Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Slippery, September 4, 2000
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.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Smart, lively, character-driven sci-fi, June 3, 2001
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brief Yet Entertaining, July 9, 2004
More a novella (short; single plot thread; character exploration, not development) than novel, The Stainless Steel Rat is nevertheless an enjoyable read. I'm not a hard-core science fiction fan, and my prior experience with Harrison is limited to the first three "Bill the Galactic Hero" novels, so I'm pleased with how accessible and well plotted this story is.The story itself concerns the doings of uber-criminal James "Slippery Jim" DiGriz. After a brief introduction to his crime skills, the story shifts to what happens after DiGriz is "recruited" by law enforcement to go after his fellow criminal masterminds. What follows are the details of his discovery of a plot to create a massive space-warship and his adventures as he sets out to shut it - and the criminals behind the plot - down. While nothing earth shattering happens, DiGriz's exploits are entertaining and a fine way to spend a summer's afternoon or two. I look forward to reading the next book in the series with some trepidation - after the way Bill books went downhill fast - but I'll likely give it a try nonetheless. One thing's for certain and that's that this book was more than worth the short while it took to read it. Hopefully the next one(s) will be, too.
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