20 works of upbeat science fiction to brighten your day

A Stainless Steel Trio (Cover image via Tor Books)

4. The Stainless Steel Rat

It’s a little odd once you think of it, but it turns out that the creator of Soylent Green has some pretty good comedy chops, too. Writer Harry Harrison (who later wrote Make Room! Make Room!, the 1966 inspiration for Soylent Green) created a long lasting comic character in the personage of the Stainless Steel Rat.

Well, “Stainless Steel Rat” is only one of his names. His given name is James Bolivar diGriz, but that’s no fun all by itself. Along with “The Stainless Steel Rat,” he also goes by “Slippery Jim,” which was surely more innocent back in 1957. That’s when the character first debuted in a short story, “The Stainless Steel Rat,” published in Astounding magazine.

Yes, it’s true that the Rat is a thief and a con man. Those of you with more forgiving hearts may call him a rascal, rather than an out and out criminal. Like many protagonists in the science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s, he’s also a jack of all trades. The Rat can take you down with his martial arts skills or simply slip by unnoticed, being a master of disguise. He can also break and enter with relative ease. If caught, he can occasionally escape because he’s just that good at lying. Or else he might charm someone out of restraining him.

Beneath all of the petty criminality, however, the Rat is ultimately a decent person. He won’t kill and has a strict, if unique, moral code. At least he only steals from companies that have a good insurance policy.

If you’d rather skip the short story and head into novel territory, you should start with The Stainless Steel Rat, published in 1961. There are 12 books in the series, heading all the way into 2015.