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. ( )

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? ( )

The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted


Seventh Novel in the Stainless Steel Rat series, authored by Harry Harrison.

Slippery Jim DiGriz is a comedic character dreamed up by Harry Harrison (“Make Room Make Room”) and wrote several novels about Jim and his excuses about why it’s OK to rob and lie and cheat and steal.

And yet, the reader can’t help but be immensly entertained!

Jim finds himself breaking out of prison on a mission of revenge. His friend The Bishop has been killed by a man who formerly ran a spaceship with Jim and others in the crew. Jim however finds himself in jail. Not a great place to start from.

Through various finagling, he finds himself smuggled onto an island nation which is quite paranoid when it comes to military discipline. He somehow gets into the armed forces of the planet, while they are looking for him. He steals aboard a ship bound for invasion of a peaceful planet in an uncharted area of the galaxy.

Harrison introduces us to Individual Mutualism – a crazy mix of socialism and and odd reference to let others be as they are. Trippy.

Final Thoughts:

Some critics consider this seventh book in the Stainless Steel Rat series as anti-military but I consider it hilarious parody of the military system.

A must-read for sergeants and admirals everywhere!


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Entertaining but ... ( )

I loved Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series as a kid and I'm buying them for my Kindle now. Harry was a good storyteller. ( )