James Bolivar DiGriz, alias "Slippery Jim" and "The Stainless Steel Rat", is the fictional hero of a series of humorous science fiction novels written by Harry Harrison.
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The Stainless Steel Rat is anti-hero James Bolivar diGriz, who goes by many aliases, including "Slippery Jim" and "The Stainless Steel Rat". He is a futuristic con man, thief and all-round rascal. He is charming and quick-witted, a master of disguise and martial arts, an accomplished bank robber, an expert on breaking and entering, and (perhaps most usefully) a skilled liar. A master of self-rationalization, the Rat frequently justifies his crimes by arguing that he is providing society with entertainment; and besides which, he only steals from institutions which have insurance coverage. He displays a strong morality, albeit in a much more restricted sense than is traditional. (For example, he will happily steal, but deplores killing.)
From the original publisher's blurb:
...We must be as stealthy as rats in the wainscoting of their society. It was easier in the old days, of course, and society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as old wooden buildings have more rats than concrete buildings. But there are rats in the building now as well. Now that society is all ferrocrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps in the joints. It takes a very smart rat indeed to find these openings. Only a stainless steel rat can be at home in this environment...
The character was introduced in Harrison's short story, The Stainless Steel Rat, which was first published in 1957 in Astounding magazine. The story introduces the Rat, who has just carried out a successful larceny operation, and subsequently details a complex bank robbery which the Rat pulls off with ease. However, he is outfoxed by the mysterious "Special Corps" — a crime-fighting organisation staffed with former criminals — and recruited by them in order to fight crime. Harrison used the story, with minor modifications, as the introduction to the series' first full-length novel, also called The Stainless Steel Rat. Like other characters created by Harrison, the Rat is a speaker of Esperanto and advocates atheism.
She is a criminal mastermind much like the Rat, only less ethical and more willing to kill. As the Rat's first case for the Special Corps, he tracks Angelina down and ends up falling in love with her. After her capture, she undergoes psycho surgery (not to be mistaken for "psychic surgery") to considerably lessen her homicidal tendencies and joins the Corps; during that time she begins a relationship with the Rat that ends with them marrying in the last trimester of her pregnancy. She later assists on many of the Rat's adventures. While she is no longer a heartless killer, her suppressed homicidal tendencies occasionally come out, especially when she sees another woman in close proximity to her husband.
They are the twin sons of the Rat and Angelina. The Rat missed the first six years of their life because of his adventures in time, but they share their father's attitudes and many of his skills. They end up marrying the same woman, who falls in love with both of them and gets herself duplicated into two identical women sharing one mind.
He is the director of the Special Corps and one of the most powerful men in the Galaxy. He recruits the Rat, but is frequently infuriated by his insubordinate attitude and tendency to "go rogue" and commit independent crimes for sheer enjoyment. Ironically, the Special Corps is composed almost entirely of former criminals—Inskipp himself was a legendary fugitive known as "Inskipp the Uncatchable" before becoming the Corps' commander.
He is a Special Corps boffin who had developed a Time Helix device permitting time travel as well as a portal to alternate realities. He also has a great deal of general scientific knowledge. He sent a copy of his mind with the Rat on his excursion to the 20th century. Coypu himself is rarely described apart from having prominent buck teeth - a trait he shares with his namesake, the Coypu, or nutria.
The Bishop was a master criminal on Bit O'Heaven, the Stainless Steel Rat's home planet. He was a lot less physical in his capers than Jim, he focused a great deal on computer crime, but also undertook robberies, always leaving as his calling card a picture of the bishop chess piece. He retired from crime before Jim was born, and Jim only learnt of his existence from a fellow prisoner while briefly in jail. Jim then contacted The Bishop by using his calling card in a robbery, however as a result The Bishop was forced out of retirement when he underestimated the Police's computer security systems after running a check on Jim himself. The Bishop eventually became Jim's mentor and taught him a great deal about their trade, as well as a code of ethics. Eventually Jim and The Bishop had to leave Bit O'Heaven and on their first off-planet adventure The Bishop was killed. As a parting gift he left Jim a note that he signed with his real name, although the name is not revealed to the reader.
Also known as "The Gray Men", they are a human subculture who prefer domination to coexistence. Their expertise lies in using technology to manipulate sentient minds, and have manipulated both humans and aliens on a grand scale. Jim has experienced one of their techniques (in which a gray man agent seemingly severs his hands with an axe; this was an illusion). Jim has knowingly opposed them on two separate occasions (The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge & The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You) however during conversation it is revealed by Kome that prior to The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You Jim has in fact thwarted their plans twice already, making this their third encounter. The text can also be read to say that the second time he thwarted their plans was with the alien invasion so the third encounter also happened during The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You when Jim invaded their home planet. They live on a harsh, icy world; this existence forced them to eliminate all emotion from their culture. This society is also completely patriarchal, with women being treated as nothing more than property. (Incidentally "Kekkonshiki" is the romanization of the Japanese word for "Marriage Ceremony" 結婚式.)
As of 2010[update] there have been twelve books in the Stainless Steel Rat series.
The book series is written only in a semichronological order; it breaks the continuity during part of the series to focus on the Rat's early career, then returns to "modern-day". Here, then, is a list of the books in the order they take place, rather than the order they were written.
Based on information in The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World it is possible to work out when the timeline is set: James is sent 32598 years into the past to 1975, making events happen in and around 34573 - although Professor Coypu also mentions that they are now using a different calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Specifics of the new calendar are never mentioned.
The Stainless Steel Rat, The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World and The Stainless Steel Rat for President were adapted into a comic strip form in early issues of 2000 AD, written by Kelvin Gosnell and drawn by Carlos Ezquerra. Ezquerra drew Jim with an appearance modelled on the actor James Coburn. They appeared in the following issues of 2000AD;
The first appearance of The Stainless Steel Rat in prog 140 was supposed to be preceded with a brief panel of explanation of who Jim was, however an editorial error meant that the panel actually appeared at the end of the first episode, not the beginning. This prompted a letter to be printed in 2000 AD from Harry Harrison himself pointing out the error.
All three stories were collected in a trade paperback in July 2010 (ISBN 1906735514).
Harrison also produced a parody of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat (ISBN 0-441-94978-9):
The reader's decisions will determine whether he or she can find Prof. Geisteskrank on the planet Skraldespand and bring him back before he activates a lethal new weapon.
Despite the above description, the player cannot fail, regardless of his choices (even though it is possible to get caught in an inescapable loop at one point). It should also be noted that the name of Prof. Geisteskrank is German for "insane", and name of the planet "Skraldespand" is Danish for "trashcan".
In the tribute anthology Foundation's Friends, Harrison wrote a story, The Fourth Law of Robotics, which featured the Stainless Steel Rat in the setting of Isaac Asimov's Robot books.
In Stephen King's novel The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, which contains a large number of references to other works, Eddie Dean spots a robot that he says looks like "a stainless steel rat".
In Transformers: Beast Wars, Rat-Trap makes a quip about being a "stainless steel rat".
In a story published in Marvel UK's Blake's 7 Monthly, Vila attempts to steal a valuable item, only to find that he has been beaten to it by 'Slippery Jim', who leaves a note of consolation at the scene.
"Doctor Two-Brains" in the PBS Kids series WordGirl, has a mouse brain as well as a human brain, which makes him crave cheese and fear cats. He designed a stainless steel mouse suit that enables him to temporarily become invincible. Temporarily, because he left the owners manual easily accessible to WordGirl's sidekick, Captain Huggy Face.
A board game inspired by the Stainless Steel Rat series was published by SPI in their magazine Ares in the late 1970s. It involved the Rat infiltrating a space station under hostile control.
The MIT class ring, commonly referred to as "The Brass Rat," when cast in Celestrium (also known as jeweler's steel) is often referred to as "The Stainless Steel Rat" in reference to The Stainless Steel Rat series.
The Chinese activist Liu Di, writing under the screen name "Stainless Steel Rat" (不锈钢老鼠), became a high-profile symbol for democracy and free speech in China since her detention in November 2002. Her screen name is often translated as Stainless Steel Mouse.
Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale received the first novel favorably, saying "though pure entertainment, [it] underlines SF's role in providing speculative thought about potential problems."[3]