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    The Stainless Steel Rat
    The Stainless Steel Rat
    The Stainless Steel Rat
    Ebook185 pages3 hours

    The Stainless Steel Rat

    By Harry Harrison

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Stainless Steel Rat is written by Harry Harrison who is also the author of Deathworld, Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green), the popular Stainless Steel Rat books, and many other famous works of SF.

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9781466822795
    Author

    Harry Harrison

    Harry H Harrison Jr. is a bestselling writer with more than 3.5 million books in print. He has been the subject of two documentaries. His books have been listed on the New York Times and Book Sense list of bestselling non-fiction trade paperback books for over ten years. They are also available in some thirty foreign countries.  

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    Reviews for The Stainless Steel Rat

    3.5/5

    466 ratings22 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book was OK, decent start but wandered off clumsily. Mostly it suffered from shallow characterization. I felt I was told what to think and feel about the characters and plot but that the events in the story didn't back it up.
    • 2/5
      Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat is one of those SF classics I’ve known about for years (probably since the days when I was 8 or 9 and scanning the family bookcases for amusingly odd titles) but never gotten around to reading. Its reputation far, far preceded it: A short, fast, funny read about a roguish master criminal loose in a far-future galactic empire. All that sounded like a good match for a January night (or two), so I pulled it off the shelf.The 83 pages I made it through before giving up are filled with incidents, but – although they occur in a non-random order and one leads logically to the next – there’s no sense that they add up to an actual plot. I had the sense that the hero was after something more specific than freedom, wealth, and a good cigar . . . but no clue what that was, or how he intended to get it.The far-future empire in which all this takes place is lightly sketched at best: a mixture of lightly disguised late-50s American cities and the conceptual furniture of decades of galactic-empire tales (faster-than-light travel, psi-based communications, and sentient robots). The supporting characters are two-dimensional at best, with none of the vibrant eccentricity that writers like Donald Westlake and Carl Hiaasen brought to the comic crime novel, or that Mike Resnick brought to his own sprawling galactic empire.And that brings me to “Slippery Jim” Di Griz, who – despite his reputation as a swaggering antihero – came off, for me, as oddly colorless and humorless. He has the disregard for rules and authority that befits a Trickster, but not the playfulness or the exuberant delight in his own cleverness. He never seemed to be having any fun, and – by page 83 – neither was I.
    • 3/5
      The Stainless Steel Rat is a fast-paced, entertaining story. Utterly lacking pretension, it is basically a con man caper set in space. Just set your brain on cruise control and enjoy the ride.
    • 4/5
      Jim DiGriz is a likeable a con man, a smooth, slippery rat of a guy, a stainless steel rat. Crime is rare in his world and a criminal of DiGriz’ skills is difficult catch. But eventually he does get caught and it’s all over for him. Or is it? Soon he is recruited into the Special Corps, a law enforcement group made up of ex-criminals. It takes a criminal to catch a criminal. In no time Jim is chasing after a thief that has stolen an industrial ship with the intent to build it into a battleship. The fun starts when Jim catches up with the thief, the beautiful Angelina. He has met his match.This book was originally published in 1961 and is now considered classic sci-fi. It is book one in a series of Stainless Steel Rat books. If you are of a certain age and you read science fiction in your younger days, chances are good you already know about these books. Somehow I missed out on this series. Oh, I knew about them I just never got around to reading them. When I saw book one had been reissued in audio book I grabbed a copy from the library to find out what I had been missing.This is a book with a sense of humor. The story is not deep and I don’t think it was intended to be. I laughed out loud more than a few times at the sometimes corny and sometimes clever dialog. Science fiction doesn’t have to be technical or exist in a complex, carefully built world. It can be entertaining, fun and campy. The audio was nicely performed by Phil Gigante. I enjoyed his interpretations and portrayal of the characters. At only 4 CDs for the unabridged version, this is a short book and easy to listen to.Although dated the story has held up fairly well. Thankfully attitudes towards women and the way they are portrayed have, for the most part, changed. While Angelina was initially portrayed as brilliant and strong she quickly turned into the stereotypical femme fatal which had me gritting my teeth and grumbling gaaaah, gaaaah! Setting that aside, it was enjoyable and I’ll be listening to the next book in the series.
    • 5/5
      “The Stainless Steel Rat” is the first in Harry Harrison’s 12-book series about con man, special agent, and detective “Slippery” Jim diGriz. Remarkably, the series spanned 50 years, from the first book’s publication in 1961 to the last book’s publication in 2010. Although Harrison never won a major award for any of his stories or novels, he was made an SFWA Grand Master in 2008, in recognition of his entire body of work. “The Stainless Steel Rat” is the first book or story I’ve read by Harrison.In brief, “The Stainless Steel Rat” is a genuinely fun story that artfully blends the detective noir and space opera genres. It also has a dash of James Bond-like spy action to spice things up. I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot, even though I could anticipate many of them. The novel (and, indeed, the series) is also known for being humorous. Although I generally didn’t find “The Stainless Steel Rat” to be particularly funny, there was one part which had me laughing out loud, a rarity when it comes to written fiction. The novel’s diverse mix of elements, fast pacing, and short length (It can easily be read in an afternoon.) make it a very worthy choice for time-pressed mystery SF fans.The novel is set in the far future, when humans have colonized many worlds, linked by faster-than-light starships and telepathic individuals who can transmit faster-than-light messages. The science of psychology has advanced tremendously, and all young people are screened in order to detect (and correct) any criminal tendencies. (Apparently, life on human worlds is somewhat utopian, or at least does not afford any pressures sufficient to induce a psychologically normal person to commit a crime.) Those individuals who evade the psychological screening are usually caught after one or two minor crimes. However, a rare few people become master criminals, taking advantage of society’s complacency to become rich and powerful, threatening the stability of human worlds.Jim diGriz is one such criminal mastermind. However, his crime spree is interrupted by the involvement of the Special Corps, humanity’s top interplanetary problem-solving agency, reminiscent of the UK’s MI-5 or the United States’ FBI. Jim soon finds himself pursuing a ruthless killer whose intelligence and cunning may be—at least—the equal of his own.Jim is a very likable, cocky, and gifted character. He’s self-serving and chaotic (in the D&D sense, the opposite of “lawful”), but ultimately good at heart. In these ways, he is reminiscent of protagonists that Roger Zelazny is fond of writing about (for instance, in Lord of Light or the first five books of Amber). Unlike Zelazny’s characters, Jim’s special powers are restricted to his fast thoughts, clever plans, and sly use of society’s conventions and norms. He has nothing resembling a superpower. If you crossed one of Zelazny’s protagonists with Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s detective from “The Big Sleep” (1939), you might end up with someone like Jim diGriz.On the downside, the setting is not a strength of the work. Although the book supposedly takes place in the far future, most planets bear a very strong resemblance to the United States in the 1960s, albeit with a considerable number of robots thrown in. At least the robots do behave—amusingly—as modern day computers sometimes do when dealing with situations where a little intuition and perspective would go a long way. I find myself powerfully curious to learn if the Stainless Steel Rat books written in the 1990s and 2010 take advantage of real-world advances in technology in order to update their vision of what the far future might have in store.In summary, “The Stainless Steel Rat” is a quick, fun, and fast-moving book, and the concept and protagonist seem well-suited to a long series of adventures. I am surprised that this series and Harry Harrison have such a low profile compared to many other SF series and writers. (As one example, I’ll mention the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, which has a similar concept and multi-book approach.)
    • 4/5
      James Bolivar diGriz alias Slippery Jim alias The Stainless Steel Rat, er en interplanetarisk tyveknægt med en anelse moralsk sans. Trængt op i en krog af The Special Corps accepterer han nødtvunget at blive en del af korpset og kommer på sporet af en hel skrupelløs bandit, der har fået bygget en superkrydser af et rumskib og fået det ombygget til en kolossalt krigsskib. Den vilde jagt kan begynde. Angelina er nok ikke en engel.I sandhed noget af en røverroman, men godt skrevet og Harrison har et vist kendskab til dansk, så en af planeterne hedder Udrydde. Det er da humor. Grundlovsdag bliver også nævnt og en biperson hedder Ove Nielsen. De sidste sider lader muligheden for en lykkelig afslutning stå åben
    • 3/5
      A hero who always manages to somehow make it out of every scrape in one piece no matter what the odds. He is a survivor.
    • 4/5
      Though this the fourth book chronologically, it's really the first one to read as it introduces the characters the best.I thought this was a very funny book. As the series goes on, the particular humor gets a bit old as it's pretty much just more of the same with each volume.
    • 3/5
      This was entertaining but not as good as 'Make Room! Make Room!' by the same author. But then again, the comparison is not fair as 'Make Room! Make Room!' is more serious than this. But reading 'SS Rat' once won't make you regret it.
    • 2/5
      I think the best thing I can say about this book is that it does not age well.

      In the far future (which, I think would be about now, although I'm willing to forgive the book this bit), people have been selectively bred to be socially conscious and responsible. The few malcontents that are born are weeded out fairly quickly, so that there is virtually no crime. So the whole wide world/civilization is fairly bland, with few exceptions. The main character, Jim diGriz, is one of those exceptions, and thanks to his criminal "ability" is recruited into being a kind of anti-crime agent to stop crimes and apprehend other criminals.

      Which is all well and good, if it weren't for the fact that diGriz is possibly one of the most irritating main characters I've had the misfortune to read. He's brash and amazing and clever and witty and oh-so-awesome. And one note (although all characters are dimensionless). And then there's the "gentle" misogyny rampant through the book. There is no world building, there are no sane motivations for any of the characters. The world is, because the author says so. The characters just do, because the author writes them to.

      The upside is that this book is fast. The action is non-stop, and since the book is so short, that means it doesn't take long to get through, and there is no lag-time that makes you want to put down the book.

      It's decent, I suppose. It feels like a pulp-sci-fi from the 60s. So take it for what it is. If you enjoy the campy white-knight man rescuing the world from the evil clutches of a seductress-enemy that takes no direct action, but uses her "feminine wiles" to ensnare men to her bidding, then go for it. I won't be continuing the series.
    • 4/5
      The first of the series. Harry Harrison at his best. Good story, interesting characters.
    • 5/5
      It's a strange business, reading something that was originally published circa 1960. I read some of the pieces that this book was based on before I'd read the book, and it has been many years since I'd read either. Harrison could always write, and even though the tech is sometimes jarringly out of synch with current reality, it's still fun.Ah, Slippery Jim, you were always one of my heroes. Thanks for letting me revisit those days. Still an excellent read.
    • 4/5
      Harry Harrison sticks to the point in this novel "The Stainless Steel Rat". It is a good quick read, when most scifi today is bogged down and several hundred pages long, alot of it ultimately meaningless to the story, It is a good book to read between those. It gets the story out. with Minimal Descriptions, and Minimal Meanderings of thought.After reading a book and you say. Ugh, that was long, Read this. Its short, Enjoyable, and will get your raring to go to read the next on your "to read" list.
    • 4/5
      A good old-fashioned space opera about a reformed con-man with a surprisingly-strong moral fiber. Very well written, entertaining, and a cool window into the mind of a writer from the 60s. The future was so different back then.
    • 5/5
      Stainless Steel Rat books are awesome! Love seeing how it all started!
    • 3/5
      Read it in about 2010. It was sort of fun if I remember.
    • 5/5
      Harry doesn't get the respect he deserves. Less than 200pp, i read it in about an hour. Good silver age sci fi. I envy his optimism. His galactic civilization's social scientists have solved everything. Poverty, bigotry, disaffection...none exist in this future.
    • 5/5
      old classic, entertaining even when reread.
    • 3/5
      Terrific start to the series, fast funny and thought provoking all at once
    • 5/5
      Great story. It moves along at a good pace. There is a lot of "and then something magically appears or is aquired", but it doesn't detract from the story. The main character is a combination of Simon Templar and James Bond set in a science fiction universe.
    • 4/5
      The Stainless Steel Rat is a Sci-Fi crime thriller. It took me some time to realize that the protagonist is not, in fact, a rodent. Though that is never made completely clear, nor is it if the time line is some long time in our future, some other galaxy far away, or another universe altogether, but I think it most likely to be a 200 or so years in our future. Jim is a criminal. One of the few because the government has made it where people have the ability and desire to commit crime taken from them at a very young age. He's an outlaw in every sense of the word, until one day he is finally caught. How can he avoid being reassigned a new personality? Well become an undercover cop of course! Have to be a criminal to catch a criminal. Goes on to find a battle ship that is being built, and the criminally has secretly gotten the government to pay it for him. Jim falls in love with the antagonist though, so the end may surprise you.
    • 3/5
      I always wondered about this series. I can understand why it has been popular. Very entertaining but aimed at a young adult audience I think.

    Book preview

    The Stainless Steel Rat - Harry Harrison

    CHAPTER ONE

    When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker—but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same somber expression and heavy foot that they all have—and the same lack of humor. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable.

    James Bolivar diGriz I arrest you on the charge—

    I was waiting for the word charge, I thought it made a nice touch that way. As he said it I pressed the button that set off the charge of black powder in the ceiling, the crossbeam buckled and the three-ton safe dropped through right on the top of the cop’s head. He squashed very nicely, thank you. The cloud of plaster dust settled and all I could see of him was one hand, slightly crumpled. It twitched a bit and the index finger pointed at me accusingly. His voice was a little muffled by the safe and sounded a bit annoyed. In fact he repeated himself a bit.

    … On the charge of illegal entry, theft, forgery—

    He ran on like that for quite a while, it was an impressive list but I had heard it all before. I didn’t let it interfere with my stuffing all the money from the desk drawers into my suitcase. The list ended with a new charge and I would swear on a stack of thousand credit notes that high that there was a hurt tone in his voice.

    In addition the charge of assaulting a police robot will be added to your record. This was foolish since my brain and larynx are armored and in my midsection—

    That I know well, George, but your little two-way radio is in the top of your pointed head and I don’t want you reporting to your friends just yet.

    One good kick knocked the escape panel out of the wall and gave access to the steps to the basement. As I skirted the rubble on the floor the robot’s fingers snapped out at my leg, but I had been waiting for that and they closed about two inches short. I have been followed by enough police robots to know by now how indestructible they are. You can blow them up or knock them down and they keep coming after you; dragging themselves by one good finger and spouting saccharine morality all the while. That’s what this one was doing. Give up my life of crime and pay my debt to society and such. I could still hear his voice echoing down the stairwell as I reached the basement.

    Every second was timed now. I had about three minutes before they would be on my tail, and it would take me exactly one minute and eight seconds to get clear of the building. That wasn’t much of a lead and I would need all of it. Another kick panel opened out into the label-removing room. None of the robots looked up as I moved down the aisle—I would have been surprised if they had. They were all low-grade M types, short on brains and good only for simple, repetitive work. That was why I hired them. They had no curiosity as to why they were taking the labels off the filled cans of azote fruits, or what was at the other end of the moving belt that brought the cans through the wall. They didn’t even look up when I unlocked the Door That Was Never Unlocked that led through the wall. I left it open behind me as I had no more secrets now.

    Keeping next to the rumbling belt, I stepped through the jagged hole I had chopped in the wall of the government warehouse. I had installed the belt too, this and the hole were the illegal acts that I had to do myself. Another locked door opened into the warehouse. The automatic fork-lift truck was busily piling cans onto the belt and digging fresh ones out of the ceiling-high piles. This fork-lift had hardly enough brains to be called a robot, it just followed taped directions to load the cans. I stepped around it and dog-trotted down the aisle. Behind me the sounds of my illegal activity died away. It gave me a warm feeling to still hear it going full blast like that.

    It had been one of the nicest little rackets I had ever managed. For a small capital outlay I had rented the warehouse that backed on the government warehouse. A simple hole in the wall and I had access to the entire stock of stored goods, long-term supplies that I knew would be untouched for months or years in a warehouse this size. Untouched, that is, until I came along.

    After the hole had been made and the belt installed it was just a matter of business. I hired the robots to remove the old labels and substitute the colorful ones I had printed. Then I marketed my goods in a strictly legal fashion. My stock was the best and due to my imaginative operation my costs were very low. I could afford to undersell my competitors and still make a handsome profit. The local wholesalers had been quick to sense a bargain and I had orders for months ahead. It had been good operation—and could have gone on for quite a while.

    I stifled that train of thought before it started. One lesson that has to be remembered in my line of business is that when an operation is over it is OVER! The temptation to stay just one more day or to cash just one more check can be almost overwhelming, ah, how well I know. I also know that it is also the best way to get better acquainted with the police.

    Turn your back and walk away—

    And live to graft another day.

    That’s my motto and it’s a good one. I got where I am because I stuck to it.

    And daydreams aren’t part of getting away from the police.

    I pushed all thoughts from my mind as I reached the end of the aisle. The entire area outside must have been swarming with cops by this time and I had to move fast and make no mistakes. A fast look right and left. Nobody in sight. Two steps ahead and press the elevator button. I had put a meter on this back elevator and it showed that the thing was used once a month on the average.

    It arrived in about three seconds, empty, and I jumped in, thumbing the roof button at the same time. The ride seemed to go on forever, but that was just subjective. By the record it was exactly fourteen seconds. This was the most dangerous part of the trip. I tightened up as the elevator slowed. My .75 caliber recoilless was in my hand, that would take care of one cop, but no more.

    The door shuffled open and I relaxed. Nothing. They must have the entire area covered on the ground so they hadn’t bothered to put cops on the roof.

    In the open air now I could hear the sirens for the first time—a wonderful sound. They must have had half of the entire police force out from the amount of noise they were making. I accepted it as any artist accepts tribute.

    The board was behind the elevator shaft where I had left it. A little weather-stained but still strong. A few seconds to carry it to the edge of the parapet and reach it across to the next building.

    Gently, this was the one dangerous spot where speed didn’t count. Carefully onto the end of the board, the suitcase held against my chest to keep my center of gravity over the board. One step at a time. A thousand-foot drop to the ground. If you don’t look down you can’t fall …

    Over. Time for speed. The board behind the parapet, if they didn’t see it at first my trail would be covered for a while at least. Ten fast steps and there was the door to the stairwell. It opened easily—and it better have—I had put enough oil on the hinges. Once inside I threw the bolt and took a long, deep breath. I wasn’t out of it yet, but the worst part where I ran the most risk was past. Two uninterrupted minutes here and they would never find James Bolivar, alias Slippery Jim, diGriz.

    The stairwell at the roof was a musty, badly lit cubicle that was never visited. I had checked it carefully a week before for phono and optic bugs and it had been clear. The dust looked undisturbed, except for my own footprints. I had to take a chance that it hadn’t been bugged since then. The calculated risk must be accepted in this business.

    Good-by James diGriz, weight ninety-eight kilos, age about forty-five, thick in the middle and heavy in the jowls, a typical business man whose picture graces the police files of a thousand planets—also his fingerprints. They went first. When you wear them they feel like a second skin, a touch of solvent though and they peel off like a pair of transparent gloves.

    All my clothes next—and then the girdle in reverse—that lovely paunch that straps around my belly and holds twenty kilos of lead mixed with thermite. A quick wipe from the bottle of bleach and my hair was its natural shade of brown, the eyebrows, too. The nose plugs and cheek pads hurt coming out, but that only lasts a second. Then the blue-eyed contact lenses. This process leaves me mother-naked and I always feel as if I have been born again. In a sense it is true, I had become a new man, twenty kilos lighter, ten years younger and with a completely different description. The large suitcase held a complete change of clothes and a pair of dark-rimmed glasses that replaced the contact lenses. All the loose money fitted neatly into a brief case.

    When I straightened up I really felt as if ten years had been stripped from me. I was so used to wearing that weight that I never noticed it—until it was gone. Put a real spring in my step.

    The thermite would take care of all the evidence. I kicked it all into a heap and triggered the fuse. It caught with a roar and bottles, clothes, bag, shoes, weights, et al, burned with a cheerful glare. The police would find a charred spot on the cement and micro-analysis might get them a few molecules off the walls, but that was all they would get. The glare of the burning thermite threw jumping shadows around me as I walked down three flights to the one hundred twelfth floor.

    Luck was still with me, there was no one on the floor when I opened the door. One minute later the express elevator let me and a handful of other business types out into the lobby.

    Only one door was open to the street and a portable TV camera was trained on it. No attempt was being made to stop people from going in and out of the building, most of them didn’t even notice the camera and little group of cops around it. I walked towards it at an even pace. Strong nerves count for a lot in this business.

    For one instant I was square in the field of that cold, glass eye, then I was past. Nothing happened so I knew I was clear. That camera must have fed directly to the main computer at police headquarters. If my description had been close enough to the one they had on file those robots would have been notified and I would have been pinned before I had taken a step. You can’t out-move a computer-robot combination, not when they move and react in microseconds—but you can outthink them. I had done it again.

    A cab took me about ten blocks away. I waited until it was out of sight then took another one. It wasn’t until I was in the third cab that I felt safe enough to go to the space terminal. The sounds of sirens were growing fainter and fainter behind me and only an occasional police car tore by in the opposite direction.

    They were sure making a big fuss over a little larceny but that’s the way it goes on these overcivilized worlds. Crime is such a rarity now that the police really get carried away when they run across some. In a way I can’t blame them, giving out traffic tickets must be an awful dull job. I really believe they ought to thank me for putting a little excitement in their otherwise dull lives.

    CHAPTER TWO

    It was a nice ride to the spaceport being located, of course, far out of town. I had time to lean back and watch the scenery and gather my thoughts. Even time to be a little philosophical. For one thing I could enjoy a good cigar again, I smoked only cigarettes in my other personality and never violated that personality, even in strictest privacy. The cigars were still fresh in the pocket humidor where I had put them six months ago. I sucked a long mouthful and blew the smoke out at the flashing scenery. It was good to be off the job, just about as good as being on it. I could never make my mind up which period I enjoyed more—I guess they are both right at the time.

    My life is so different from that of the overwhelming majority of people in our society that I doubt if I could even explain it to them. They exist in a fat, rich union of worlds that have almost forgotten the meaning of the word crime. There are few malcontents and even fewer that are socially maladjusted. The few of these that are born, in spite of centuries of genetic control, are caught early and the aberration quickly adjusted. Some don’t show their weakness until they are adults, they are the ones who try their hand at petty crime—burglary, shoplifting or such. They get away with it for a week or two or a month or two, depending on the degree of their native intelligence. But sure as atomic decay—and just as predestined—the police reach out and pull them

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