The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Warning: Don’t read this review if you haven’t read the first Stainless Steel Rat novel.

Several nights ago I was in a bad mood. I had asked my husband to pick up M&M’s while he was at the grocery store because my daughter needed them for a school party the next morning. Due to a bad cell phone connection, he came home with the wrong thing and I didn’t discover this until 11 pm, after the closest grocery store was closed. Grumbling and feeling sorry for myself, I got into my car and set out searching for M&Ms.

Fortunately, I had grabbed an audiobook on my way out the door: The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge by Harry Harrison (produced by Brilliance Audio). Within 2 minutes of hitting play, show more I was smiling and laughing out loud — a complete mood reversal. It’s not just the despicably charming characters of Slippery Jim DiGriz and used-to-be-evil Angelina, but also Phil Gigante’s hilarious delivery.

The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge begins with Slippery Jim robbing a bank and Angelina driving the getaway car. Jim is as clever and ingenious as ever, but now he’s joined by Angelina — the evil villainess from the first novel who’s supposedly been “fixed” and is now working with Jim for the Special Corps, though they’ve both escaped and are attempting to return to lives of crime together. Angelina hasn’t lost any of her skills and ambition — she just has a bit of human decency now. Fortunately for the reader, not enough decency that she isn’t eager to go along on Jim’s crime sprees and help him out of tight spots, even while pregnant. This combination of Angelina’s brilliant criminal activity, deadly fighting skills, and sweet wifely and motherly instincts is absurdly amusing. And we’re never quite sure if she’s really cured of her sociopathic tendencies… Phil Gigante gets her voice just right.

Jim and Angelina end up turning themselves in and Jim gets sent on a dangerous assignment in which he must figure out how the planet Cliaand is conquering other planets. Along the way, he goes undercover as a Cliaand officer (Gigante’s Russian accents are so funny here), meets an army of beautiful women, wears transparent clothes, undergoes psychoanalysis (Gigante’s got a German accent here), and creates a troop of polite robot butlers who, in Gigante’s uppercrust English accent, say things like “Thanking you, Sir” as they throw bombs at the enemy.

The Stainless Steel Rat series, so far, is superb in every way — the plot is exciting and clever, the writing is tight and colorful, and Jim’s voice (it’s written in first-person) is endlessly entertaining. Phil Gigante’s humorous narration makes it doubly funny. This is definitely a series to read on audio! show less

La segunda entrega de la serie se ajusta bastante al molde de la primera: Una trama de acción y espionaje bastante divertida con sus puntos de humor (Realmente, el estilo de la mayoría de los textos de Harrison) Tiene una idea interesante sobre el tema de las invasiones planetarias, aunque la resolución es un poco floja.

I didn't enjoy this stainless steel rat adventure nearly as much as the first. The scenes often seem disjointed without sufficiently building on what came before, and there are a few giant leaps in which problems are suddenly solved without sufficient explanation. it might make a better action movie than a book.

Eh. A little too much sci-fi James Bond-ing, most of the novel just a long list of disguises and gadgets our honestly pretty grating lead character uses to reach his goal. The plot does redeem itself slightly in the last third, and it feels like someone could make something of the plot today, but... eh.

This audio book was OK. Even though nearly a decade had passed between the publishing of this work and when Harrison wrote the original Stainless Steel Rat this sequel suffers from the same that is so common in quickly released movie sequels. Namely it is the exact same story just put in a different location.

Jim and Angelina got married since the last time. Angelina has much more left in her mind than the previous work would have lead us to believe. They decided to go rouge and return to crime. Crime didn't pay and woops really it was all for the secret core. OMG a world of people is trying to take over another planet, that's impossible. Oh wait robots, but maybe not.

I didn't like this one as much as the others, to be honest. It wasn't as humorous, and seemed to lag a little in the middle. It kept me occupied on the plane though.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/Harry_Harrison/The_Stainless_Steel_Rats_Revenge.html

I read and enjoyed this book as a teenager.