The Stainless Steel Rat

Stainless Steel Rat, Book 1

By: Harry Harrison

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2011

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 his 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.

©2010 Harry Harrison (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Great story and a must hear for any Scifi fan.

Slippery Jim is a great character, and this is the first in the series. it was a great performance of the material as well.

A criminal version of Jame Bond

Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat offers a unique anti-hero. The main character is a career criminal who is a mastermind of elaborate, complicated plans that bedevil the local authorities all the while he is relating in narcissistic detail how brilliant he is. He is finally captured by an elite spy network who want him to work for them. During a field test, he is bested by a female version of himself and goes rogue in order to settle the score with her. She continues to play Moriarity to his Holmes until finally his spymaster handlers corral her foiling his vision of their teaming up to produce an over the top version of Bonnie and Clyde.

Harrison revels in extremely detailed setups with a non-stop patois of an overly confident supervillain. While the escapades are a bit overdone, the excess is part of the charm that leaves one rooting for the 'bad' guy to pull it off.

The narration is superb with the perfect delivery for style of character. At the same time, character distinction is reasonable with a brisk pace making for a quick listen.

Good fun

Caveat: this needs to be listened to in the context that it’s from 1961. Some of it is charmingly dated, but overall holds up well. The most glaring thing for a listener 5 decades later is the casual misogyny tossed in.

good short and predictable

The story was ok. I gave higher marks because of the narrator. The listener always knew who was speaking because of the superb narration. I would definitely listen to another Phil Gigante. narration.

Very entertaining sci-fi with good narration

Would you consider the audio edition of The Stainless Steel Rat to be better than the print version?

Phil Gigante does a good performance. Lighthearted where appropriate, but tension where necessary.

Which character – as performed by Phil Gigante – was your favorite?

The Stainless Steel Rat, of course.

Any additional comments?

I wish volumes one and two were combined into a single audiobook. This one ends too soon.

Fun story, great narrator

I got this during a 3 for 2 sale and feel I got quite the bargain. I have always been a fan of Phil Gigante's narrating abilities so after reading previous reviews and seeing that Phil was the reader I jumped in. This was great fun, with wit, some surprising twists, and futuristic sci-fi thrown in. I enjoyed Mr. Harrison's writing. This is the introduction and so we are just starting to delve into Slippery Jim's psyche and character. I didn't like Angelina so much and with the way the story ended I am curious to see how she will be redeemed in the next installment.
I got the feeling that these books were written some time ago, having enjoyed Sci-Fi for over 35 years, and investigation proved that to be true. However, that doesn't detract from the overall story or narration. It is still well worth the credit and the listen. I look forward to purchasing the entire series. My only regret is that, at the time of this review, Harry Harrison is 86 and his writing has slowed down, so we can't look forward to too many more of the Stainless Steel Rat stories.

Now this is the stuff

I am totally pleased with this version. I've put the next two in the series on my Wish List for next month.

If I were to change anything, it would be how the reader does Angelina.

Fedora’d conman in space - pulpy goodness

Fun, in a 60’s noir meets James Bond meets Suicide Squad meets Men in Black kinda way. Our Rat is a future thief who is coerced into working with The Man (AKA The Corp). There’s a femme fatale, bullets and backstabbing, face changing tech, space ships and aliens. I was a bit disappointed at the slim descriptions of settings, future tech, or alien life. I occasionally had to remind myself this is set in the future. But, bought on sale, these are like dime store novellas. Let your imagination fill in the pulpy picture and roll with the guy in the figurative fedora and pin stripe suit.

For a more modern, better fleshed out, space adventure with better action, comedy, and pulpy goodness, I recommend Space Team. You can get books 1-3 in an omnibus, equaling about six of these Stainless Steel Rat novellas.

This is among the finest sci-fi!

There are layers to this story and the characters portrayed that inspire my imagination most pleasantly! Harry Harrison wrote this book in the 60's and I wrack my mind to come up with another series to its equal. The author is a true pioneer. As for the narrator that performs this piece, Phil Gigante owns it! His vocal inflections and delivery of character emotion provide immersion most successfully. I'm saying this after listening to it 3 times now.

book is better than narration

The story is an old one - breezy adventure, not too good but somewhat fun - a "popcorn" book. The narration is not very good, however, due to a real unfortunate choice by the narrator. About halfway through the book, the main character undergoes a radical change of appearance, and the narrator therefor decided to do the halves of the book in a different "voice" (even though most of the book is internal monologue, which should not change in plastic surgery). The second half of the book is the narrator's real voice - the first half is in an affected swishy voice that just offends.