The Stainless Steell Rat Sings the Blues

Harry Harrison’s bestselling Stainless Steel Rat series has earned rave reviews and a legion of fans, and has catapulted the Rat himself, an antisocial rule breaker in an overcivilized world, to fame, if not fortune. Now the fabled futuristic criminal is back, in the long-awaited new adventure of intergalactic danger, intrigue, and—after a fashion—rock stardom. DiGriz is in the process of robbing the new Mint on Paskonjak when the heist goes terribly wrong. Threatened with a horrific death, Slippery Jim is allowed to cut a deal with the Galactic League: voyage to the planet Liokukae and bring back a missing artifact—the only known evidence of alien life-forms found in 32,000 years of galactic exploration. For diGriz there are a few catches. One is Liokukae itself—a dumping ground for the League’s misfits, murderers, maniacs, and the incurably obnoxious. Another is a little matter of life and death. To ensure the utterly untrustworthy diGriz’s cooperation, the League has given him a slow-acting poison, allowing him thirty days in which to succeed… or die. Now the Stainless Steel Rat is on his way to a world that is hurtling backward down the evolutionary scale—a land of fanatic, goat-herding Fundamentaloids, murderous Machmen, and a rusty guru named Iron John. DiGriz has developed an almost perfect cover: a four-member rock band that has a way of giving its audiences what they want to hear. But while the days tick away and diGriz’s life expectancy lowers, the mission evolves from finding an artifact to liberating a planet… which is a tune the Stainless Steel Rat most certainly knows how to sing. Zany, irreverent, and hilarious, the Stainless Steel Rat series continues as the most entertaining futuristic performance ever staged. And in The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues Harry Harrison takes the adventure to new levels of inventiveness and delight.