Retief: Diplomat At Arms

 

By Keith Laumer

A collection of Retief stories, dating from 1961 to about 1966.

• Ultimatum aka Mightiest Quorn (1963) Settlers on a planet are suddenly and unexpectedly invaded by an alien race, the Quorn.
• Native Intelligence aka The Governor of Glave (1963) Malcontents on a wintery planet take over the government only to find out governing a planet is a lot more complicated than they imagined.
• The Prince and the Pirate (1964) A palace coup is attempting to oust the rightful ruler of Elora. The rebels have formed an alliance with the Terran ambassador but Retief is siding with the royals.
• Courier aka The Frozen Planet (1961) A criminal organization has brutal plans for a planet of farmers and ranchers. 
• Protest Note aka The Desert and the Stars (1962) The settlers of Flamme have worked hard to make their planet liveable. But now squatters have shown up and are ruining everything. 
• Truce or Consequences (1966) The inhabitants of twin planets are at war, declaring each other intruders on their home worlds. 
• The Secret While visiting with the Terran ambassador, D'ong, the Grotesque Minister of Foreign Affairs for Grote reveals he has a tea bag which can produce endless amounts of tea. The ambassador declares he must know the secret of D'ong's tea bag. But before inquires can be made, D'ong is kidnapped by the Groaci.

I first started reading Retief stories because they were silly and funny. Of this collection, only two of the stories are silly and funny, Truce or  Consequences and The Secret. The rest of the stories in this collection, Laumer's earlier Retief stories, are not funny.  If they had been the first Retief stories I had encountered, I wouldn't have read any more Retief stories. In the earlier stories, Retief is a kind of superman and Malcolm is just a corrupt diplomat. In the funny stories, Retief is still a kind of superman, but a lot faster with a quip. And Malcolm is just a gullible fool who never seems to understand what is really going on. I, for one, am glad Laumer went from writing serious Retief stories to goofy Retief stories with stories featuring giant squirrels, aliens that look like a pile of spaghetti to an alien that is a big as a hill and who entertains his visitors in his innards.