This installment (following The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! ) finds the con man/hero under sentence of death by slow-acting poison after he has (almost) robbed an impenetrable Mint. And in The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues Harry Harrison takes the adventure to new levels of inventiveness and delight.Even after four previous capers on the various planets of Harrison's high-tech (but recognizably hip) 25th century, the freshness of the author's language overcomes a somewhat predictable plot structure to make this outing by his favorite future antihero, Slippery Jim DiGriz, thoroughly entertaining. Zany, irreverent, and hilarious, the Stainless Steel Rat series continues as the most entertaining futuristic performance ever staged. But while the days tick away and diGrizs 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. 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. Now the Stainless Steel Rat is on his way to a world that is hurtling backward down the evolutionary scalea land of fanatic, goat-herding Fundamentaloids, murderous Machmen, and a rusty guru named Iron John. To ensure the utterly untrustworthy diGrizs cooperation, the League has given him a slow-acting poison, allowing him thirty days in which to succeed or die. Another is a little matter of life and death. One is Liokukae itselfa dumping ground for the Leagues misfits, murderers, maniacs, and the incurably obnoxious. 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 artifactthe only known evidence of alien life-forms found in 32,000 years of galactic exploration. DiGriz is in the process of robbing the new Mint on Paskonjak when the heist goes terribly wrong. Now the fabled futuristic criminal is back, in the long-awaited new adventure of intergalactic danger, intrigue, andafter a fashionrock stardom. “Harry Harrisons 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.

The stainless steel rat sings the blues