2nd time around - and now 30 years older, this book was a bit disappointing. I always love the tone and pace of the Stainless Steel Rat books, but this one felt like there were lots of conveniences and moments that didn't quite make sense; like Jim being an expert on a country when he wasn't even sure what the planet was called....so yeah, being aware of the holes in the narrative tainted my experience this time.

Enjoyable read but I have more and more a feeling that while I absolutely adored the first novel in the series, I may never get that High back in the follow ups. This is yet another fun read but I miss the total libertarian selfishness of the original character and Angelina is really watered down again and doesn't feature all that prominently. Still, I will continue as even an ok Stainless Steel Rat novel is better than lots of other Sci Fi.

Can't even try to follow time travel stories, but it remains light, charming fare.

TL;DR: It's more of the Stainless Steel Rat. It's witty chaotic nonsense with crappy time-travel theme.

TL: When I read [b:The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge|64402|The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (Stainless Steel Rat, #5)|Harry Harrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925214l/64402._SY75_.jpg|1048943] I didn't think that there was a huge difference in the style of the content, the sort of meta-plot. However, the more I think about it in the hindsight of having just read "Saves the World" is that there is a difference in literary ability. You can definitely see Mr Harrison's ability to explain his characters and tell a story getting better and there's a great collection of snappy one-liners and absurd rejoinders from the over-acting diGriz too, I really loved stuff like:

I staggered mentally and looked around for a chair so I could sit down. Until I discovered I was already sitting down, so I sat harder.

There's only a 1-year gap between "Revenge" and "Saves the World", so it's less obvious there but contrasting it with [b:The Stainless Steel Rat|64394|The Stainless Steel Rat (Stainless Steel Rat, #4)|Harry Harrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328073906l/64394._SY75_.jpg|824589] it's pretty stark. When I started reading "Saves the World" the insta-chaos (reminiscent of the prior two volumes) pulled me in and the characterisations were a lot of fun (Professor Coypu is beautifully, if minimally, rendered). The same themes are here of intrepid and insufferable Renaissance Man James "Slippery Jim" diGriz in "Jim vs the World", although this time it's also Jim vs the Worlds: Time-Twister edition! And therein lies the rub, for me at least.

You absolutely can't take the Stainless Steel Rat series seriously, it's not intended for that, it's intended to be crazy fun escapist adventure. It's hilarious and interesting to try and guess what bizarre and unexpected twist will extricate diGriz from the chaotic corner he seems to have been backed into at the end of every chapter! None of it is realistic (apropos of that: the escape from the military base in "Saves the World" hands-down wins my "Craziest Escape" award and really deserves a movie just to shoot that, although again Bond kinda did that too)...err...what was I saying? Oh, yeah, so the problem here is that time-travel as a concept needs to be carefully considered to be interesting (as opposed to an endless sequence of "well, I'm going back in time two minutes earlier and destroying your time machine - slight tangent, I think [b:The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August|35066358|The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August|Claire North|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493966668l/35066358._SY75_.jpg|25807847] is my favourite time-travel concept) and I suspect that Mr Harrison did consider it, and then he went "Ha!" and literally reveled in smushing paradoxes into our faces. The occasional Deus Ex Machina is pretty much expected here, fine, I can live with that, but the combination punch of that and the cheapest of Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards really sullied the end of this book for me.

It started out as the high-point of the series, but I'm dropping it to 2-stars because I did not enjoy the final third of the book.

Slippery Jim is back, and this time he saves the world from a time traveller named "He". After Special Corps employees begin rapidly disappearing, Jim is sent back to 1975 earth, translated "dirt", to stop "He" from conceiving his evil plan to destroy Jim's planet. Jim is thus sent on a wild goose chase, full of time loopholes and paradoxes, to track "He" through time - eventually catching "He" in Napoleanic France, in time to prevent Napolean (which is actually "He") from winning the war against the British. As all the Stainless Steel Rat books, this is witty, satrical and a whole lot of fun to read.

I love these easy-going books that take a poignant look at humanity and war. This is a fun time-travel yarn that sees Slippery Jim in Earth’s past and far future. Just as fun and enjoyable as the rest of the series.

Two of my favorite genres - time travel and the Stainless Steel Rat. No explanation of why characters just "fade out" at the beginning of the story, and clearly no "parallel dimensions" hypothesis, but good fun regardless. As an aside, some good clean fun poked at 1970s Earth, the US in particular.