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."

How popular were his first stories?
His first short story was published during 1966 by Kyril Bonfiglioli at Science Fantasy magazine, on the strength of which he relocated to London.