“The Stainless Steel Rat: Deluxe Edition” by Harry Harrison, Carlos Ezquerra, Kelvin Gosnell

Main Index / Reviews Index / Fiction Reviews Index / 2021 Reviews Index

Rating: 4/5 Stars

A great adaptation by 2000AD of three stories by Harry Harrison on the Stainless Steel Rat. This re-released edition includes the original coloured panels produced when the series was first published in 2000AD.

• The Stainless Steel Rat: gives an introduction to James Bolivar diGriz, also known as Slippery Jim or The Stainless Steel Rat, a conman and thief in the future. He gets out-conned after a caper and gets enlisted into the Special Corps to hunt down other thieves. But he discovers a plot to build a warship, which turns out to be by Angelina, another con artist with a murderous bent. He eventually hunts her down and catches her. Cured of her murderous tendencies, she teams up with diGriz to do other capers.
• The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World: in this story, diGriz gets sent back to the past on Earth in order to save the future. A mad person known only as He is changing the past to wipe out the Special Corps. diGriz ends up in the 20th Century and stops He from blowing up the Americas. But He escapes further into the past, to London in the 18th Century. There, diGriz again foils He’s plan, sending He far into the future. In a final conflict, He apparently wins, but somehow diGriz foils him again with a time paradox that traps He in a time loop.
• The Stainless Steel Rat For President: diGriz gets a message for help from a world under the thumb of a dictator. After answering the call for help, diGriz decides that the best way to get rid of the dictator is to run as a candidate of President against the dictator. Of course, diGriz will need every dirty trick he can find in the book to make sure he can outmanoeuvre the dictator and rig the vote in his favour. And he will need the help of his wife, Angelina and his sons James and Bolivar to do so.

Book read from 2021/08/19 to 2021/09/02