Lee Harding (1937-2023)
Australian author and fan Lee Harding, 86, died April 18, 2023 in Perth, Australia.
Lee John Harding was born February 19, 1937 in Colac, Victoria, Australia. He was active in Australian fandom starting in the early ’50s under the names Leo Harding and LJ Harding, producing fanzines Perhaps: The International Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Wastebasket.
His first professional sale was “Displaced Person” (1961), later expanded as YA novel Displaced Person (1979; in the US as Misplaced Persons, 1979), winner of the 1980 Book of the Year Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia. He sometimes wrote stories as Harold G. Nye, and won Ditmar Awards for “Dancing Gerontius” (1969) and “Fallen Spaceman” (1971), later revised as debut novel The Fallen Spaceman (1973).
Other YA novels are The Children of Atlantis (1976), The Frozen Sky (1976), The Weeping Sky (1977), Return to Tomorrow (1977), The Web of Time (1980), and Waiting for the End of the World (1983). Adult novels include A World of Shadows (1975) and Future Sanctuary (1976). He also wrote non-genre novel Heartsease (1997).
Harding was also a reviewer and editor. His anthologies include Beyond Tomorrow: An Anthology of Modern Science Fiction (1976), The Altered I: An Encounter with Science Fiction (1976), and Rooms of Paradise (1978). The Australian SF Foundation presented him with the A. Bertram Chandler Memorial Award for life achievement in 2006.
For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
