Jim DiGriz is caught during one of his crimes and recruited into the Special Corps. Boring, routine desk work during his probationary period results in his discovering that someone is building a battleship, thinly disguised as an industrial vessel. In the peaceful League no one has battleships anymore, so the builder of this one would be unstoppable. DiGriz' hunt for the guilty becomes a personal battle between himself and the beautiful but deadly Angelina, who is planning a coup on one of the feudal worlds. DiGriz' dilemma is whether he will turn Angelina over to the Special Corps, or join with her, since he has fallen in love with her.
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Book Description
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About the Author
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Slippery,
By
This review is from: The Stainless Steel Rat (Mass Market Paperback)
Rather like the old 'Batman' television series, veteran sci-fi writer Harrison's 'Stainless Steel Rat' books work as both entertaining pulpy adventure stories, and tongue-in-cheek parodies of themselves. Featuring a hero who is more resourceful than McGuyver, the books spanned the 60's and 70's before being revived quite recently with 'The Stainless Steel Rat goes to Hell'. 'For President' and 'Saves the World' were the high spots - the series eventually met with dimishing returns, and started to repeat itself. The original 'Stainless Steel Rat' was a short story - after repeating it in mildly-edited form as a 'prologue', the book follows our hero (James Bolivar DiGriz, aka Slippery Jim, aka the Stainless Steel Rat) through a short adventure through space in pursuit of a stolen battleship. With the first part of the book given over to an introduction of the main character, it seems more rushed than the later books (many of which are, annoyingly, out-of-print). It's less obviously comedic, too, and the vision of the future is sketched with enough vagueness that it hasn't dated too badly, either.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Smart, lively, character-driven sci-fi,
By
This review is from: The Stainless Steel Rat (Stainless Steel Rat, No. 1) (Paperback)
Normally I am not a fan of sci-fi. Most of the sci-fi I have read takes itself wayyy too seriously and requires readers to be absolutely fascinated with technology, technology, technology. For those of us, however, who are more interested in people, personalities and motivations, and who appreciate a snappy, clever writing style, The Stainless Steel Rat makes a surprisingly good read. The main character, Slippery Jim DiGriz, is one of those "likeable bandit"-type characters whom you want to root for even though they are technically breaking the law. I am thinking of, for example, Butch Cassidy (played on screen by Paul Newman in 1972), "The Grey Fox" (played by Richard Farnsworth around 1982), and the George Clooney character in the 1998 movie "Out of Sight." These characters, like Slippery Jim, are daring, sassy and iconoclastic in their lawbreaking careers, and all of them revel in a justifiably high opinion of their own professional competence at what they do. Yet they also have a lot of warmth and personal charm and happen to place a high value on human life. They are thieves, not murderers. I really like that. What makes the Stainless Steel rat book particularly entertaining, for me, is Harrison's witty, lively writing style (although he does have a habit of misusing commas--this is why I give the book 4 stars instead of 5), and most of all, the philosophical questions that are (inadvertantly?) posed now and then by the story. For example: Jim changes his identity several times by altering his physical appearance and making up a new bogus personality and personal history to go along with it. Yet his inner self remains the same at all times, which we (the readers) know because he shares his true inner thoughts with us. (As a narrator, Jim is 100% reliable--he levels with us always, even when he is lying to others.) So his identity-changes beg the question--what makes up a person's "true" identity, anyway? If we are not our names, jobs, values, personalities, and personal histories, then what makes us "ourselves"? It is fascinating to me that he maintains such a clear sense, for himself, of who he really is underneath all the changes. In short: I love The Stainless Steel Rat for its innovative main character, its psychological insight, its lively writing, and the intellectual substance I find in the story--even though it is sci-fi, which I don't usually like.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Try this in audio!,
This review is from: The Stainless Steel Rat (Stainless Steel Rat Series) (Audio CD)
"At a certain stage, the realization strikes through that one must either live outside of society's bonds or die of absolute boredom. There is no future or freedom in the circumscribed life and the only other life is complete rejection of the rules. There is no longer room for the soldier of fortune or the gentleman adventurer who can live both within and outside of society. Today it is all or nothing. To save my own sanity, I chose nothing."
In the future society where Jim DiGriz lives, most criminal and anti-social behavior has been weeded out of the human genome. It's hard for bad guys to hide themselves in this antiseptic society -- in order to survive, you gotta be a stainless steel rat, and Slippery Jim DiGriz is a really sneaky one. He's exceptionally cunning but he's not murderous, so when he finally gets caught, instead of fixing him, the intergalactic cops decide to recruit him. Jim's pretty conflicted about working for the good guys, but soon he's on his first case after he figures out that somebody evil is building a battleship. The Stainless Steel Rat is, simply, tons of fun. It's quick-paced, action-packed, and funny. The villains are purposely overdone in that cheesy James Bond / Batman kind of way, but Harry Harrison doesn't skimp on Jim DiGriz's character. The Stainless Steel Rat is one of those outlaws who you just can't help but root for, especially when he's always amused with himself and his circumstances. For a science fiction novel written in 1961, The Stainless Steel Rat ages well, too. I listened to Brilliance Audio's version read by Phil Gigante who gives a lively performance. I'm sure that a lot of my chuckling was caused by Mr. Gigante's interpretation of DiGriz's personality. In one scene, DiGriz takes a drug that's supposed to help him understand the mind of a sociopath. This was beautifully and hilariously portrayed by Mr. Gigante. Brilliance Audio will be producing several more Stainless Steel Rat novels read by Phil Gigante. I will definitely be picking those up!
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