic waste dump.

The Tag the Cat series

Beginning with The Wild Road in 1996 and concluding with Nonesuch (2001), he co-wrote four linked fantasies about cats with Jane Johnson, under the pseudonym "Gabriel King". Harrison and Johnson's relationship had split amicably in 1995 after ten years, however their shared love of cats led to the writing of the four King books. [3]

Harrison has collaborated on several short stories with Simon Ings, and with Simon Pummel on the short film Ray Gun Fun (1998). His work has been classified by some as forming part of the movement dubbed the New Weird, along with writers such as China Miéville, though Harrison himself resists being labelled as part of any literary movement.

Harrison won the Richard Evans Award in 1999 (named after the near-legendary figure of UK publishing) given to the author who has contributed significantly to the SF genre without concomitant commercial success.

Reinventing space opera: The Kefahuchi Tract trilogy & other work

Harrison continued to publish short fiction in a wide variety of magazines through the late 1990s and early 21st century. Such tales appeared in magazines as diverse as Conjunctions ("Entertaining Angels Unawares", Fall issue 2002), The Independent on Sunday ("Cicisbeo", 2003), the Times Literary Supplement ("Science and the Arts", 1999) and Women's Journal ("Old Women", 1982). They were collected in his major short story collections Travel Arrangements (2000) and Things That Never Happen (2002).

In 2002, his science fiction novel Light (first of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy) marked a return to science fiction for Harrison after what had been perceived as his long absence at work in 'mainstream' fiction, though in fact almost all Harrison's work contains elements of the fantastic. Light was co-winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2003. Its sequel, Nova Swing (2006), won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2007 and the Philip K. Dick Award in 2008.

In 2003 Harrison was on the jury of the Michael Powell Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

In 2006 Harrison published the second novel of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, Nova Swing, a knowing crossover between science fiction and noir fiction. As with Light, this novel brought him further acclaim and several awards.

In 2007 Harrison provided material for performance by Barbara Campbell (1001 Nights Cast, 2007, 2008) and Kate McIntosh (Loose Promise, 2007).

He has taught creative writing courses in Devon and Wales, focusing on landscape and autobiography, with Adam Lively and the travel writer James Perrin.

In 2009, Harrison shared (with Sarah Hall and Nicholas Royle) the judging of the Manchester Fiction Prize.

Harrison's current partner is photographer Cath Phillips.

On 6 June 2009, Harrison wrote on his official blog that he had three major works in progress. These were: "(a) a third Light novel, which will collide A. E. van Vogt with all sorts of other unlikely people". This novel, announced under its working title Pearlant, for publication in April 2012, was published in Aug 2012 under the title Empty Space (which had been a working title for Light, the first of three Kefahuchi Tract novels);

Other work in progress Harrison mentioned on his blog 6 June 2009 included (b) "a collection of short stories, some of which will be voiced in a familiar way, some of which won’t;" and (c) "something I would describe as a literary seaside concept-horror novel if four-word descriptions weren’t a betrayal of everything I stand for…".

Style

Harrison is stylistically an Imagist and his early work relies heavily on the use of strange juxtapositions characteristic of absurdism. His work has been acclaimed by writers including Angela Carter, Neil Gaiman, Iain Banks (who has called him "a Zen master of prose"), China Miéville, William Gibson and Clive Barker, who has referred to him as "a blazing original". In a Locus magazine interview, Harrison describes his work as "a deliberate intention to illustrate human values by describing their absence."

Many of Harrison's novels include expansions or reworkings of previously published short stories. For instance, "The Ice Monkey" (title story of the collection) provides the seed for the novel Climbers, the novel The Course of the Heart is based on his short story "The Great God Pan". "Isobel Avens returns to Stepney in the Spring" is a short version of the story expanded as the novel Signs of Life; the short story "Anima", first published in Interzone magazine, also forms one of the central thematic threads of Signs of Life.

Bibliography

Fiction

Year	Title	Notes
1971	The Committed Men	Sf novel set in a post-apocalyptic Britain. London: Hutchinson and New York: Doubleday. Dedicated to Hilary Bailey and Michael Moorcock.
	The Pastel City	First novel of the Viriconium sequence. London: NEL, 1971; New York: Avon Books, 1971; New York: Doubleday, 1972. These editions dedicated to Maurice & Lynette Collier and Linda & John Lutter. Reprint: London: Unwin, 1987 (dedicated to Dave Holmes).
1975	The Centauri Device	Stand-alone space opera. New York: Doubleday, 1974; London: Panther, 1975. The first ed is dedicated to John Price. Reprints: London: Orion/Unwin, 1986 (dedicated to Jon Price); London: Millennium, 2000 (Sf Masterworks series)(no dedication).
	The Machine in Shaft Ten and Other Stories	Short story collection. London: Panther, 1975. Dedicated to 'Diane'. Contains: "The Machine in Shaft ten"; "The Lamia and Lord Cromis"; "The Bait Principle"; "Running Down"; "The Orgasm Band"; Visions of Monad"; "Events Witnessed from a City"; "London Melancholy"; "Ring of Pain"; "The Causeway'; "The Bringer with the Window"; "Coming from Behind".
1980	A Storm of Wings	Second novel of the Viriconium sequence. London: Sphere,1980 (dedicated to John Mottershead, Mike Butterworth, Tom Sheridan and Dave Britton) and New York: Doubleday, 1980 (dedicated to Harlan Ellison). British Fantasy Award nominee, 1981 Reprint: London: Unwin, 1987 (dedicated to Chris Fowler).
1982	In Viriconium	Third novel of the Viriconium sequence. London: Gollancz, 1982 (dedicated to Peter Weatherburn and Joyce Middlemiss). Published in the US as The Floating Gods, New York: Pocket Books, 1983 (dedicated to Fritz Leiber). Nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize. British Fantasy Award and Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 1983
1985	Viriconium Nights	Collection of short stories adding to the Viriconium sequence. New York: Ace (paperback), 1984 (dedicated to Algis Budrys); revised edition, (1st hardcover ed) London: Gollancz, 1985 (dedication to Budrys removed). The stories in this British hardcover edition are revised and the author's preferred texts. The Ace and Gollancz editions, while they have five stories in common, are effectively different books under the same title. Stories in the Ace ed are: "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", "Lamia Mutable", "Viriconium Knights", "Events Witnessed from a City", "The Luck in the Head", "The Lords of Misrule", "In Viriconium"(an abbreviated version of the 1982 novel of that title), "Strange Great Sins". The Gollancz ed presents its stories in a different running order; it also omits "Lamia Mutable", "Events Witnessed from a City", and "In Viriconium". "The Lords of Misrule" is retitled "Lords of Misrule" in the Gollancz ed. The Gollancz ed contains stories not in the Ace ed, i.e. "The Dancer from the Dance" and "A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium".
	The Ice Monkey	Short story collection. London: Gollancz, 1983. Contents reprinted in toto in Things That Never Happen (2002)
1989	Climbers	winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize
1992	The Course of the Heart	novel. UK: Gollncz, Flamingo. The 2004 Night Shade Books edition (first US edition) adds the short story "The Great God Pan" which Harrison describes in a note as a 'rehearsal' for the novel. The UK ed (Gollancz, 1992) is dedicated "To JJ (=Jane Johnson) with love" although this dedication is not reproduced in the 2004 edition.
1996	Signs of Life	novel, British SF Award nominee, 1997; British Fantasy Award nominee, 1998
1997	The Wild Road	as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson
1998	The Golden Cat	as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson
2000	Travel Arrangements	short story collection. Contents reprinted in toto in Things That Never Happen (2002).
	The Knot Garden	as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson
2001	Nonesuch	as Gabriel King, written in collaboration with Jane Johnson
2002	Light	co-winner of the 2002 James Tiptree, Jr. Award; British SF Award nominee, 2002; Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2003 Winner, Tähtivaeltaja Award, 2005
	Things That Never Happen	omnibus edition of The Ice Monkey and Travel Arrangements, plus some previously uncollected material; the author's choice of his best stories. Intro by China Miéville. The limited edition version (150 copies) is signed by both authors and has laid in a separate booklet, The Rio Brain (collaboration between Harrison and Simon Ings).
2005	Anima	omnibus edition of the novels Signs of Life and The Course of the Heart. Its title gives a clue to the Jungian themes in Harrison's work.
2006	Nova Swing	Sequel to Light, Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards winner, 2007; BSFA nominee, 2006; British Fantasy and John W. Campbell Awards nominee, 2007.
2012	Empty Space	novel; third in the Kefahuchi Tract sequence begun with Light and Nova Swing

Graphic novels

Year	Title	Notes
1991	The Luck in the Head	A Viriconium story adapted in collaboration with illustrator Ian Miller, based on short story of the same name
2000	Viriconium	German language adaptation of In Viriconium, illustrated by Dieter Jüdt

Nonfiction

Year	Title	Notes
1987	Fawcett on Rock	as "Mike Harrison", ghostwritten autobiography of legendary British rock climber
2005	Parietal Games	edited by Mark Bould and Michelle Reid, compiles Harrison's reviews and essays from 1968 to 2004 as well as eight essays on Harrison's fiction by other authors

References

Critical essays

• Leigh Blackmore. "Undoing the Mechanisms: Genre Expectation, Subversion and Anti-Consolation in the Kefahuchi Tract Novels of M. John Harrison." Studies in the Fantastic. 2 (Winter 2008/Spring 2009). (University of Tampa Press). [4]
• Various hands. Parietal Games (2005), edited by Mark Bould and Michelle Reid, compiles Harrison's reviews and essays from 1968 to 2004 as well as eight essays on Harrison's fiction by other authors. Foreword by Elizabeth Hand.

External links

• the m john harrison blog
• M. John Harrison at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Infinity Plus interview with David Mathew
• Podcast of interview with M John Harrison during the Irradiating the Object conference on Harrison's work at the University of Warwick on 21st of August 2014
• "Climbing to Viriconium: The Work of M. John Harrison", by Rhys Hughes
• John Coulthart, Covering Viriconium
• "M. John Harrison: A Life in Writing" The Guardian
• M. John Harrison at Library of Congress Authorities, with 15 catalogue records
• Gabriel King at LC Authorities, with 3 records (joint pseudonym with Jane Johnson)