The Stainless Steel Rat
Stainless Steel Rat is written by Harry Harrison who is also the author of Deathworld, Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green), the popular Stainless Steel Rat books, and many other famous works of SF. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
26mentions
24people
2007–2026years
46% recommend50% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Have Space Suit Will Travel (Heinlein)
Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein)
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (one story in the book "Different Seasons" by Stephen King)
Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)
The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury)
Roadside Picnic (Strugatsky)
Frankenstein (Shelley)
Brave New World (Huxley)
Farenheit 451 (Heinlein)
Never Cry Wolf (Mowatt)
A Whale for the Killing (Mowatt)
The Machine Stops (Forster)
Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
Starship Troopers (Heinlein)
The Jungle Book (Kipling)
Lost in the Barrens (Mowatt)
The Republic (Plato)
Rendezvous with Rama (Clarke)
Ringworld (Niven)
The Stainless Steel Rat (Harrison)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson)
The Odyssey (Homer)
The Man who Would be King (Kipling)
The Pearl (Steinbeck)
Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)
A Scanner Darkly (Dick)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
Dracula (Stoker)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)
The Wind in the Willows (Grahame)
A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (Carroll)
Watership Down (Adams)
Gulliver's Travels (Swift)
Animal Farm (Orwell)
- Scifi here but the most embarrassing one I have to admit to loving is the stainless steel rat series by Harry Harrison.
- Foundation series (Asimov)
Stainless Steel Rat series (Harrison - a bit juvenile, but fun)
Dune (Herbert)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein)
Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein)
Starship Troopers (Heinlein)
A Scanner Darkly (Dick)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
Childhood's End (Clarke)
Robot series (Asimov)
Bicentennial Man (Asimov)
Brave New World (Huxley)
- Difficult to pick just one, but I will go with The Stainless Steel Rat. It was a great introduction to the idea that society's rules don't always make sense. I haven't read it since I was in grade school, so I don't know if anyone older would enjoy it. But it definitely planted the seeds of anarchism, hacking, punk, and not taking rules too seriously.
- You would like the Stainless Steel Rat scifi series of books by Harry Harrison. :)
- Actually, the whole Dune series, and risking to be controversial - the extended universe with the abomination of books by Frank Herbert's son. Yes, they break the rules, yes, they are rushed and yes some explanations plain don't make sense, but ohmygod the additional tens of thousands of years added to the story just put on so much more grandure... But why I like it: I open random page, and I just enjoy falling back to the epic story and remembering small details, discovering new ones, pondering upon the small artificial quotes before the chapters. Those books have so much going on for them, and thanks to the time spans involved you can actually pretty much jump in at any moment.
Other one is Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison, those are very funny and don't attempt to take themselves too seriously, and have the same principle - you can jump into the story at any moment and just enjoy rapid pace of events splashed with humorous commentary. Plus the protagonist is a very much self made man in a world where it doesn't come easily, so there's that bit of hope for you.
Thirdly - Discworld. I guess it does not need comment, does it?
