4 stars
This studbook was fun, but in a different way than the others in the Stainless Steel Rat series. The 7th overall book in the series, chronologically it comes immediately after the Prequel "The Stainless Steel Rat is born" returnreturnOur hero slipper Jim is to avoid being brought back to him some planet to face bank coppery charges and gets dropped off on a military planet. He finds out his nemises is the now the general of the whole damn army and he finds his way to get drafted. Ends up on another new planet that has no government, and the military doesn't know how to deal with that. Its inhabitants seem to practice anarcho-mutalism, which the author calls Individual Mustalism. Here it gets kind of preachy, similar to out how Little Brother gets about Free Software, and the apparent "leader" (as much as their can be in anarchist society) is …
This studbook was fun, but in a different way than the others in the Stainless Steel Rat series. The 7th overall book in the series, chronologically it comes immediately after the Prequel "The Stainless Steel Rat is born" returnreturnOur hero slipper Jim is to avoid being brought back to him some planet to face bank coppery charges and gets dropped off on a military planet. He finds out his nemises is the now the general of the whole damn army and he finds his way to get drafted. Ends up on another new planet that has no government, and the military doesn't know how to deal with that. Its inhabitants seem to practice anarcho-mutalism, which the author calls Individual Mustalism. Here it gets kind of preachy, similar to out how Little Brother gets about Free Software, and the apparent "leader" (as much as their can be in anarchist society) is even named Sterner, though he claims to have come upon IM the same way everyone else did, from a super intelligent AI. returnreturnThere is a little problem with continuity as Jim is used (willing or not) as an agent of The Leauge, but if this had happened in a Pre-existing timeline, why no mention of that when he's first captured by the League in Book 1?
