Harry Harrison 43 min read

When it comes to picking locks, Slippery Jim diGriz admits no master, so he's startled when, creeping into Inskipp's room, the light snaps on and a .75 recoilless is pointed at his sternum.

Harry Harrison's 1960 story is a rollicking space-opera caper starring his beloved Stainless Steel Rat. Witty, fast, hugely fun. Read it for prime Harrison, the interstellar con-man Jim diGriz, recruited to hunt a battleship-sized menace disguised in plain sight, in one of the origin tales of a classic SF rogue.

In its time

Published in 1960, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

43 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

John Schoenherr