had a lot of fun reading this book, It's a pseudoshort story collection, Or, really, highlight stories from the career of the main character, Six such stories total.
This is a super fun read, Real fun, not forced fun, or obnoxious fun, Laumer's sense of humor is direct and sarcastic, He's fairly good with wordplay,
The stories read like James Bond snippets, There is also a lot of kosmic creativity in all of the stories, though the stories move quickly and do not pause for anything.
Laumer writes interesting scenarios that our hero always overcomes,
Recommended for folks tired of politicians, who love sci fi, and who demand books be entertaining, There aren't too many people who can write humorous Science Fiction, but Keith Laumer does it in these classic stories.
This book starts off the series, and the stories follow a formula, but an enjoyable one, Jame Retief is a lowerlevel staff member of the diplomatic service Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, and is the only one who can see clearly the problems they face.
His superiors always including Magnan are bureaucratic asscoverers who always follow the procedures, but Retief manages, by ignoring all of that, to save the day in the end.
This is the kind of book you don't need to sit down and read covertocover, Just pick it up and read a story when you want a lift, Macho and silly. Not interesting enough to finish, Hilarious! Though I would say the level of humor is not always the same in each story, Laumer did experiment. Still, Laumer is one of the few unsung greats of humor SF, I have really gotten into old scifi books this year, they all do a great job even today having a mis of expected events to great twist that I love.
This is the first book I read not about some great hero being a warrior or fighter, but a diplomat that does his best to work around the system that often times risks ruining everything.
I wish they would explain how a diplomat that hates diplomats got a job in the first place and why he puts up with it when he could leave, but maybe that's just me.
Laumer, Keith. Retief: Envoy to New Worlds,. Retief No Baen,.
Imagine that James Bond turned in his license to kill for a good course in martial arts and a career in extraterrestrial diplomacy.
That brings you close to Keith Laumers Retief, He is a diplomat in Earths Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, Their job is to spread goodwill to new races and keep their interstellar competitors from gaining influence, The Corps suffers from a bad case of red tape and rank inflation, but in any given mission, whatever his putative rank, Retief is always the third man in the diplomatic pecking order.
At the top is a selfabsorbed, grossly incompetent ambassador, The satirical attack on him reminded me of Joseph Hellers satire of the military in Catch, published just two years before Envoy to New Worlds.
The ambassadors second in command is the wellmeaning but nonetoobright Magnan, Retief is always Magnans subordinate, Magnan is often assigned to keep Retief out of trouble but usually needs to be rescued himself, Retief is observant and can always tell the good guys from the baddies, because unlike his colleagues, he bothers to learn the alien languages.
He is always the epitome of cool, Retief began, I think, as a character in the science fiction pulps, Laumer recycled the stories in several collections, and the character became ayear favorite, This earliest collection was fun to reread,stars. As you learned in a recent episode of Rodent's Digest, I try not to bother reviewing or rating books that already have huge numbers of reviews and ratings because my little warblings just get lost in the noise.
So I'm not going to rate all of the Retief books, This may be the only one, in fact, But I assure you, I have read them all, Some I've read several times, in several seasons, They are among the select few SciFi books I've carted around with me for decades, They're simply amusing. Like Godiva chocolate, with zero calories, Because of Retief, I love diplomats, Yes, if I were a lady, I'd do Retief, I've written characters who would do Retief, no questions asked, I mean, if you want clever, debonair Terran diplomatic males, look no further than Retief, He's kind of the suave James Bond of galactic diplomatic circles, Too bad his superiors don't have a bloody clue what's going on most of the time, . .
The Retief stories are always fun, This edition had been upgraded with a longer story from much later in the timeline of Retief stories called Rank Injustice, and I have to say, it was my least favorite.
What a fun throwback!
Envoy to New Worldsby Keith Laumer, is a fun little science fiction book in the old style.
It has aliens that look like turtles, and reminds me of the old black and white movies with giant crabs, ants, etc.
Laumer had worked for the Department of State as a U, S. Diplomat and it is clear that relationship was not a good one, His poking fun at diplomats and bureaucracy are thinly veiled and can be quite humorous, I think these stories accomplish their goal of being entertaining in as Science Fiction sense, and is worth a read.
The book will not change your life, but it will make you smile,
.stars
Six fun, clever, action packed stories, Cover artist: Lima de Freitas
Between the lines of the official histories of the frontier worlds of theth Century lie myriad confidential accounts of the boners, nearcatastrophes, and interstellar crises that were bound to occur when human meets nonhuman.
The adventures of CDC Corps Diplomatique Terra diplomat Jame Retief loom large in six highly classified missions where brain and brawn save land and lives despite redtape bound superiors amid conspiracy and conflict across alien planets guaranteed astounding, amazing, startling, galactic, weird, and thrillingly wonderful.
Protocol
Sealed Orders
Cultural Exchange
Aide Memoire
Policy
Palace Revolution Good fun read, Enjoyed the humor of substandard government service contrasted with competent efforts by the hero, This is the second time I've read this book, First time I've reviewed it,
Jaime Retief is a junior diplomat in the CDT, a bumbling, slapstickcomedy ambassador corps that misrepresents Terra Earth to the other races in the galaxy.
He works under Ben Magnan, who is just barely competent, a middlelevel bureaucrat in the Corps,
Laumer writes
with a wry, humorous style that makes you wonder if ANY diplomat in real life or fiction is competent at any level.
Only Retief can save the day to preserve peace and keep Terra supreme in the Galaxy,
The book is a series ofrelatively short stories and all of them are fun to read, Once started, I couldn't go to bed until I'd read the last page of the story I was reading, I always went to bed in a good mood, Lots of fun to read, I read this in college when I should have been studying, Read a lot of other SF and fantasy the same way, Laumer stood out from the pack of very capable authors because of his humor, The Retief tales were inherently funny, with gentle pokes at contemporary international relations,
A fun read, It's definitely from thes, but I had a lot of fun, It's basically Jeeves in Space, where an minor flunky quietly saves the day behind the scenes, much to the consternation of his superiors.
"Envoy to New Worlds" by Keith Laumer sends Corps Diplomatique Terran Jame Retief on six missions ADwhere brain and brawn save land and lives despite red tape bound superiors amid conspiracy and conflct across alien planets.
Always funny, rereadtimes. The digital era looks askance at reel and spool historical recordings, numerically specified for versimilitude p, The heavy French lingual influence is forced in Canada Chinese in dvd TV "Firefly" probable USA likely southern Spanish influence.
Say aloud for full tricksy silliness, goofy puns and plays Yills Ambassador F'KauKauKau, interpreter P'Toi, "Ka Swe in Burma" is real khao swe burmese coconut chicken noodle dish, much tastier than "sheep's eyes in the Sudan" p.
sitelink baenebooks. com/pretie
sitelink baenebooks. com/chapters/ Retief's Peace sample
sitelink keithlaumer. com/books. htm
Protocol Only Retief studied language tape beforehand, observes 'egg nog' symbol on their transport and kitchen garbage bin, hears servants discuss offensive seating and dog food,
Sealed Orders Leaving the briefcase closed, Retief "of the Mountain of Red Tape" punches down a quicktempered human settler bent on battle for oases, wrestles a tentacled Flapjack winning with finger into sensitive orifice.
"Tennessee rules" pallow opponents to bite, gouge, stomp, kneel, choke, punc, shove, kick, so addendum forbids tentacle twisting in decisive oneonone with alien leader "Hoshick of the Mosaic of the Two Dawns" who mistakes aggression for skirmish game.
Cultural Exchange Retief fills in for Magnan at MUDDLE Manpower Utilization Directorate, Division of Libraries and Education.
Hank Arapoulous's planet Lovenbroy, in debt to Croanie, needs grape pickers for the Harvest Festival, and offers a taste of heavenly Bacchus wine,
R: "Drinking on duty is frowned on"
H: "This isn't drinking, it's just wine, "
R: "We also have to be careful about violating quaint native customs, "
Aide Memoire is an official protest note popular with Magnan, but Retief foils an eyestalk Groaci plot
Policy of Terrans allows Groaci coverup
Palace Revolution against snobbish Nanni caste starts in the kitchen with knives,
Typos tricky to be sure of, because of purposeful alien translation bumbles::
p"junior member of the Terrestiral Embassy" maybe "Terrestrial"
p"my colleabues" for "colleagues" correctly by "Admirable" F'Kau Very funny stories with a ring of truth
Kindle editiom
Publication date: September,
Publisher: Fiction Hunter Press
Language: English
ASIN: BNWJ
pages
This is acollection of six Retief stories.
All are standalone stories but in addition to Retief, there is one other recurring character in some of the stories.
Mr. Laumer was a U. S. Air Force officer and later served in the U, S. Foreign Service. Those experiences add considerable authenticity to his stories of galactic diplomat Jame Retief, I think it safe to say that Laumer was not impressed with the leadership of the foreign service, The result is that he produced a number of very funny stories about diplomacy and politics, Unfortunately Laumer suffered a stroke in, He partially recovered and began writing again in the mid's but the stories and novels produced after that time are not the same quality as his earlier work.
I have enjoyed Keith Laumer's fiction since high school, In all that time the only serious complaint I've ever had is the question of what motivates Retief, I can think of several possible answers but I don't remember Laumer ever addressing the question,
In addition to his Retief stories, Laumer is also known for the Bolo series about giant tanks which are so advanced that they eventually became selfaware.
If I ever knew the origin of the name Bolo, I've forgotten it, The Bolos became so popular that other authors began to write stories and novels set in that universe, I believe that some are still being written,
Some of Laumer's fiction is available from Amazon as free Kindle editions, .
Get Hold Of Corrupção Nas Galáxias Written By Keith Laumer Shared As Booklet
Keith Laumer