Some context: Michael John Harrison (born 26 July 1945), known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories (1971-1984), Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space (2012). He is widely considered one of the major stylists of modern fantasy and science fiction, and a "genre contrarian". The Times Literary Supplement described him as 'a singular stylist' and the Literary Review called him 'a witty and truly imaginative writer'.
Harrison was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, in 1945 to an engineering family. His father died when he was a teenager and he found himself "bored, alienated, resentful and entrapped", playing truant from Dunsmore School (now Ashlawn School). An English teacher introduced him to George Bernard Shaw which resulted in an interest in polemic. He ended school during 1963 at age 18; he worked at various times as a groom (for the Atherstone Hunt), a student teacher (1963-65), and a clerk for the Royal Masonic Charity Institute, London (1966). His hobbies included electric guitars and writing pastiches of H. H. Munro. His first short story was published during 1966 by Kyril Bonfiglioli at Science Fantasy magazine, on the strength of which he relocated to London. He there met Michael Moorcock, who was editing New Worlds magazine. He began writing reviews and short fiction for New Worlds, and by 1968 he was appointed books editor. Harrison was critical of what he perceived as the complacency of much genre fiction of the time. During 1970, Harrison scripted comic stories illustrated by R.G. Jones for such forums as Cyclops and Finger. An illustration by Jones appears in the first edition of Harrison's The Committed Men (1971). In an interview with Zone magazine, Harrison says "I liked anything bizarre, from being about four years old. I started on Dan Dare and worked up to the Absurdists. At 15 you could catch me with a pile of books that contained an Alfred Bester, a Samuel Beckett, a Charles Williams, the two or three available J. G. Ballards, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, some Keats, some Allen Ginsberg, maybe a Thorne Smith. I've always been pick 'n' mix: now it's a philosophy."
Who influenced him as a writer?
A: Harrison says "I liked anything bizarre, from being about four years old. I started on Dan Dare and worked up to the Absurdists.
Some context: James Buchanan Jr. was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan's Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761-1821), a businessman, merchant, and farmer, and Elizabeth Speer, an educated woman (1767-1833). His parents were both of Ulster Scottish descent, the father having emigrated from Milford, County Donegal, Ireland, in 1783. One of eleven siblings, Buchanan was the oldest child in the family to survive infancy.
The Civil War erupted within two months of Buchanan's retirement. He supported the United States, writing to former colleagues that "the assault upon Sumter was the commencement of war by the Confederate states, and no alternative was left but to prosecute it with vigor on our part". He also wrote a letter to his fellow Pennsylvania Democrats, urging them to "join the many thousands of brave & patriotic volunteers who are already in the field". Buchanan spent most of his remaining years defending himself from public blame for the Civil War, which was even referred to by some as "Buchanan's War". He began receiving angry and threatening letters daily, and stores displayed Buchanan's likeness with the eyes inked red, a noose drawn around his neck and the word "TRAITOR" written across his forehead. The Senate proposed a resolution of condemnation which ultimately failed, and newspapers accused him of colluding with the Confederacy. His former cabinet members, five of whom had been given jobs in the Lincoln administration, refused to defend Buchanan publicly. Initially so disturbed by the attacks that he fell ill and depressed, Buchanan finally began defending himself in October 1862, in an exchange of letters between himself and Winfield Scott that was published in the National Intelligencer newspaper. He soon began writing his fullest public defense, in the form of his memoir Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion, which was published in 1866. Buchanan caught a cold in May 1868, which quickly worsened due to his advanced age. He died on June 1, 1868, from respiratory failure at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland and was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.
How was this received?
A:
Some context: Biden was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (nee Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Sr. He was the first of four siblings in a Catholic family, with a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, James and Frank, following. His mother was of Irish descent, with roots variously attributed to County Louth or County Londonderry. His paternal grandparents, Mary Elizabeth (Robinette) and Joseph H. Biden, an oil businessman from Baltimore, Maryland, were of English, French, and Irish ancestry.
On August 27, 1966, while Biden was still a law student, he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971. During 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked the conservative racial politics of incumbent Democratic Governor of Delaware Charles L. Terry and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead. In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat. Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party, and Biden switched his registration to Democrat. He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties. Later in 1969, Biden ran as a Democrat for the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area. He won by a solid, two-thousand vote margin in the usually Republican district and in a bad year for Democrats in the state. Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972 while continuing his private law practice. Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95.
Was Joe Biden married?
A:
he married Neilia Hunter. They overcame her parents' initial reluctance