Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 14:51:18 -0400
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Charles L. Harness, 1915 - 2005
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

> drewbitt at yahoo.com 10/4/2005 2:27:33 PM >>>
>--- Michael Walsh <MJW at press.jhu.edu> wrote:
>
>> As reported in Locus.
>>
>> I was lucky to visit him a number of times at his
>> Clarksville, MD
>> home.
>> A real gentleman.  Fine writer too.
>>
>> mjw
>>
>Not familiar with the name. Can you tell us a little
>about him?
>thanks!

Oh, are you in for a treat!
He was a patent attorney by trade.  Many of his short stories have
legal twists, some recent ones were amusing variations of "deals with
the devil".

But he best know for his "recomplicatred" novels such as The Paradox
Man, a convoluted plot that out-complicates Van Vogt at his best.

NESFA Press has re-published pretty much everything:
http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Harness-1.htm
http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Harness-2.htm

And his last novel: http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Harness-3.htm
which due to financial issues i was unable to publish, but NESFA did
using my text files.  A quote I obtained from Gene Wolfe:

"There are perhaps a thousand wonderful books. Most of us are fortunate
if we so much as hear the titles of them in the course of a lifetime.
Very few of us ever touch the covers of more than half a dozen. This is
one of them. If you do not buy the copy you are holding, you are not
likely to see one again."

The novel deals with love, science, and maybe the Holy Grail.

He didn't do the convention circuit.  Pretty much stayed at home, but
was not a hermit.  A few years ago he was taking Italian at a community
college.  He kept his mind busy.

He attended Bucky, since NESFA had just released his first collection
and he shared a signing session at the NESFA Press table with Jack
Williamson.  They shared an Ace Double eons ago.

He was also at Balticon a few years ago.

He seemed be ok with it all, but cons weren't his thing.

Personally, he was pleasant, a real gentleman.

mjw