Harry Harrison 29 min read

The instant the cop walks in, 'Slippery Jim' diGriz knows the game's up, so he grins, drops a three-ton safe on the officer's head, and slips away, the galaxy's last great crook.

Harry Harrison's 1957 story is the original tale that grew into the beloved Stainless Steel Rat novel. Fast, funny, delightful. Read it for the first appearance of the irrepressible con-man Slippery Jim diGriz, recruited by the law he's spent his life dodging, in a witty, fast-moving caper that launched one of SF's most enduring comic heroes.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas