A prequel to the original series of books which began with
The Stainless Steel Rat. Slippery Jim is here a brash 17
year old who has left his parents' porcuswine farm,
planning to embark on a life of crime. The book opens with
Jim bungling a bank job so that he can be arrested and
sent to prison, where he plans to learn the art of being a
master criminal.
Deciding that the Bishop should be his mentor, Jim sets
about proving himself worthy of the master's attention. He
eventually has to flee his home planet of Bit O' Heaven
with the Bishop, but Garth, the Captain of the ship who
promised them safe passage, sells them into slavery.
The latter part of the book details Jim's adventures on
the planet Spiovente, a semi-industrial world fighting
feudal wars with weapons smuggled in (against League
regulations) by Captain Garth.
Dedication: Dedicated with appreciation to Nick Landau and Dave Tate
London: Titan Books, August 1985, 183pp. Limited edition (250 copies): 0-907610-53-6. Frontispiece plate illustration by John Bolton. Bound and slipcased in silver-coloured plastic - no dust jacket.
London: Titan Books, August 1985, 183pp. Trade Edition: 0-907610-53-6, hbk. Jacket: Jim Burns.
New York: Bantam, October 1985, 214pp., ISBN: 0-553-24708-5, pbk. Cover: Jim Burns. Reprinted April 1994 (ISBN: 0-553-27942-4)
London: Sphere, September 1985, 185pp., ISBN: 0-7221-4817-8, pbk. Cover: Peter Elson. Reprinted 1986 (twice); 1987; 1988 (Cover: Peter Elson); June 1984 (ISBN: 1-85723-277-1)
in: Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat (Boxed Set), New York: Bantam, 1985(?). Also contains The Stainless Steel Rat for President and The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You.
New York: Bantam Science Fiction Book Club, February 1986, 214pp., hbk. Jacket: Jill Baumann.
as: Die Geburt einer Stahlratte. Munich: Heyne, 1988, 285pp., ISBN: 3-453-02499-0, pbk. Translated by Thomas Schlück. Cover: Karel Thole. [German]
as: Libro Secondo: É Nato un Ratto d'Acciaio, in: Il Ritorno di Jim diGriz. Milan: Editrice Nord, May 1990, 649pp., ISBN: 88-429-0406-6. Translated Giampaolo Cossato and Sandro Sandrelli. [Italian]
as: Naskiĝo de la Rustimuna Ŝtalrato. Jekaterinburg: Sezonoj, 1996, 222pp. Translated by Reinhard Fössmeier, Edmund Grimley Evans, Bob Helm, Konrad Hinsen, Pierre Jelenc, Jorge Llambias, Kevin Schoedel, Mark Weddell. [Esperanto]
in: (A Stainless Steel Rat is Born and The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted) Moskow: 1999, 422pp., ISBN: 5-04-000-42-9, hbk. [Russian]
? (23rd August 1985), p.69.
"After his recent epic, West of Eden, Harrison returns to the brisk,
brash Stainless Steel Rat series ... The contrast in form does not mask the
persistent questioning of cultural assumptions that underlies that long,
serious work and this short, humorous adventure ... As usual in Harrison's
fine entertainments, he continually opens trap doors beneath the characters,
whose clever escapes land them in ever hotter water."
The Stainless Steel Rat Series