Keith Laumer Books

Great fun! Laumer deliver's (as usual). It's not Dune, and it's not aspiring to be high art ... more of an action packed Heinlein juvenile, which is not a bad thing to be. Typical Laumer elements. Hero who doesn't know when to quit. Fast paced action scenes. Self relience, luck, and grit win the day. Hope to see Baen put out some of his other novels packaged in future volumes, by Baen, but this was a good one to see, in their continuing republications.

The two produced a work far below what they normally write. The narrative was barely readable and did not flow smoothly. Characters presented were shallow and disappointing.

An adventure in a feudal Britain, where Mr Bayard (the same of "The Worlds of Imperium" , appears in passing. In K.Laumer parallel universe logical often lacks, but fun is assured.

I'm a big fan of Keith Laumer, I've been reading his books since the 1960s. I love most of his work, but this is a very inferior example. I've been told that Keith Laumer had a stroke, and that this was written afterward. I can't verify that, but it sounds right. His sense of humor is all but gone, along with most if his timing, which is what usually drives his stories. This is an easy read, somewhat amusing, but I can't really recommend it. If you want Laumer at his best, try Dinosaur Beach.

The Retief stories by Laumer are for the most part light-hearted, fast-paced fun reads. "Retief and the Rascals" is none of the above. My only explanation is that Laumer was under pressure to produce another Retief story, and was forced to write this one while suffering acute dyspepsia.

Jame Retief, galactic diplomat of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne is Keith Laumer's most enduring and popular character, whose adventures span eighteen novels and anthologies. Retief is a roguish figure, preferring to use his wits and creativity in solving problems, rather than his not-inconsiderable brawn. He is hampered by the machinations of the other diplomats of the CDT, most of whom are only in the job to look out for number one - only Retief's presence allows the good guys to have justice at the end.

Unfortunately for Retief fans, Mr. Laumer suffered a stroke in 1971 which severely impacted his writing ability. Some few books published after 1971 were actually plotted and written in outline before the stroke, but most of Mr. Laumer's works published after 1971 show the deleterious effects the stroke had on his writing. It is almost as if the Retief books were ghost-written by a writer chosen more for his ability to satisfy deadlines than his ability to write Retief the way it should be written - gone is the devious cunning and sophistication of the character at his best, to be replaced by a reliance on his muscle, and a habit of ceding center stage to the pedantic bureaucrats higher up the CDT food-chain.

Retief and the Rascals is no exception. The second chapter reads more like a too-long Three Stooges or Abbot and Costello routine than a piece of Retief's carefully-planned diplomacy. Instead of good planning and efficient research, Retief attacks his problems with two fists and a few lame rejoinders. Jokes that were only funny the first time propagate throughout the book, such as the facial expression classification system or the use of stilted writing to reflect picayune dialects. And old-standby characters, such as Retief's officious and ineffectual boss Mr. Magnan (whose purpose in the early stories is to form an obstacle to Retief's attempt to find the best possible solution) has more to say than Retief does.

It takes actual digging to get to the meat of the story, which is never a good thing. The story itself, which concerns various attempts by different individuals inside and outside the Corps to loot money from a fund earmarked for developing worlds, is not enough to sustain the entire novel; this would have made a decent short story. Sadly, I can't recommend this novel to any but the most die-hard Retief fans.

When I picked up this collection of late entry stories (all originally published in 1986) of Jame Retief, the "ugly Terry" of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, I did not expect to find a great work of science fiction literature. I did expect to be reasonably entertained. I found instead that the stories were actually boring and dull. What is the difference between these stories and the Retief stories of the early 1960s? For one thing, while the earlier stories were satirical, they were also space opera. They poked fun in a light, entertaining manner. The later stories are all satire, with little adventure. The satire is heavy-handed and aimed at obvious targets, and the stories are much too long. The earlier Retief stories tended to be short, tight novelettes. The stories in this collection ("Retief in the Ruins," "There is a Tide," and "The Woomy" ) are all overwritten novellas. Too bad, too bad. Laumer wrote a lot that was much better.

A collection of stories about the famous Retief character, using the most unwieldly prose writing imaginable. If he eliminated all the `Swifties' (`ly' adverbs) from the book, it would probably only be twenty pages long. There isn't much substance there aside from the dialogue, which looks like this:
"Boy, it's hot out here," Retief said ARIDLY.
And, of course, the annoying "see issue #500" problem, as in the sections of dialogue that go like this:
He spoke to them in the tone of an Ambassador With A Severe Bowel Cramp (#2447-ed.)

This book is a true turkey. It's about bug-eyed monsters called the Gool who attack human spacecraft psionically -- making the crew go bananas -- and the brash, invincible hero who saves humanity from these nasty ole chupacabras. It's almost a parody of itself -- truly painful to read. It makes the cheesiest episodes of Star Trek TOS look like Shakespeare by way of comparison. Laumer, the author of the Retief and Bolo series, can do a lot better than this one. I suspect he was under a deadline. At least it's short.

There is nothing worse than an author taking a previous short story and expanding it. Sometimes an author does so, but adds a new ending or expanded ending which improves the story. In this case, the author has added padding to the middle of the book, changing neither the beginning or the end. If you wish to read the better, short story, then purchase The Complete Bolo by Keith Laumer.