{"id":2174,"date":"2016-04-22T19:14:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T03:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2174"},"modified":"2016-04-22T19:14:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T03:14:51","slug":"review-the-stainless-steel-rat-for-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2174","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Stainless Steel Rat For President"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are people who will assert that Mary Sue<\/a> characters are solely the product of female writers.\u00a0 These people have never read a Stainless Steel Rat novel.\u00a0 Harry Harrison’s Slippery Jim DiGriz only fails to fit the bill by being older.<\/p>\n

I hadn’t read a Stainless Steel Rat novel since I was in high school, but I remembered them rather warmly. I did remember that I stopped reading them after a few because they had become formulaic. I was right.\u00a0 Even with a couple decades of time off, the formula is pretty easy to spot.<\/p>\n

It’s a shame that Harrison’s execution leaves me so cold.\u00a0 There are a few fun ideas running around in here, including the basis of the series.\u00a0 The idea is that in the future as authority gets more repressive and effective, criminals must similarly become more ruthless and effective to continue their trade.\u00a0 The insights that we’ll always have rule-breakers and that evolution improves everything are well taken, as is the To Catch A Thief<\/em> conceit that some criminals – like DiGriz – will use their skills to help society.<\/p>\n

But, like I say, the execution leaves much to be desired.\u00a0 DiGriz and his family of hyper-competent criminals are never challenged by any of the plot twists.\u00a0 None of the main characters experiences the slightest self-doubt or concern about taking on a planet of corrupt officials.\u00a0 No one ever breaks a sweat or really slows down to do anything but compliment DiGriz.\u00a0 The rest of the family are machines, right down to having no agency.<\/p>\n

Worse than simply being lazy writing, it undermines the main premise.\u00a0 Everyone outside the DiGriz family is so ineffectual that the very idea that society bred a super-criminal is unbelievable.\u00a0 If these guys are all DiGriz has to go up against, he’d never develop the super-competency that he needs.<\/p>\n

There are a couple nice set pieces in here.\u00a0 DiGriz is an atheist with a code against killing.\u00a0 Harrison supports those positions simply and clearly, and it’s a welcome change from today’s bloody action heroes.\u00a0 Still, overall I can’t recommend the Rat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are people who will assert that Mary Sue characters are solely the product of female writers.\u00a0 These people have never read a Stainless Steel Rat novel.\u00a0 Harry Harrison’s Slippery Jim DiGriz only fails to fit the bill by being older. I hadn’t read a Stainless Steel Rat novel since I was in high school, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174\/revisions\/2175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}