HARDING, Lee (John)

(1937-)

   Australian freelance photographer and writer who began publishing sf with "Displaced Person" for Science Fantasy in 1961; he eventually expanded this story as Displaced Person (1979; rev vt Misplaced Persons 1979 US). Aimed - like The Weeping Sky (1977) and Waiting for theEnd of the World (1983), which are equally impressive - at a teenage audience, it memorably imprisons its protagonist in a world turning to grey just as the grim solitude of his own life becomes painfully manifest. This use of sf plots to explore character became a kind of trademark ofthe LH novel. During the 1960s, sometimes writing as Harold G. Nye, he concentrated on magazine work, twice winning a Ditmar AWARD, in 1970 for "Dancing Gerontius" (1969) and in 1972 for the magazine version of hisfirst novel, Fallen Spaceman (1971 If; rev 1973; rev 1980 US), a juvenile. His adult novels - A World of Shadows (1975 UK) and Future Sanctuary (1976Canada) - have been perhaps less notable than his juveniles, though the last impressively anatomizes a desolate NEAR FUTURE Australia. His other juveniles include The Children of Atlantis (1976), The Frozen Sky (1976), Return to Tomorrow (1977) and The Web of Time (1980 UK); they are sombreand clear. LH has edited Beyond Tomorrow: An Anthology of Modern Science Fiction (anth 1976; cut 1977 UK), The Altered I: An Encounter with ScienceFiction (anth 1976), which presents some of the productions of an sf workshop in Australia presided over by Ursula K. LE GUIN, and Rooms of Paradise (anth 1978).

   JC

   See also: CHILDREN'S SF; PSYCHOLOGY.