Harry Harrison - Page 1
| Paperback - NEL (2002) |
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First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (2002) |
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Stars and Stripes Triumphant
Book Three: Stars And Stripes
In Stars and Stripes Forever and Stars and Stripes in Peril, Harry Harrison began the story of the war that never was, but might so easily have happened: the war of the 1860s between the United States of America and the British Empire.
It was a war that began almost by accident - an ill-considered letter led to an ill-starred invasion attempt and a series of brilliant military decisions by the incensed Americans who abandoned their own civil war to unite against a common enemy. A daring attempt by the British to re-open the war on a new battlefield in Mexico has now brought the Americans across the Atlantic Ocean.
Defeated in Ireland - on her own territory -the British government must now think the unthinkable. Britain herself, the greatest sea power in the world, is now under threat from the navy of her own former colony.
Only a miracle - or a great victory -can prevent the ultimate humiliation . . .
Harry Harrison’s utterly believable portrayal of an alternate first world war, with its iron ships, its automatic guns and its trenches, is both chillingly fascinating and unputdownably readable.
Praise for Stars and Stripes Forever
'This pacy novel is an ingenious contribution to the burgeoning genre of ‘what if?' history.' Mail on Sunday
‘Plausible as well as highly entertaining. Harrison does a masterful job of demonstrating how this became the first modern war, and changed forever the way nations conducted their affairs.' Science Fiction Chronicle
‘Verve and pace carry it through.' Time Out
'The tight writing and grasp of the period's technology is impressive.' Yorkshire Post
'One of science fiction's most prolific and accomplished craftsmen’ New York Times Book Review
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First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (2000) |
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| Paperback - NEL (2000) |
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Stars and Stripes in Peril
Second in the Stars and Stripes Series
In Stars and Stripes Forever, Harry Harrison began the story of the war that never was, but might so easily have happened: the war of the 1860s between the United States of America and the British Empire.
It began with an ill-considered seizure of a British ship, escalated with an ill-considered letter to Abraham Lincoln, and continued with an ill-starred invasion of the territory of the USA by an incensed British government.
The first modern war - with iron-clad ships, rapid-firing guns, trenches, mass armies and massive casualties, was taking place, not between the industrial northern states and the agricultural southern ones, but between the two great English-speaking nations. Who happened also to be the two most powerful nations on the planet.
An uneasy truce is broken by the British, who refuse to believe that the might of the British Empire can be bested by their former colony. They begin building a road across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where Mexico is at its narrowest. This will enable them to bring colonial troops from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic to attack the United States along the undefended Gulf coast.
When the Americans attack the road, the war bogs down in futile jungle warfare. Only a brilliant plan by General Robert E. Lee enables the United States to broaden the war and attack the British forces where they least expect it - very close to home.
Harry Harrison has created an utterly believable alternate world with an enormous cast of characters both historical and fictional, locked in a war that could have changed our world.
| Paperback - Gollancz (2001) |
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First British Edition Gollancz (1999) |
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The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus
'Set a thief to catch a thief' goes the old saying.
And when you are the richest man in the Universe and someone is systematically robbing your various banks blind you'd better set the best thief ever to catch your thief. After all, even at four million credits a day plus expenses, you can afford him. Enter Slippery Jim DiGriz.
And that's how it all began for Slippery Jim and his wife, the ever deadly Angelina; persuaded from a life of stockmarket dabbling and picnicking by the hover tanks, hard cash and outright flattery of undoubtedly the richest and probably the oldest man alive; Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski .
It would have seemed rude to not take the job and after barely four weeks (at four million a day) of watching the latest in computers (courtesy of son James) sift through the available evidence Jim has his first lead. Each time one of Kaiser Czarski's banks is robbed there is a circus in town.
And as Jim knows full well, you don't find out about a circus by going to it. You join it ...
Harry Harrison has entertained, amused and captivated the readers of science fiction for more than a quarter of a century with the adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat. And now the universe's most loveable master thief and con artist is about to find out that life is a three ring circus.
Praise for the Stainless Steel Rat Series
'Abounding in quick action and quicker jokes... The Stainless Steel Rat series shows Harrison's talents to the best advantage' Science Fiction Review
'Bags of good humour' Starburst
'Fast moving and very funny' Evening Standard
'The Rat can hold his head high amongst the most elevated superhero company Bulldog Drummond, James Bond and Flash Gordon included' Times Literary Supplement
'Harrison is a superb comic author' Library Journal
'Fast-moving, light-fingered entertainment from one of the masters of tongue-in-cheek parody' New York Newsday
'Snappily paced… chock full of humour that never flags' SFX
| Paperback - Gollancz Millenium (1999) |
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The Stainless Steel Rat Goes To Hell
Sinister religions, missing physicists, super strings and retarded entropy; it's all in a day's work for Slippery Jim DiGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat, the Universe's greatest ever thief and con artist. But this time the stakes are rather higher than even Slippery Jim is used to. His wife Angelina has disappeared and he has nothing to go on except a pool of blood and a severed hand (formerly belonging to a physicist of stellar repute) - and the fact that she has expressed an interest in The Temple of Eternal Truth, a cult offering a sneak peak at heaven - for a price.
But there's a job to do and the Stainless Steel Rat is the man to do it. After all, the devil makes work for idle hands…
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First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (1998) |
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Stars and Stripes Forever
In 1861 the American Civil War was in its first lethal year. Britain favoured the Confederacy since the Union blockade had cut off all American cotton shipments to the United Kingdom. Hostility to the North increased when a Union warship stopped a British ship at sea and took off two Confederate diplomats. This illegal act so incensed Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, that there was a very real threat of war between Britain and the Union.
Would Britain have invaded the United States?
And if she had - what would have been the result? This brilliantly envisaged alternate history shows the terrible consequences of such an action. For by the middle of the nineteenth century, warfare had already become industrialized. Steam-powered ironclad ships at sea could destroy wooden sailing ships easily. On land, trench warfare, powerful cannon and rapid-firing guns massacred soldiers in their thousands: 22,000 were killed in two days at the battle of Shiloh alone.
Washington DC bombarded by British cannon… British troops invading down the Hudson Valley from Canadian bases… two powerful fleets clashing in deadly combat on the high seas: how would this war between two mighty nations armed with the ultimate in the military technology of their time have developed? Would Britain have had its revenge for the shameful defeats of 1776 and 1812? Or would the greatest Empire the world had ever seen have been humiliated as never before? In this compellingly dramatic and expertly researched narrative, peopled by a huge cast of characters both historical and fictional, one of the world's greatest authors of speculative novels creates a stunning opening to a supremely inventive ‘What if?’ trilogy.
About The Author
Harry Harrison is one of the grand masters of science fiction. He has become a leading author of the alternate-world novel. An authority on the American Civil War, his Rebel in Time is an exciting look at a different possible ending to that war. In A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! he takes a light-hearted look at a modern world where the Americans lost their 1776 revolution and Britain rules the world supreme. The Stars and Stripes trilogy examines the other side of that coin, a world in which America and Britain confront each other at the dawn of an era of mass destruction.
Harry Harrison is also the author of numerous science fiction and fantasy novels. He was described by Philip K. Dick as the 'iconoclast of the known universe' and by the Daily Telegraph as 'the Monty Python of the spaceways'. His Stainless Steel Rat books made their debut in the early Sixties and have been one of SF's most popular series ever since. Harry Harrison lives in Ireland.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
Stars and Stripes Triumphant
(Hodder & Stoughton,
2002)
NEL Pbk Sep 02
Stars and Stripes in Peril
(Hodder & Stoughton,
2000)
NEL Pbk Sep 00
The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus
(Gollancz,
1999)
Gollancz Pbk Oct 01
The Stainless Steel Rat Goes To Hell
(Orion,
1998)
Gollancz Millenium Pbk 1999
Stars and Stripes Forever
(Hodder & Stoughton,
1998)
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge
(Faber & Faber,
1971)
Gollancz Millenium Pbk 1999
The Stainless Steel Rat
(
1966)
Gollancz Millenium Pbk 1999
A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!
Gollancz Pbk Sep 00
Bill, the Galactic Hero
Gollancz Millenium Pbk Dec 99
Stars and Stripes Triumphant
by Harry Harrison
