Books like The Stainless Steel Rat

This was an interesting book to read. Pulp sci-fi written in 1961 and reprinted dozens of times. First in a successful and long running series. My copy comes from the late 80s when it was selling very well.The main points of interest for me were how poor a prediction of future technology it was, and how badly sci-fi was written 55 years ago.The Stainless Steel universe has the 'standard' many-times-faster-than-light travel, instant communication (via psychic telephone men this time), and highly intelligent robots.A strange distinction is made between robots and computers. The robots have 'robot brains' and can do complex jobs like being policemen. (some run on coal!)Computers on the other hand do bugger all. You feed them navigation instructions on tape. They take anything from 1o seconds to several minutes to search modest databases. And that's pretty much it.Files are held in filing cabinets on paper. Our hero spends a fair time rustling his way through dusty heaps of files.Currency is paper and coin. Our hero (a thief who turns policeman) steals money in bags and carries it to other planets hidden in his luggage.So in short, the laws of physics are overturned at will with not even a two-word description of the engines or principles involved, and the computer revolution goes unanticipated.The story is a rather silly one about chasing a murderous female criminal who Slippery Jim falls in love with in a deeply unconvincing 1950s movie kind of way. The plot is pretty thin and involves a bunch of face-changing and unlikely guesswork. The world/universe building are very basic and rather uninspired.I found the book's only saving grace to be that the first person narrator, Jim, has a strong, lively voice with a measure of humour to it. Given that the sci-fi 'failings' were pretty common to most (all?) of the sci-fi around at the time I guess the strong voice accounts for the books' popularity.Essentially this work was 'of its time' and has dated badly.Fortunately it's a very short book, perhaps only 50,000 words or so. Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #prizes…..