Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains - Harry Harrison & Robert Sheckley

   1990; 248 pages.  Book 3 (but Volume 2) (out of 7) in the “Bill the Galactic Hero” series.  New Authors? : No, and Yes.  Genres : Science Fiction; Humor and Satire.   Overall Rating: 3*/10.

 

    Central Headquarters needs a volunteer and Space Trooper Bill is the perfect fit.

 

    Maybe it’s that pair of Deathwish Drang fangs he sports.  They’d scare a Chinger right out of its lizard pelt.  Of course, since Chingers are only seven inches tall, that's not saying much.

 

    Maybe it’s that alligator foot that the military surgeons at Camp Diplatory have just attached to Bill’s leg.  Alligator feet are quite powerful.  But since Bill only has *one* of them transplanted so far on him, all it does is make him walk lopsided.

 

    Maybe it’s because Bill’s a part of the famous “Fighting 69th Deep Space Screaming Killers” unit.  But heck, there’s fifty thousand such troopers stationed here at Camp Diplatory.  So what makes Bill so special?

 

    Actually, it’s because Bill’s been classified as expendable, and that’s exactly the kind of soldier needed for this next mission.  It’s a trip to “Tsuris”, a mystery planet where objects passing nearby – even starships – get plucked from space, disappearing into thin ether, only to reappear again millions of miles away.  Someone needs to go there and reconnoiter, even if they also get zapped to who-knows-where and are never heard from again.

 

    Someone expendable.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains is the third book in Harry Harrison’s 7-volume humorous sci-fi series, and the first to feature a co-author, which then became the norm for subsequent entries, although the co-authors change from one book to the next.

 

    The book is first and foremost a spoofery of other Sci-Fi series, most notably Star Trek (with Captain Dirk and Mr. Splock) and Star Wars (with Ham Duo and Chewgumma).  Bill gets introduced to time-travel, thanks to a gizmo called a "Temporal/Spatial Displacer", and a bit later experiences getting sucked into a computer as well.

 

    The writing is a vocabularian's delight, featuring some kewl words I’m familiar with (such as “simulacrum” and “tintinnabulation”) plus some that were new to me, a couple of which are listed below.  The multifunctional expression “bowb” (it can be used as a noun, verb, interjection, and/or adjective) is back; I think it should be added to everyone’s vocabulary.  I enjoyed the nod to Robert Heinlein by having Dirk “grok” things, and of course the journey back through time to Carthage and the encounter with Hannibal resonated deeply with me. 

 

    There's some subtle wordplay, such as a capital city named “Graypnutz” and some hilarious mistranslations as Bill’s computerized translating device struggles with the idioms of the Tsurisian language.  I chuckled at some of the religious references, including the “Church of Very Little Charities” and the “Zoroastrian Winter Solstice Defloration Festival”.  Nowadays we call that latter one "Christmas".

 

    There are multiple plotlines to keep the action and excitement flowing: will Bill get a brain transplant?, will he fail the intelligence test?, can he successfully steal a temporal/spatial displacer for his superiors?, can he avoid being court-martialed and executed?  I guess the answer to that last one is self-evident, since there are four more books in this series.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Zaftig (adj.) : having a full, rounded figure; plump,  (a Yankeeism)

Others: Crampon (n.); Concomitant (as a noun, not an adjective).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 11 ratings and 5 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.42*/5, based on 811 ratings and 18 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Yipe!” Bill yiped.  “What the bowb are you doing with my ear?”

    “I’m fastening a translating device to your ear, so if you find any Tsurisians on Tsuris you can talk to them.”

    “Tsuris!  The place nobody ever comes back from?”

    “You catch on fast.  That’s the whole point of the operation.  Your non-return will give us the excuse to invade.”

    “I don’t think I like this.”  (pg. 16)

 

    “They’re giving me the Usladish look; you know what I mean?”

    “No, I don’t,” Bill said, desperation in his voice, a trapped feeling coursing through every fiber of his being.

    “I keep forgetting you weren’t born here,” Illyria said.  “An Usladish look is what we call a look that means, I know you’re up to something sneaky and rotten but I’m not going to tell anybody about it yet because I’m sort of sneaky and rotten myself.”

    “They don’t have that feeling where I come from,” Bill said.

    “No?  How curious.”  (pg. 22)

 

“When they handed out the brains you were in the corner picking your toes.”  (pg. 181)

    Sadly, there are a bunch of weaknesses in Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains.  Overall, the writing is bad, and the storytelling is even worse.  I felt like I was reading a high school student’s effort.  The various plotlines meander all over the place in the tale, and there is no overarching storyline to tie everything together.

 

    The first part of the book has some funny moments, but things soon devolve into just plain silliness.  I felt like the authors were trying to spoof Starship Troopers and its “so bad it’s good” reputation, but ended up instead with a “so bad it’s terrible” result.  I’m also at a loss to say who the target audience is; the book’s too silly to appeal to most adults, but it’s also got too much cussing and sexual references (tumescence, phallus, copulation, detumescing) to be appropriate for a YA audience.

 

    Summing up, there’s just too much wrong with this book, and the series as a whole, to recommend it.  The low Goodreads rating and the scarcity of reviews/ratings at both Amazon and Goodreads (B,tGHotPoBB has been around for 32 years now, and both Sheckley and Harrison are well-known sci-fi writers) should’ve clued me in that this was something to avoid.  I doubt I'll go any further in this series.

 

    3 Stars.  The book’s cover lists Harry Harrison and Robert Sheckley as co-authors, (with Sheckley’s name getting the smaller font size), while the Wikipedia article (the link is here) says Harrison was merely the editor.  Also, Harry Harrison’s comments in Wikipedia sound like he really didn’t want much to do with this series, likening it to “sharecropping”.

 

    Personally, the 72 chapters of Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of the Bottled Brains seemed like a friendly contest between the two writers.  I got the impression that one would write a chapter, but end it with a ill-fitting and superfluous sentence, and it would then be the other writer’s challenge to somehow make it fit.  For instance, Chapter 60 ends with this sentence: “Surprisingly, the answer was to be provided by a single long-stemmed blue rose.”  Oy.  Good luck making that segue smoothly into the next chapter.

Make Room! Make Room! - Harry Harrison

   1966; 285 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Dystopian Fiction.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    New York City in the not-so-distant future is a crowded place.  35 million people are crammed together within its city limits.  That’s a lot of mouths to feed, and that's just one of many problems.

 

    There’s not enough food, especially “real” sustenance such as honest-to-goodness meat.  There’s not enough water, and what is available is of suspect purity.  There’s not enough living space either, but where can the homeless go – the rest of the country is in just as bad shape as the Big Apple.  Nobody drives anymore because gasoline is almost impossible to find.  Even paper is rationed because there are very few trees left to chop down.

 

    So unless you’re very, very rich, you survive by the grace of government-issued ration cards.  Alas, they keep cutting the size of the rations you can obtain this way, and the lines to do so keep getting longer and longer.

 

    There’s one other way of surviving if you’re poor: break into the dwellings of the wealthy and steal their stuff.  If it can’t be eaten, it can always be hocked on the black market.

 

    But that carries an inherent risk: if your breaking-and-entering goes awry, the consequences can only be bad.

 

What’s To Like...

    As the book cover shown above correctly claims, Make Room! Make Room! is the basis for the fantastic Charlton Heston film, Soylent Green.  Let’s be clear though, the movie is not a screen adaptation of this book, the storylines are completely different.  True, some of the book’s characters make the leap to the silver screen: Detective Kulozik, Shirl, Tab Fielding, Judge Santini, and Sol, although the latter gets a different last name.  Noticeably absent from the movie are the book’s two main characters, Detective Andy Rusch and Billy Chung.

 

    There are three main plotlines to follow: 1.) who killed Big Mike, 2.) who behind the scenes is pushing for a major investigation into the murder (and why?), and 3.) how’s New York, and the rest of the world for that matter, going to deal with hordes of starving citizens that are resorting to protests?

    This is not a whodunit; the reader knows who the murderer is from the start, and Detective Rusch figures it out fairly early on.  But knowing who did it and locating/arresting him are two different things.

 

    I liked the story’s premise: that the underlying problem is overpopulation due to the use of birth control being outlawed.  I was amused that the “near future” setting was 1999, which is old news to some now, but not when Make Room! Make Room! was first published in 1966.  FYI, the population of NYC today (2018, actually) is a mere 8.3 million or so, not the book's 35 million, so at least part of Harry Harrison's scenario didn't play out.  And curiously, sending telegrams was still a common means of communication in Make Room! Make Room!

 

    It was interesting to learn that the term “Soylent” is a portmanteau of “soy (beans)” and “lentils”, the two main components of it.  At least that’s what “they” want you to believe.  There are soylent burgers and soylent steaks, but of course, they’re a poor substitute for the meat-based counterparts.  I laughed at LSD still being a popular (and illicit) drug.  Billy Chung’s first acid trip shows that Harry Harrison did some good research.  Finally, the whole idea of “meatleggers” was hauntingly intriguing.

 

    The ending is okay, but not great.  There are no twists, nor any happy conclusion.  1999 segues into a new millennium, and the world doesn't come to an end.  That may seem trivial in nowadays, but I recall religious zealots and computer programmers being scared to death that 12/31/99 would usher in Armageddon.  Harry Harrison at least got that part right.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Gonif (n.) : a disreputable or dishonest person

Others: Astrakhan (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    The man in the black uniform stood in an exaggerated position of attention, but there was the slightest edge of rudeness to his words.  “I’m just a messenger, sir, I was told to go to the nearest police station and deliver the following message.  “There has been some trouble.  Send a detective at once.”

    “Do you people in Chelsea Park think you can give orders to the police department?”  The messenger didn’t answer because they both knew that the answer was yes and it was better left unspoken.  (loc. 820)

 

    “Some of our neighbors can be dangerous.”

    “The guards?”

    “No, they are of no importance.  Their work is a sinecure, and they have no more wish to bother us than we have to bother them.  As long as they do not see us we are not here, so just stay away from them.  You’ll find that they don’t look very hard, they can collect their money without putting themselves in any danger – so why should they?  Sensible men.  Anything worth stealing or removing vanished years ago.  The guards remain only because no one has ever decided what to do with this place and the easiest solution is just to forget about it.”  (loc. 2199)

 

Kindle Details…

    Make Room! Make Room! sells for $7.99 right now at Amazon.  Harry Harrison was a very popular science fiction/fantasy writer for many decades, and there are dozens of his novels available for the Kindle.  Individual e-books range in price from $1.99 to $13.99, and you can also get several “bundles” (typically 10-12 books) for  a mere $0.99 to $1.99.  Also, some of his books are now classified as “public domain”, which means you can download them for free.

 

“Men should be spoiled, it makes them easier to live with.”  (loc. 1930 )

    There are a couple of quibbles.

 

    First, there were an above-average amount of typos for a non-self-published book.  This was my second “Rosetta” book, both of which had this problem, so I suspect Rosetta’s to blame, not the Harry Harrison or the original publisher.

 

    OTOH, it should be noted that two of the three main storylines are not resolved, and that's the author's responsibility.  The book screams for a sequel to answer what becomes of Rusch, Shirl, and the world as a whole.  Alas, AFAIK no “Book 2” was ever written, although one might consider the movie as doing that.

 

    Also, Harry Harrison gets a little “preachy” late in the story when it comes to the idiocy of outlawing birth control.  I happen to agree with his views on this, but the “sermon” still slowed things down.

 

    Finally, while there wasn’t a lot of cussing in the story (only 5 instances in the first 20%),  there were several ethnic slurs in the text that made me cringe a bit.  Yet I have to say, dialogue back in 1966 included a lot more of these slurs than our present-day speech patterns do.

 

    7½ Stars.  I enjoyed Make Room! Make Room!, but I wasn’t blown away by it.  Maybe my letdown is a function of how much I enjoyed Soylent Green.  My main beef is with the ending coupled with a lack of a (written) sequel.  Perhaps one of these days someone will pick up the gauntlet and write one.

Bill The Galactic Hero, Volume 1 - Harry Harrison

    1989; 236 pages.  Full Title : Bill the Galactic Hero, Volume 1, The Planet of the Robot Slaves.  New Author? : No, but a new series.  Genre : Science Fiction; Humor & Satire.  Book #1 (or #2) in the 6-or-7 book “Bill the Galactic Hero” series.  Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

    Meet Corporal Bill.  Aka, Drill Instructor Bill.  Quite the unforgettable character, isn’t he?

    Maybe it’s because he has two right arms.  No, he doesn’t have three arms.  But after his left arm was blown off in battle, the doctors sewed a carbonized black right arm back onto him in its place.  Now he can shake hands with himself, which he finds to be lots of fun.

    Or perhaps it’s his feet.  His right foot is twice the size of his left one.  It has a long toe sticking out the back of it, it's yellow in color, and tipped with an impressive, shining claw.  A giant chicken’s foot, perhaps. Another replacement body part attached to Bill by the army surgical staff.  They were short on human feet that day.

    Actually, I think his most unforgettable quality is that tusk.  Sticking out from among his teeth, it is the salient object that draws the eyes of everyone who looks at Bill.  Courtesy once again of the military medical team, and frankly,  a most pathetic sight.  There’s only one thing to do about it.

    Yep, save up enough money for a second tusk.  Because while one tusk is a monstrosity, a pair of them on a Drill Instructor instills fear and dread into any raw recruit who has the misfortune to go through Boot Camp under him.

What’s To Like...

    Oxymoronically, Bill the Galactic Hero 1 is actually the 1989 sequel to the original (and eponymous) Bill the Galactic Hero  novel, written 24 years earlier by Harry Harrison.  I suppose you could call it Book 2 in the series, but as can be seen on the cover, the author calls it Volume 1, so I’m sticking with his counting system.  This one is a solo effort by Harrison; the rest of the books in the series are all co-authored, or more precisely, “share cropped” (see the Wiki article here).   Based on that article, Harrison was none too pleased about that development.

    The book is replete with wit and zaniness.  It also features a recurring and more serious theme in Harry Harrison’s writings – the insanity of war.  Bill is a lovable but dim-witted hero, somewhat of a contrast to the protagonist in another Harry Harrison series – The Stainless Steel Rat.

    I liked the invention of the word “bowb”, a multipurpose euphemism for just about any cuss word in the English language, which is also applied to a familiar acronym to give us “SNABU”.  Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of actual cussing as well, which made me wonder who the target audience was.  There’s also a bunch of booze, drugs, and meds, mostly ingested by the good guys.  I found it funny; other readers might disagree.

    There are 16 pages of illustrations, smack dab in the middle of the book and smack dab in the middle of a chapter.  Most of these were of the various robot beings we meet in the story, plus one of Princess Dejah Vue, a woman of pin-up sexiness.  I suppose these were meant to be a perk, but frankly, I found them of limited interest.

    There is a little bit of French inserted, and that’s always a plus for me.  I also liked some of the scientific terms that the author sneaks in – including one I happen to work with - “Mercaptan”.  Beyond the mechanical monstrosities, there are a fair amount of critters to fight with or against, including Wankers, Chingers, and flying metallic dragons.  We only get to visit two planets – Grundgy and Usa.  But we travel to all sorts of places on Usa.

    There are 25 chapters – plus a prologue – covering the 236 pages of text.  Bill The Galactic Hero Volume 1 is a standalone novel, and a fast and easy read.  If you have a book report due tomorrow, and you haven't even started reading something yet, this is your salvation.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Shufty (n.) : a look, a peek.  A Britishism.

Others : Satyrisais (n.); Zaftig (adj.);Cozened (v.); Autochthons (n., plural)

Excerpts...

    The war was on.  Mankind was advancing to the stars.  For out there among the stardust, suns and planets, comets and space crap, there existed a race of intelligent aliens.  The Chingers.  They were peaceful little green lizards with four arms, scales, a tail like most lizards.  So of course they had to be destroyed.  They might become a menace sometime, maybe.  In any case – what is an army and a navy for if not to fight war?   (pg. 2)

    “I saw you land through my telescope – magic mirror, that is.  You were brought in by flying dragon and, being Welsh, I greatly appreciated that.  I said, King, I said, those are the toughies we need.  Strangers, not afraid of the gods.”  He stopped and looked at them piercingly.  “You are not superstitious – are you?”

    “I’m a Fundamentalist Zoroastrian,” Bill said humbly.  (pg. 206)

 Is this how life ends?  Not with a bang but with a green Barthroomian massacre and barbecue.”  (pg. 143)

       Despite the humor and craziness, Bill the Galactic Hero 1 has some issues, the most serious of which is the complete lack of an overall plot.  Bill and his makeshift squad gad around like a bunch of stooges, getting captured, hired, and threatened.  But these scenes play out like just a bunch of comic sketches in a vaudeville show.  They’re funny, but not cohesive.  Indeed, late in the story we stumble onto a “King Arthur versus the Roman Legions” scenario, which made no sense whatsoever.

    Not surprisingly, this makes for an extremely weak ending, with an annoying and awkward deus ex machina inserted as an excuse to close out the tale.  It almost felt like Harry Harrison was tired of writing the book and said, “Hey, what’s the quickest way to finish this mess off?”

    Finally, it should be noted that there are an unusually large number of typos in the book.  I’ll forgive these things in self-published e-books, but it’s unacceptable for a published paperback.  Avon Books needs to get better editors editors.  Jeez, I thought I was reading something by Tor Books, who are infamous for their sloppy editing.

    5½ Stars.  Add 2 stars if you can be entertained by a storyline that’s long on chuckles and short on substance.  This book’s for you.  The next book in the series, Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains, reposes on my TBR shelf.  It is co-authored (“share cropped”?) by Robert Sheckley, a sci-fi writer I’ve been meaning to get acquainted with for quite some time now.  I wonder if it will be a step up, or a step down, from this book.

The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted - Harry Harrison

   1987; 262 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Humor & Satire.  Book #2 (in the series timeline) or Book #7 (in the order they were written) in the 12-book Stainless Steel Rat series.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    This is the all-too-soon end for young Jimmy diGriz, aka The Stainless Steel Rat.  He’s hanging by his fingertips at the top of an elevator shaft, with a fall of more than a kilometer (several hundred stories’ worth) in his immediate future, as soon as the strength in his fingers gives way.

    At least he’ll die doing what he’s best at – escaping.  In this case, it’s from a high-security prison after the nefarious Captain Garth double-crossed him.  And even if Jim somehow manages to survive his present predicament, he’d be alone and penniless on a foreign planet.

    Well, suck it up, diGriz.  You’re the Stainless Steel Rat, and if you’re worthy of your reputation, however short-lived it may be, you’ll think of something.

    Before you get splattered all over the roof of that elevator car a long, long way below.

What’s To Like...

    The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted is the second book (timeline-wise) in Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series.  The storyline picks up almost immediately after Book One (reviewed here), with our anti-hero protagonist, Jimmy diGriz, escaping from his life-or-death situation (Oh, come on now, this isn’t a spoiler.  He’s the hero of the series.) and his subsequent escapades, including the titular predicament of being drafted.

    I liked the world-building and the wit.  The technology may be 25^th-century – including such critter gizmos like spyrats, communications moths, and radio crows – but humanity has not evolved a whit.  There are still wars and invasions, drill sergeants and double-dealers, and new “isms” looking for converts.

    I chuckled at some of the details Harry Harrison weaves into the story.  There’s “kewarghen” (think ‘pot’) and uppers., and a bit of cross-dressing as well.  I liked the use of a made-up, all-purpose cussword, “cagal”.  It gets the idea across without offending the more prudish readers.  Authors of science-fiction and fantasy should really adapt this literary device.  I also liked Harrison’s nod to Esperanto, the best candidate for a universal language, and the least-likely to become so.

    Beneath all the fun and thrills, Harry Harrison offers his opinions on a couple more-serious topics.  The whole idea of the draft is examined, which young‘uns might have trouble relating to in this day of a volunteer army here in the US.  But us old geezers remember it all too well.  There are also some interesting insights concerning spiritual fads.  In this case, the new rage is something “Individual Mutualism”.

    The story is told in the first-person POV (the Stainless Steel Rat’s).  There are 31 chapters covering 262 pages, so there’s always a good place to stop for the night.  This is a self-contained story, besides being part of the series.  I had mixed feelings about the ending.  On one hand, a bloodless, planetary invasion strained the limits of believability for me.  OTOH, I think this was deliberate on Harry Harrison’s part, and hats off to him for even trying to pull it off.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Chuntering (v.) : muttering or grumbling incessantly in a meaningless fashion.  A Britishism.

Others : Eructation (n.); Fug (n.); Insufflated (v.).

Excerpts...

    “You entered this room as fun-loving youths.  You will leave it as dedicated soldiers.  You will now be sworn in as loyal members of the army.  Raise your right hands and repeat after me…”

    “I don’t want to!”

    “You have that choice,” the officer said grimly.  “This is a free country and you are all volunteers.  You may take the oath.  Or if you choose not to, which is your right, you may leave by the small door behind me which leads to the federal prison where you will begin your thirty-year sentence for neglect of democratic duties.”

    “My hand’s up,” the same voice wailed.   (pg. 66)

    I turned to thank Neebe, the gorgeous brown-limbed redhead who was president of the cycling club, but she was just passing the club flag to her second-in-command.  Then she wheeled her bike toward me, smiling a smile that melted my bike handles.

    “May I be very forward, offworlder James deGriz, and force my presence upon you?  You have to but say no and I will go.”

    “Glug …!”

    “I assume that means yes.”  (pg. 230)

 I am.  Therefore I think.”  (pg. 168)

     There were a couple of negatives, albeit it, minor ones.

    The pacing felt slow for the first half of The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted, although it picks up nicely in the second.  Even so, it slowed down again, for a bit, when the tenets of Individual Mutualism were expounded upon.

    Then there was Bibs.  She gets introduced early in the story, is fully developed, then disappears, never to return again.  Finally, the whole “rising through the ranks” shtick, while droll, was just too unbelievable for me.

   But I quibble.  Overall, this was still a good read, although not quite on a par with its predecessor, The Stainless Steel Rat Is Born.  I have three other books of the series sitting on my TBR shelf, as well as Harry Harrison’s West of Eden, so we shall see which of the two HH books I’ve read so far is representative of the quality of his writing.

    7 Stars.  I moved this book to the top of my reading list because of Andy Wallace, author of Origins, and reviewed here, cites it as the inspiration for his book.  High praise, indeed; so don’t take my review as the final word on The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted.

A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born - Harry Harrison

   1985; 219 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Science Fiction; Humor & Satire.  Book #1 (or Book #6) in the 12-book Stainless Steel Rat series.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    James Bolivar “Slippery Jim” diGriz.  A name feared throughout the galaxy.  Well, maybe not by everyone.  But at least by every bank, jewelry store, and owner of any other merchandise that’s worth stealing.

    But how and where did this thief extraordinaire get his start?  Surely he didn't spring from the womb skilled in the art of purloining.  Someone almost certainly mentored him in the art of light-fingered lifting.

    And there’s got to be a story behind his moniker.  The Stainless Steel Rat.

What’s To Like...

    The Stainless Steel Rat Is Born is set in the 25^th century, on a planet called Bit O’Heaven that, legend has it, was originally colonized by settlers from some faraway planet called “Dirt”.  Young Jim diGriz is a thief with ambition, and wants to be further tutored on his craft from the best there is, so he deliberately allows himself to be caught robbing a bank in order to go to prison and find a guru (where else would you find one?).  Needless to say, things do not go as planned.

    The story is written in the first-person POV (Jim’s), and in a jaded, witty, and anti-hero style.  The chapters are short, and each one ends with a teaser.  I liked that.  There aren’t a lot of characters to follow, although keeping track of the capos got a bit confusing at times.  The story is written in “English” (tonnes, etc.), not “American”, and I always enjoy that.

    There are only two worlds to visit, Bit O’Heaven and Spiovente; but I suspect there will be a bunch more before this series is over.  The world-building is very good, especially Bit O’Heaven, where we spend the first 125 pages or so.  Harrison seems to relish in creating a plethora of details to heighten the scene-setting.  If the Police Floaters seem a bit been-there-seen-that, the fearsome porcuswine are not, and the culinary experience at your local McSwiney’s is a delight not to be missed.  Then there are the Boy Sprouts and the Black Monks.

    All of this makes for an easy, although not necessarily quick read, with the emphasis on lighthearted entertainment, not epic space opera.  We’ll learn to be “Citizens of the Outside” alongside Jim, which means we answer to a higher calling, and never refer to ourselves as “criminals” or “crooks”.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Doss (v.) : to sleep in rough or inexpensive accommodations.  A Britishism.

Others : Skrink (v.); Fillip (n.)

Excerpts...

    “Get knotted yourself, toe-cheese.  My monicker is Jim.  What’s yours?”

    I wasn’t sure of the slang.  I had picked it up from old videos, but I surely had the tone of voice right because I had succeeded in capturing his attention this time.  He looked up slowly and there was the glare of cold hatred in his eyes.

    “Nobody – and I mean nobody – talks to Willy the Blade that way.  I’m going to cut you, kid, cut you bad.  I’m going to cut my initial into your face.  A ‘V’ for Willy.”

    “A ‘W’,” I said.  “Willy is spelled with a ‘W’.”   (pg. 13)

    “How long do we stay slaves?” I asked.

    “Until I learn more about how things operate here.  You have spent your entire life on a single planet, so both consciously and unconsciously you accept the society you know as the only one.  Far from it.  Culture is an invention of mankind, just like the computer or the fork.  There is a difference though.  While we are willing to change computers or eating implements, the inhabitants of a culture will brook no change at all.  They believe that theirs is the only and unique way to live – and anything else is aberration.”

    “Sounds stupid.”  (pg. 144)

 If you should ever be tempted to unlock a door with a key in your teeth while wearing handcuffs I have only a single word of advice.  Don’t.  (pg. 89)

       The Stainless Steel Rat Is Born is actually the sixth book in Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series, but the first in the saga’s timeline. Harry Harrison perhaps sets a record for randomizing a series’ timeline.  According to Wikipedia, the chronological order of the 12 stories is : 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 12, 3, 9, 10,11.

    Therefore this book has the same problem that Star Wars Episode 3 (Revenge of the Sith) has – namely, matching the ending up with the beginning of a previously-released effort.

    Here, this difficulty manifests itself in a somewhat flat and unsatisfying ending.  The storyline doesn’t really get wrapped up, it just pauses for a moment as the bad guys get away, and The Stainless Steel Rat gets transported elsewhere.

    Still, it’s no worse than the ending of any Star Wars movie that doesn’t conclude a trilogy, including the latest release.  So if George Lucas can get away with this, I guess we’ll allow Harry Harrison to do the same.

    8 Stars.  In retrospect, it might have be wiser for me to start reading this series in the order that Harrison wrote them.