Keith Laumer Books

_Worlds of the Imperium_ (1962) was Keith Laumer's first novel. _Seven from the Stars_ (1962) was Marion Zimmer Bradley's second novel. The Laumer was first serialized in _Fantastic_ in 1961, and the Bradley was originally a one-shot novel in a 1960 _Amazing_. Both were placed together in this Ace Double Novel. It was not hard for readers back in the sixties to see that these were a pair of authors who were Going Places.

The Laumer deals with forbidden-- or at least, secret-- parallel worlds. His hero, Brian Bayard, is a diplomat from our timeline who is kidnapped and interrogated by agents from another timeline. He turns the tables on his captors, who-- stupidly, I would say-- try to brush him off with a British stiff-upper-lip approach. It turns out that the Imperium agents want Bayard to assasinate and replace his double in another timeline who is supposed to be a ruthless dictator. But there are a lot of twists and turns. There is a Hermann Goeriing who is definately _not_ like the German we know. And it turns out that the other Brian Bayard isn't exactly what he seemed. There is lots of action, and there are plenty of paradoxes to entertain those time travel buffs among the readers. Nicely done. I give it three stars.

This is a book I read when I was a kid (okay, that gives you a good approximation of my age, which is mid-30s). It was intriguing, and most importantly, funny. I loved it and later I wanted to read it again and could never remember the title or the author.

I spent (no lie) 20 years asking my science ficition-reading friends if they knew which book it was I read and loved about a Rutabaga on a motorcycle traveling through four dimensions. I got quite a few blank stares and people backing up away from me and trying to get away quickly and quietly. But, finally, I found this book in a used bookstore in 1997 and I had REDISCOVERED it. I was happy to read it again and even happier to be able to prove that I hadn't imagined such a wacko story line.

I recommend this book for those who like the sort of humor in the Retief series, or the kind of humor that Roger Zelazney had, and similar to the tone of some of Douglas Adams' stuff. Most of all, I think it reminds me of Zelazney's "Doorways in the Sand". I recommend this book. It's worth a read. It's short, and it will never win a writing prize from an Ivy League college, but I enjoyed the heck outta this story. I personally own three copies, although that is, admittedly, excessive. This book lead me to other Laumer books, including series on Lafayette O'Leary (which also amuses me greatly). Give this book a try -- it's out of print but can be easily found in second hand book stores and thrift stores for a measely sum (I paid about $2 for a paperback out-of-print version of this).

This is not the science fiction I usually read, as it involves super heroes (disguised as ordinary men), tanks-on-steroids called Bolos, and standard guy-against-the-universe plots. But nobody does a better job with this kind of material than Keith Laumer. I love his stuff and it makes a nice break from cyber-dudes and computer games.

"The Undefeated" consists of four novellas published from 1963 through 1967 in "Galaxy" and "Worlds of Tomorrow" sci-fi magazines. They are:

"WorldMaster"--After the defeat the Soviet Bloc (yeah, I know, a bit dated) in a fierce space battle where his admiral's ship appeared to hang back out of the fight, Captain Maclamore learns that his commander is saving space's last remaining battleship for better things--like helping him take over as supreme ruler of Earth. Does Captain Mac want to join his old friend in the new World Order? Heck, no. Mac's going to take out the wannabe-El-Supremo or die trying. (Anyone with a 'carefully lamp-tanned' face has got to be a bad guy in a Laumer novella.)

"The Night of the Trolls"--Eighty or so years after the Big War, Jackson wakes up in a top-priority research center and discovers that what used to be America has been bombed back to the Stone Age. What exactly happened while he was asleep? In order to find out, Jackson must first get by the rogue Bolo that guards the research center where he had slept away eight decades.

"Thunderhead"--Lieutenant Carnaby has been stranded for twenty-one years on a miserable mining planet with a single surviving (if you can call it that) settlement. He tends his beacon station, wondering if the Fleet has forgotten him---"Maybe they're too busy fighting the Djann to check in with every little JN beacon station on the Outline." When a message does finally come through, Carnaby's flitter is long defunct, and he must make the long climb up Thunderhead to reset his beacon. If he does make it to the top, it won't be much fun. The long-absent Fleet has asked him to call an enemy warship down on top of himself.

"End as a Hero"--A bit more tongue-in-cheek than the first three stories. Grantham (a Retief clone) escapes from the enemy Gool (gigantic icky telepathic slugs) and makes his way back to Earth, only to discover his own people are trying to destroy him because they think his mind is controlled by the Gool. After the first few attempts to blast him into atoms have failed, Grantham does some serious thinking on how to persuade his commanding officers that he's still on their side.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.

The book deals with the concept of parallel universes. The concept is relatively well thought out by Laumer and given to us in more detail then I expected he would do in such short novels. The story deals with the conflicts played out between the worlds of these parallel universes and how they impact each other both knowingly and unknowingly.

Overall I thought this was a really good read. The pace of the story was fast and what one would expect of a tightly written story. It always amazes me how much thicker today's science fiction novels tend to be versus those of 30 or 40 years ago. Could it be as simple as the art of tight writing and a strong editor are lost today?

The characters are not that strongly developed and this seems to be the sacrifice Laumer makes to keep the stories to the point. The characters are developed only as absolutely necessary to the story so of course the only character we are attuned to is the single main character.

I recommended and if you enjoy the genre at all I think you will enjoy the novel as well.