History Literature / TheStainlessSteelRat

A SpaceOpera of a different color by Creator/HarryHarrison.

A long time ago, there was a planet called "[[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet Dirt]]" [[FutureImperfect (or something like that)]]. It was there that humanity had its start, and from there they spread out, developing a large number of planets with diverse civilizations and forms of government. With enough wealth, you can enjoy a plethora of luxurious accommodations on various vacation planets. Then again, someday you might find yourself held at gunpoint while the government confiscates your ship and goodies and trucks you off to a short life of back-breaking labor for the good of the local planetary empire. But, hey, you should have read the tourist guide before you landed.

Many people never get as far as space, of course. Many people spend their entire lives planetside, enjoying the kind of cheerfully dull life you could find in hundreds of towns and cities on RealLife Earth at this very moment. Only it's a little more peaceful than ''that'', because, as it turns out, they've managed to stamp out crime.

People no longer open their newspapers to read about murders and bank robberies and various missing persons. See, the government has gotten so good at spotting pre-criminals that they can whisk the kids away early for a little corrective programming, ensuring the safety and continued boredom of the general populace.

James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" diGriz is one of the few who ever slipped below the radar. He was bored enough to take to crime and smart enough to go uncaught, and he's been pulling off heist after heist as he hones his skills and pads his nest. It's amusing to watch the reaction of the local cops, who don't have enough practice in this sort of thing to be effective. Jim feels pretty good, as he rationalizes to himself that he's really not hurting anyone.

Actually, follow his logic far enough and you realize that in the future world, where the population of all of Dirt is just a drop in the bucket compared to the population of the civilized galaxies, he might be right. So he robs a bank, takes a hundred billion credits or so. The bank loses nothing; the insurance policy kicks in. The insurance company loses nothing; they spread the loss out amongst their trillions upon trillions of customers by raising their rates. The customers, in point of fact, don't lose so much as two cents each, because the sheer number of customers makes the rate increase less than a penny per head. Besides which, Jim provides entertainment for the masses, who get to read about his exploits, and jobs for the police officers, who sorely need the practice. Win-win-win-win-win.

That is, until a heist goes wrong, and Jim finally gets caught. Not by the police-- nor by intergalactic law enforcement. He gets caught by the Special Corps, an organization that uses criminals to catch criminals, headed by Harold Peters Inskipp [[note]] a.k.a. "Inskipp the Uncatchable", formerly the greatest criminal in the galaxy until he was forcibly recruited the same way and eventually became the top guy[[/note]]. See, Jim is a TechnicalPacifist who sincerely believes that it's wrong to kill people [[note]]non-lethal violence is fine [[/note]], including bad guys and people who might be trying to kill ''him''. This puts him head and shoulders above the kind of villains that this organization deals with, who are perfectly willing to kill people, sometimes ''en masse''. And, well, if you need to deal with a mass-murdering supervillain and the local police force isn't even equipped to handle a simple bank robbery, who better to forcibly recruit than the less dangerous sort of criminal?

Jim, who isn't fond of the alternative (and who doesn't like a good lobotomy?), decides to accept the offer, and thus becomes one of the operatives, given various assignments to track down and neutralize dangerous criminals at various locations across the galaxy. His first assignment is to neutralize a FemmeFatale serial killer who [[spoiler:later becomes his wife and gives him twin baby boys]]. Oh, and also, he's about as infuriating to his boss as, well, any rather unconventional main character has ever been to DaChief.

* AntiHero: Jim, with comparatively little "Anti" to the "Hero".
* {{Anvilicious}}: The once-a-book diversions on Jim's ethical atheism can either be a quick blurb worked into the dialogue naturally (as in "The Stainless Steel Rat for President) or a borderline AuthorTract monologue.

* FemmeFatale: Angelina in the first novel; in later ones (after her HeelFaceTurn), more of a DarkActionGirl.

* GoodCannotComprehendEvil: More accurately, Sane Cannot Comprehend Homicidal Psychopath. Without ChemicallyInducedInsanity, at least.

* TelepathicSpacemen: The Psimen
* TheFettered. Jim, but see TechnicalPacifist.

* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture. Particularly odd are the scenes of manual labour performed by advanced humanoid robots.

* AnvilOnHead: The opening of ''The Stainless Steel Rat'' features diGriz dropping a safe on a policeman who's come to arrest him. (It's not until he's sure he has your attention that he bothers to mention that it's a ''robot'' policeman, and so well-armoured that the safe is not going to do it any serious harm.)

James "Slippery Jim" diGriz is one of the few who ever slipped below the radar. He was bored enough to take to crime and smart enough to go uncaught, and he's been pulling off heist after heist as he hones his skills and pads his nest. It's amusing to watch the reaction of the local cops, who don't have enough practice in this sort of thing to be effective. Jim feels pretty good, as he rationalizes to himself that he's really not hurting anyone.

* MonstersFavoritePettingSpot: Jim and his accomplice end up on a porcuswine[[note]]a huge, ill tempered livestock covered with sharp quills[[/note]] farm. The accomplice is freaked out when one approaches, but Jim simply takes a stick and starts scratching it behind the ears. Apparently, the quills make it difficult for them to do it on their own, and vermin are making full use of the cover.

That is, until a heist goes wrong, and Jim finally gets caught. Not by the police -- nor by intergalactic law enforcement. He gets caught by the Special Corps, an organization that uses criminals to catch criminals headed by Harold Peters Inskipp [[note]] a.k.a. "Inskipp the Uncatchable", formerly the greatest criminal in the galaxy until he was forcibly recruited the same way and eventually became the top guy[[/note]]. See, Jim is a TechnicalPacifist who sincerely believes that it's wrong to kill people [[note]]non-lethal violence is fine [[/note]], including bad guys and people who might be trying to kill ''him''. This puts him head and shoulders above the kind of villains that this organization deals with, who are perfectly willing to kill people, sometimes ''en masse''. And, well, if you need to deal with a mass-murdering supervillain and the local police force isn't even equipped to handle a simple bank robbery, who better to forcibly recruit than the less dangerous sort of criminal?

* ThisBedOfRoses The BackAlleyDoctor who does the plastic surgery to Jim has been reduced to that after losing his job. After he finishes with the surgery, Jim gives the doctor the final part of the payment... in marked money, explaining the hooker deserves some compensation for supporting him, so he sent the sum to her instead.

* Anvilicious: The once-a-book diversions on Jim's ethical atheism can either be a quick blurb worked into the dialogue naturally (as in "The Stainless Steel Rat for President) or a borderline AuthorTract monologue.

* TimeTravel: ''The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World''

* {{Zeerust}}: The first novel was written in 1961, so there's plenty of this. One example from very early in the first-published book: Jim buys a ticket for an interplanetary spaceship. He then changes his destination (to evade pursuit by the authorities) to a different planet...by using a cigar punch to alter the pattern of little holes on the paper ticket, thus altering the machine-readable information on the ticket. All pretty slick and futuristic...in 1961.

* {{Zeerust}}: The first novel was written in 1961.

* CorruptChurch: ''The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell''
%%* DaysOfFuturePast %%please do not uncomment without providing an example

* DeadlyScratch: In ''The Stainless Steel Rat for President'', Jim surrenders to TheGeneralissimo Zapilote, then scratches Zapilote's face, describes the horrific death that Zapilote is about to suffer from the virus he smuggled in on his fingernails, and [[PoisonAndCureGambit trades the cure]] for the release of all his captured family. Afterwards, he admits to a friend that [[SubvertedTrope he was bluffing]] with a drug to give Zapilote a harmless fever.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Averted in the first book when Jim tracks down Angelina only to find she's been [[TheHunterBecomesTheHunted lying in wait for him all along]]. Angelina just gives an EvilLaugh and shoots Jim four times in the chest and once in the head without even trying to find out who he is. He survives and tracks her down a second time. Angelina again sees through his disguise, but doesn't kill him because she's hoping he'll realise they're NotSoDifferent.

* AnachronisticClue: In ''The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World'', Jim, while in the time of the Napoleonic Wars (an alternate timeline, actually), learns that the villain whom he followed from the future is checking all people entering his stronghold with some kind of device. He's puzzled at what it's supposed to detect, since they don't have his personal data, and all parameters of his own body are within the Earth norm. Then he realizes [[spoiler:they didn't use nuclear power in the 19th century, and sure enough, the radiation level of his body is far above that of the locals]].