The K-Factor

Harry Harrison, who was born as Henry Maxwell Dempsey, was an American writer of science fiction best known for his novel Make Room! Make Room! and the character The Stainless Steel Rat (1966). The latter served as a loose inspiration for the movie Soylent Green (1973). Harrison, a longtime resident of both Ireland and the UK, was engaged in the Irish Science Fiction Association's founding and served as co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group with Brian Aldiss. He was referred to by Aldiss as "a persistent peer and an excellent family friend." Imagine Pirates of the Caribbean or Raiders of the Lost Ark as science-fiction novels, his friend Michael Carroll said of Harrison's writing. Henry Maxwell Dempsey Harrison was born on March 12th, 1925 in Stamford, Connecticut. Soon after Harry was born, his father, printer Henry Leo Dempsey, who was 3/4 Irish, changed his name to Harrison. When Harry realized this for himself, at the age of 30, he legally changed his name to Harry Max Harrison. Russian-Jewish Ria H. was his mother. She had been raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, after being born in Riga, Latvia and died on August 15, 2012.