Gideon of the Welles Secretary of the Navy
Salmon P. Chase Secretary of the Treasury
Gustavus Fox Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Edward Bates Attorney General
John Nicolay First Secretary to President Lincoln
John Hay Secretary to President Lincoln
William Parker Parrott Gunsmith
Charles Francis Adams U.S. Ambassador to Britain
John Ericsson Inventor of USS Monitor
Captain Worden Captain of USS Monitor
UNITED STATES ARMY
General William Tecumseh Sherman
General Ulysses S. Grant
General Henry W. Halleck
General George B. McClellan Commander Army of the Potomac
General Ramsay Head of Ordnance Department
Lieutenant General Winfield Scott Commander West Point
Colonel Hiram Berdan Commander U.S. Regiment of Sharpshooters
General Benjamin F. Butler
Colonel Appier Commander, 53rd Ohio
General John Pope Army of the Potomac
UNITED STATES NAVY
Commodore Goldsborough
Charles D. Wilkes Captain of USS San Jacinto
Lieutenant Fairfax First Officer of USS San Jacinto
David Glasgow Farragut Flag Officer, Mississippi Fleet
Lieutenant John Worden Commander USS Monitor
GREAT BRITAIN
Victoria Regina Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
Prince Albert Royal Consort, her husband
Lord Palmerston Prime Minister
Lord John Russell Foreign Secretary
William Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer
Lord Lyons British Ambassador to the United States
Lord Wellesley Duke of Wellington
Lady Kathleen Shiel Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen
BRITISH ARMY
Duke of Cambridge Commander-in-Chief
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?
A: I grew up as an SF fan in the golden age of the ’30s. The war interrupted. Back in NY after the war I was not sure if I wanted to draw or write. I chose art. But I was also deeply involved in SF. I drew comics, illustrated magazines, including SF, and did a cover for two Lewis Padgett novels for Marty Greenberg of Gnome Press. He took me to a meeting of the Hydra Club — the group of professional SF people in NY. I was right at home there. I did artwork for Damon Knight’s World Beyond, Horace Gold’s Galaxy, and Danny Keyes’s Marvel. (Danny went on to write Flowers for Algernon, among others.) I was so much at home with the SF professionals that I eventually became chairman of the club. I slid from illustrating comics to editing, writing for, and publishing, comics. When the comics died in the late ’40s, I slid sideways into editing SF and other pulps. These were the golden years of SF. Every writer either lived in NYC or came through there. We all knew each other, and there was plenty of cross-fertilization. The money wasn’t much, rates were low, but we were inventing a whole new world.
I grew up reading Astounding, and John Campbell was like a god to me. The greatest pleasure was to work with him, have lunch with him, hear his ideas. And sell him stories. My first six novels were done as serials for Astounding, then sold for books later on. John and I differed greatly on many things, mostly politics. But he respected my views. So much so that he asked me to edit a volume of his editorials. Which I did, but not without a good deal of infighting. Only by threatening to take my name off the cover did I finally convince him that I would not permit inclusion of his far right, exaggerated anti-Communist pieces. I shall miss him.