Bill, the Galactic Hero #1

(Bill, the Galactic Hero #1 by Harry Harrison) - (first published 1965) -- A humorous science-fiction novel from the author of THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT. Bill is a peaceful farm boy until he is lured by the martial music of a passing recruitment sergeant, drugged, and forced to enlist in the Empire Space Corps. He accidentally saves the Galaxy from marauding aliens, and then his adventures really start.... |...| 'It was the highest honor to defend the Empire against the dreaded Chingers, an enemy race of seven-foot-tall lizards. But Bill, a Technical Fertilizer Operator from a planet of farmers, wasn't interested in honor-he was only interested in two things: his chosen career, and the shapely curves of Inga-Maria Calyphigia. Then a recruiting robot shanghaied him with knockout drops, and he came to in deep space, aboard the Empire warship Christine Keeler. And from there, things got even worse...
From the sweltering fuse room aboard the Keeler, where he loses an arm while blasting a Chinger spaceship, to the Department of Sanitation far below the world-city of Helior, where he finds peace, job security, and unlimited trash...here is Bill, a pure-hearted fool fighting a deluxe cast of robots, androids, and aliens in a never-ending losing battle to preserve his humanity while upholding the glory of the Empire'.'

|...| Bill was a peaceful farm boy until he was lured by the martial music of a passing recruitment sergeant, drugged, and made to enlist in the Empire Space Corps. His basic training is sheer hell, but somehow he manages to stay alive and achieve the rank of Fusetender 6th Class in the process. En route to an engagement with the lizard-like Chingers, Bill's spaceship is involved in a supreme contest and by accident Bill is the man who saves the sihp and wins the day. A grateful Galaxy awards him its highest accolade, the Purple Dart, to be presented by the Emperor himself on the fabulous aluminium-covered capital planet, Helior. And then his adventures really start to take off in the most bizarre and nastily surprising ways...

[About the Author] Harry Harrison was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey in Connecticut, in 1925. He is the author of a number of much-loved series including the Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero sequences and the Deathworld Trilogy. He is known as a passionate advocate of Esperanto, the most popular of the constructed international languages, which appears in many of his novels. He published novels for over half a century and is perhaps best known for his seminal novel of overpopulation, MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!, which was adapted into the cult film SOYLENT GREEN. He died in 2012.

"Simply THE funniest science fiction book ever written" -- Terry Pratchett