The science fiction books Deathworld, Deathworld 2, and Deathworld 3, as well as the short story "The Mothballed Spaceship," were written by American author Harry Harrison. Deathworld was first published in 1960 and was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction. Deathworld 2 was originally titled The Ethical Engineer and serialized in Analog (1973, written as part of a tribute to John W. Campbell). A gambler who becomes entangled with colonists on a very hostile planet is the story's main character. Jason dinAlt, a professional gambler who exploits his unstable psionic powers to manipulate the odds in his favor, is the protagonist of Deathworld. He receives a challenge from Kerk Pyrrus, an ambassador from the planet Pyrrus, while visiting the planet Cassylia, to use gambling at a state-run casino to turn a substantial sum of money into an enormous sum. He prevails and escapes the frantic attempts of the planetary administration to recover the money. The city need not perish with the junkmen who are unwilling to adapt. There are many valuable worlds out there that are too harsh for colonization by regular people. Where others fail, Pyrrans can endure.
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.
