The novel “The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” by Harry Harrison was published for the first time in 2010. It’s the latest novel in the Stainless Steel Rat saga.

Jim diGriz retired from his work in the service of the Special Corps and also from interstellar criminal. He thinks he can have some peace with his wife Angelina but you can’t escape your past, especially your family. A cousin somehow manages to find him and asks him to help him find a place to continue his animal farming along with other farmers from their home planet.

Jim diGriz buys the ship on which the group of farmers arrived with their animals but it’s an old piece of junk with an incompetent crew. The captain sabotages some equipment after being fired and for that reason the starship has to travel blindly among the stars risking to stop in deep space at any moment.

“The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” is the latest novel in the famous cycle of Jim diGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat, written by Harry Harrison. In 1957 he published the short story “The Stainless Steel Rat”, later expanded into the first novel of the cycle, which introduces the main character.

James Bolivar diGriz is a sort of future gentleman thief: he’s not evil and considers theft a kind of fun. He has his own ethics so he tries not to hurt those who don’t deserve it. These premises have served to create a saga full of humor with satirical elements as well.

So far, Harry Harrison has written twelve novels in which Jim diGriz, after being captured by the Special Corps, joins them to live a series of adventures on various planets. The head of the Special Corps is Harold P. Inskipp, himself a former con man, a fact not accidental because that sort of special interstellar police is formed mostly by former criminals.

In the first novel, Jim diGriz met Angelina, of course a criminal as well, who’d become the love of his life. They have two children and live many adventures together.

“The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” can be read independently, though of course it’s always better to know the previous novels to understand all the details. In this latest novel a son of Jim and Angelina appears: being the son of two of the most talented criminals in the galaxy it seems obvious that he’s become a successful banker.

In “The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” the arrival of a cousin of Jim from their home world is an excuse to start an interstellar voyage that will bring Jim, Angelina, a group of farmers and their animals on different planets. This is because the ship on which they travel is a piece of junk and was also sabotaged so it has to travel blindly, occasionally using a sort of muck propulsion.

Jim diGriz just wants to get rid of his cousin and the other farmers to return to his vacation, instead on every planet he faces various problems, especially with some local inhabitants.

These adventures of Jim diGriz are similar to those that could be commonly found in science fiction a few decades ago. This is not accidental since “The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” was written by an author who started his career in the ’50s. The difference is that in this novel there’s a strong comedic tone.

It’s obvious that in a novel like this one it’s not possible to find very deep subjects and even the satire is rather superficial. The protagonists were somewhat developed in the course of the previous novels of the cycle but from this point of view “The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” adds nothing and the other characters aren’t developed at all.

Basically, “The Stainless Steel Rat Returns” is a sci-fi comedy so if you want something deeper this isn’t the kind of novel for you. Even within the cycle of the Stainless Steel Rat, it doesn’t really add anything. Overall, I found it pretty funny anyway so I recommend it only to fans of such stories, particularly those of Jim Griz.