American science fiction author Harry Harrison, who also created the Stainless Steel Rat comic space opera series, has died aged 87. His 1966 dystopian novel Make Room! Make Room! also inspired 1973 film Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston. (His famous comment about this was to say that every now and then there was a "faint resemblance" to the book.)
Harrison died in the early hours of Wednesday, 15 August.
"His passing leaves a huge gap in the universe, but thankfully he didn't leave us empty-handed," said friend and fellow author Michael Carroll.
"Dozens of novels and over a hundred short stories are as fine a legacy as we could hope for," continued Caroll, who also runs Harrison's website.
He told the BBC that Harrison became a "friend, inspiration and mentor", and that his novels were "a gem, a rich conglomeration of intelligence and adventure that so few other writers have been able to match."
Harrison's first novel, Deathworld, was published in 1960, while the first book in the Stainless Steel Rat series was published a year later.
The last of the series was published just two years ago in 2010 and the books are widely regarded as producing one of science fiction's great anti-heroes, Slippery Jim diGriz, aka The Stainless Steel Rat.
The author also parodied the sci-fi genre in his seven Bill the Galactic Hero books, which were first seen in 1965. He saw his work as anti-war and anti-militaristic.
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