The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted

by Harry Harrison

Paperback, 1994

Status

Available

Call number

813

Publication

Bantam Spectra (1994), Edition: 1st THUS, Paperback, 262 pages

Description

Jim was left in the custody of the League Navy, this story opens with him escaping from his prison cell on the League base on Steren-Gwandra, where he is awaiting deportation back to his home world. He has discovered that Bibs, a crew girl from Captain Garth's ship, is also a prisoner. Jim holds Garth responsible for the Bishop's death, and plans to hunt him down, with Bibs' help. Garth is really the crazed Captain Zennor, head of an army which continually defies League peace treaties, and now plans to invade and conquer the planet Chojecki. The people of Chojecki are pacifists, having no armies and no police. But Garth's generals decide to attack anyway, since there are no medals for "generals who bring back the troops intact". Jim must save the people of Chojecki before he can face Garth.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Homechicken

The Stainless Steel Rat books are my favorite Harrison books, and some of my favorite humor of all time. You can't help loving Slippery Jim Di'Griz, even though he's a thief.

This book picks up right where "A Stainless Steel Rat is Born" leaves off--with Jim a prisoner of the authorities (courtesy

of the League Navy's Captain Varod). While in prison, Jim sees Bibs, a shipmate of the evil Captain Garth, who stranded Jim and the Bishop on Spiovente in the last book. Jim hatches an escape plan and sweeps up Bibs to help him get revenge on Captain Garth, who turns out to be a general in the army of a small island nation. Jim cooks up another plan to break in to their country to get at Garth, but ends up getting drafted into their army!

Realizing the luck of his situation, Jim quickly and illegally climbs the military ranks until he gets close to Captan Garth, now known as General Zennor. We also find that the League Navy has been trying to do exactly what Jim is doing, and they quickly enlist his aid in stopping the general's invasion plans.

Full of the witty humor and illegal antics of Slippery Jim, this is a book you won't be disappointed in.

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LibraryThing member melydia

How I love a light sci-fi romp from time to time. While there were times when I wanted to pelt the author with copies of Strunk & White for his excessive use of sentence fragments, the story itself was fun and a quick read. I liked the over-the-top characters and nearly Star Trek-like world of the

Individual Mutualists. There's loads of Stainless Steel Rat books at the library - I'll have to pick up some in the future!

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LibraryThing member att

Steenless Steel rat books are fun to read. This one is no exception. Mr. Harry Harrison is a very good writer that adds wit and humour to his plot, and that makes this book easily enjoyable. These books were never intented to last, they were pulp fiction when first printed and popular at that time.

But then we have reprints after reprints of Mr. Harrison's books which shows that he has a style that catches the audiance. I frankly would buy everyone of his books that I can reach and enjoy reading them :)

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LibraryThing member BraveKelso

Entertaining but ...

LibraryThing member fulner

This studbook was fun, but in a different way than the others in the Stainless Steel Rat series. The 7th overall book in the series, chronologically it comes immediately after the Prequel "The Stainless Steel Rat is born"

Our hero slipper Jim is to avoid being brought back to him some planet to

face bank coppery charges and gets dropped off on a military planet. He finds out his nemises is the now the general of the whole damn army and he finds his way to get drafted. Ends up on another new planet that has no government, and the military doesn't know how to deal with that. Its inhabitants seem to practice anarcho-mutalism, which the author calls Individual Mustalism. Here it gets kind of preachy, similar to out how Little Brother gets about Free Software, and the apparent "leader" (as much as their can be in anarchist society) is even named Sterner, though he claims to have come upon IM the same way everyone else did, from a super intelligent AI.

There is a little problem with continuity as Jim is used (willing or not) as an agent of The Leauge, but if this had happened in a Pre-existing timeline, why no mention of that when he's first captured by the League in Book 1?

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LibraryThing member Nodosaurus

This is on of the later books but set early in his career. The story opens with James DiGriz, prisoner, being shipped to some planet to face charges of bank robbing, after lamenting his misfortune he escapes from the pot into the fire.

James finds himself on a military planet and promptly gets

drafted. He learns a nemesis of his, formerly Captain Garth, is now General Zennor, planning an invasion of an unknown planet and is enlisted by the League Navy to identify that planet – if he can’t kill General Zennor first.

The target planet turns out to be a utopian planet with no government and practicing a philosophy of Individual Mutualism, which seems to be a rather libertarian approach to life. There is no army, no police and no problems. On such a world, how do you defeat a heavily-armed invasion force?

As usual, he goes from one problem to another finding the most unusual solutions to problems in amusing ways and finds a most unusual solution to outwitting an invading army.

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