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The Best of Keith Laumer
The Best of Keith Laumer
255 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1976
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About the author
Keith Laumer
500 books227 followersJohn Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 7, 2024
This is a collection of nine stories by Laumer, two from original anthologies and the rest from 1960s digest sized genre magazines including Galaxy, F & SF, Analog, Fantastic, and Worlds of Tomorrow. There are some pretty good stories (though some are pretty dated; Laumer seemed to tend more than most of his peers to casual sexist attitudes), but I don't think it really represents his best work. None of the Retief stories are included. There's an introduction by Barry N. Malzberg which seems somewhat dismissive of his Retief series, but surely a few of them should be counted among his best. The book doesn't list an editor, and I think it would be interesting to know who chose these nine, whether it was Malzberg or Laumer himself or someone else. Too, the stories are all from a pretty limited span, and his career was much longer. It does include a good Bolo story (his second most popular series), A Relic of War, and I also liked The Planet Wreckers and Thunderhead.
June 9, 2024
Keith Laumer is a name almost forgotten now, but he was a very popular writer in the 1960s and early 1970s. A few years ago I picked up an omnibus edition of his 'Lafayette O'Leary' stories entitled The Universe Twister which I loved (it strongly reminded me of another favourite humorous fantasy series, The Compleat Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp).
Let's be more precise. I loved the ideas and the situations and the inventiveness of The Universe Twister but the casual sexism of Laumer made me wince. And the same has proved true with the short stories in this collection. The concepts are great and Laumer's ability to tell a story is never in question, but the sexist flavour grates badly. It's not just a case that back in the 60s and 70s most science fiction was sexist. Laumer's is especially so, but always casually, of course, in tone and attitude, rather than malignantly. Nonetheless his sexism has a tendency to spoil some good stories. The ending of the very entertaining 'The Planet Wreckers', for example, involves a beautiful slim female with a turned up nose and red hair (like something from a 60s sitcom) emerging from the artificial body suit of a grossly fat female alien that the hero has been working with to foil the destruction of Earth. The slimmer and more nubile version is evidently the hero's reward for his services.
The best story in this collection is the longest and most conventional, 'Thunderhead', which is about the final stages of a space war between the human race and some aliens who resemble spiders. But Laumer does something quite unusual here: he creates massive sympathy in the reader for the doomed aliens and shows them as actually extremely noble beings. 'A Relic of War' and 'Doorstep' are other stories in which military-minded men come to understand that their tough approach might not necessarily be the optimal way to behave. These stories are also the least sexist in the book for the simple reason there are no female characters in them.
'Hybrid' is very strange and clever, but with a somewhat corny ending. 'The Devil you Don't' is a pact-with-the-devil story and scarcely different from the hundreds of other pact-with-the-devil stories that were being written at the time (even Alfred Bester did one). The rather shallow and pointless introduction by Barry Malzberg recommends 'The Lawgiver' and 'The Body Builders' as the highlights of the book, but they are fairly ordinary stories really. 'Cocoon' feels dated but is interesting enough.
I rather enjoy the work of Keith Laumer, but I feel no especial urge to seek out any more of his books at this stage.
Let's be more precise. I loved the ideas and the situations and the inventiveness of The Universe Twister but the casual sexism of Laumer made me wince. And the same has proved true with the short stories in this collection. The concepts are great and Laumer's ability to tell a story is never in question, but the sexist flavour grates badly. It's not just a case that back in the 60s and 70s most science fiction was sexist. Laumer's is especially so, but always casually, of course, in tone and attitude, rather than malignantly. Nonetheless his sexism has a tendency to spoil some good stories. The ending of the very entertaining 'The Planet Wreckers', for example, involves a beautiful slim female with a turned up nose and red hair (like something from a 60s sitcom) emerging from the artificial body suit of a grossly fat female alien that the hero has been working with to foil the destruction of Earth. The slimmer and more nubile version is evidently the hero's reward for his services.
The best story in this collection is the longest and most conventional, 'Thunderhead', which is about the final stages of a space war between the human race and some aliens who resemble spiders. But Laumer does something quite unusual here: he creates massive sympathy in the reader for the doomed aliens and shows them as actually extremely noble beings. 'A Relic of War' and 'Doorstep' are other stories in which military-minded men come to understand that their tough approach might not necessarily be the optimal way to behave. These stories are also the least sexist in the book for the simple reason there are no female characters in them.
'Hybrid' is very strange and clever, but with a somewhat corny ending. 'The Devil you Don't' is a pact-with-the-devil story and scarcely different from the hundreds of other pact-with-the-devil stories that were being written at the time (even Alfred Bester did one). The rather shallow and pointless introduction by Barry Malzberg recommends 'The Lawgiver' and 'The Body Builders' as the highlights of the book, but they are fairly ordinary stories really. 'Cocoon' feels dated but is interesting enough.
I rather enjoy the work of Keith Laumer, but I feel no especial urge to seek out any more of his books at this stage.
July 22, 2018
Loved the devil you don't. And relic. The lawgiver is pretty fitting for our time. And hybrid would make a great tv series.
Read
August 14, 2021I borrowed this from Dad because he thought I'd be particularly interested in reading the story Hybrid, having recently finished Speaker for the Dead. I can see the similarities but I don't think the concept is as similar as Dad suggested. Planet-Wreckers was fun and would make a great movie. I think the stories toward the end of the book were more my style. The Devil You Don't was hilarious, A Relic of War was kinda heart-warming and Doorstep was just devastating - I had to read that one twice because the ending was such a punch in the guts. I'm not sure I'll seek out more of Keith Laumer's work, but I did enjoy this compilation of short stories.
May 7, 2023
These nine stories, published from 1961 to 1970, are sometimes elegiac, sometimes satiric. Laumer imagines a dormant war machine in a town square that springs to life, humans who transplant their consciousness at will into idealized forms stored in their closets and aliens bent on destroying Earth as part of a big-budget interstellar film epic. In a story from '62, "Cocoon," humans spend their days looking at a screen and lose all motor function. Where do SF writers get this crazy stuff?
August 8, 2013
Overall I usually enjoy Keith Laumer's work, and this collection was no exception.
The Planet Wreckers - This story was fairly humorous as the main characters run around trying to prevent disasters on an unsuspecting Earth by aliens, and they always seem a step behind. It has the pace and entertainment value of a good action flick. 3/5
The Body Builders - In the future, humans can transplant their minds into alternate robot bodies. The main character is a fighter who uses high powered bodies for tournaments, and runs into a bit of trouble with the law and sabotage the night before his big fight. It takes a bit of effort to change bodies, and your "Org" is stored in a facility. The main character ends up having to rely on his Org body for the final fight against someone using a robot body. This would be a pretty fun action movie if anyone ever bothered to make it. 4/5
Cocoon - An incredibly haunting tale where humans have chosen to live their lives plugged into giant computers. Their organic bodies are stored in pods (Cocoons!) that keep them safe and healthy long beyond their natural lifespan. They eat liquid food from tubes and essentially watch television and chat all day, though some of the channels are more interactive than others. One day there's an earthquake, an emergency announcement, and the main character finds himself trying to escape from his cocoon, seeing exactly what the world has turned into in his long absence. My second favorite story in the collection, and the most memorable. 5/5
The Lawgiver - This one is an excellent story of government hypocrisy and power-corruption, presenting a world where pregnancies have to be registered and approved. A powerful senator has to enforce these laws regardless of the circumstances and supports them violently, but finds his beliefs shaken when he's presented with a personal connection to one of these illegal pregnancies. The senator's actions raise many questions. Did he do the right thing at the end? It's tough to say. 3/5
Thunderhead - The least memorable and least interesting story in the collection. Tough military man doing his tough military duty. 2/5
Hybrid - Another mid-level story. Not particularly memorable, but sort of interesting. The alien life in the story is interesting, but overall, its not the most amazing story ever. 2/5
The Devil You Don't - Satan makes a visit to a professor. Interesting, amusing, entertaining, but not mindblowing. It's a cute story though. 3/5
Doorstep - Pretty accurate description of how we'd react to alien life. The last line had me a bit teary just because I knew that... well, that's what we'd do. The characters weren't particularly likeable but they were so human, and so accurate. I could see this happening in the future. 5/5
A Relic of War (a BOLO story) - This was my favorite story in the collection, where Bobby the Bolo is the mascot of a village on a backwater planet. Some people are sent to shut him down, and are astounded at their treatment of the deadly machine as the village idiot. Stuff happens, and its awesome! 5/5
The Planet Wreckers - This story was fairly humorous as the main characters run around trying to prevent disasters on an unsuspecting Earth by aliens, and they always seem a step behind. It has the pace and entertainment value of a good action flick. 3/5
The Body Builders - In the future, humans can transplant their minds into alternate robot bodies. The main character is a fighter who uses high powered bodies for tournaments, and runs into a bit of trouble with the law and sabotage the night before his big fight. It takes a bit of effort to change bodies, and your "Org" is stored in a facility. The main character ends up having to rely on his Org body for the final fight against someone using a robot body. This would be a pretty fun action movie if anyone ever bothered to make it. 4/5
Cocoon - An incredibly haunting tale where humans have chosen to live their lives plugged into giant computers. Their organic bodies are stored in pods (Cocoons!) that keep them safe and healthy long beyond their natural lifespan. They eat liquid food from tubes and essentially watch television and chat all day, though some of the channels are more interactive than others. One day there's an earthquake, an emergency announcement, and the main character finds himself trying to escape from his cocoon, seeing exactly what the world has turned into in his long absence. My second favorite story in the collection, and the most memorable. 5/5
The Lawgiver - This one is an excellent story of government hypocrisy and power-corruption, presenting a world where pregnancies have to be registered and approved. A powerful senator has to enforce these laws regardless of the circumstances and supports them violently, but finds his beliefs shaken when he's presented with a personal connection to one of these illegal pregnancies. The senator's actions raise many questions. Did he do the right thing at the end? It's tough to say. 3/5
Thunderhead - The least memorable and least interesting story in the collection. Tough military man doing his tough military duty. 2/5
Hybrid - Another mid-level story. Not particularly memorable, but sort of interesting. The alien life in the story is interesting, but overall, its not the most amazing story ever. 2/5
The Devil You Don't - Satan makes a visit to a professor. Interesting, amusing, entertaining, but not mindblowing. It's a cute story though. 3/5
Doorstep - Pretty accurate description of how we'd react to alien life. The last line had me a bit teary just because I knew that... well, that's what we'd do. The characters weren't particularly likeable but they were so human, and so accurate. I could see this happening in the future. 5/5
A Relic of War (a BOLO story) - This was my favorite story in the collection, where Bobby the Bolo is the mascot of a village on a backwater planet. Some people are sent to shut him down, and are astounded at their treatment of the deadly machine as the village idiot. Stuff happens, and its awesome! 5/5
June 24, 2017
Nowadays Keith Laumer doesn't really rank up there with "old-school sf writers you should know," unless he's in a list written by an sf writer of an older generation. It's sometimes interesting to read works by someone who was considered great by his peers, but of whom not much is said anymore. Is his latter-day obsolescence warranted, or is he unfairly underrated?
The Planet Wreckers ★★ | Aliens want to destroy the earth in a literal disaster movie, and one wrong-place-wrong-time hero is the only one who can stop them. Oh yeah, there's another character too, but she's out of action most of the time (I guess at least she's not a damsel?). Halfway amusing idea and fun, pulpy writing, but fairly forgettable.
The Body Builders ★★★ | In the future, lots of people store their organic bodies away and remotely control synthetic ones via radio. An interestingly Sixties take on the "Ghost in the Shell" concept, with no "mind uploading" techno-mysticism and (because the Sixties) a boxing plot. That said, it makes sense even in the modern day when boxing has declined significantly in popularity, just because the technology enables it. Good stuff, marred slightly by a ridiculously cliched ending scene.
Cocoon ★★★★ | A surprisingly dark and nihilistic tale, that starts out as what seems like an broad satire of Sixties suburban television culture. The disaster that befalls our cocooned hero and necessitates his escape from the facility is anachronistic Sixties silliness, but it's still effective.
The Lawgiver ★★ | A predictable overpopulation/abortion-debate thriller that is interesting mostly for its historical place just before Roe v. Wade and just after The Population Bomb. Needless to say, the future came out just a bit more nuanced than the story portrays.
Thunderhead ★★½ | A Navy outpost lieutenant finally receives orders for a mission, twenty years after he assumed he was forgotten. Good in spots, but overlong and some of the dialogue (the kid, the commodore, the aliens) was just ridiculous, like low-grade Twilight Zone stereotypes.
Hybrid ★½ | Interesting idea but barely a plot and the narration for the tree was ponderous (even for a giant tree).
Doorstep ★★ | A glory-crazed military commander mucks up a first-contact scenario. You get the sense that Laumer had some personal experience with arrogant upwardly-mobile senior officers during his time in the military... The actual story is fairly predictable, meanwhile.
A Relic of War ★★★½ | The people of a backwater colony confront the military history of their giant rusted battle robot "mascot." Possibly the best-crafted story in the collection in terms of length-to-plot-to-characterization ratio. "Cocoon" edges it out slightly because of the dramatic tonal shift and nihilistic punch.
OVERALL : ★★½, rounded down to ★★. There are some good stories in here (I recommend "Cocoon," "A Relic of War," and to a lesser extent "The Body Builders") but as a collection, especially a "Best of" collection, I don't recommend it.
The Planet Wreckers ★★ | Aliens want to destroy the earth in a literal disaster movie, and one wrong-place-wrong-time hero is the only one who can stop them. Oh yeah, there's another character too, but she's out of action most of the time (I guess at least she's not a damsel?). Halfway amusing idea and fun, pulpy writing, but fairly forgettable.
The Body Builders ★★★ | In the future, lots of people store their organic bodies away and remotely control synthetic ones via radio. An interestingly Sixties take on the "Ghost in the Shell" concept, with no "mind uploading" techno-mysticism and (because the Sixties) a boxing plot. That said, it makes sense even in the modern day when boxing has declined significantly in popularity, just because the technology enables it. Good stuff, marred slightly by a ridiculously cliched ending scene.
Cocoon ★★★★ | A surprisingly dark and nihilistic tale, that starts out as what seems like an broad satire of Sixties suburban television culture. The disaster that befalls our cocooned hero and necessitates his escape from the facility is anachronistic Sixties silliness, but it's still effective.
The Lawgiver ★★ | A predictable overpopulation/abortion-debate thriller that is interesting mostly for its historical place just before Roe v. Wade and just after The Population Bomb. Needless to say, the future came out just a bit more nuanced than the story portrays.
Thunderhead ★★½ | A Navy outpost lieutenant finally receives orders for a mission, twenty years after he assumed he was forgotten. Good in spots, but overlong and some of the dialogue (the kid, the commodore, the aliens) was just ridiculous, like low-grade Twilight Zone stereotypes.
Hybrid ★½ | Interesting idea but barely a plot and the narration for the tree was ponderous (even for a giant tree).
Doorstep ★★ | A glory-crazed military commander mucks up a first-contact scenario. You get the sense that Laumer had some personal experience with arrogant upwardly-mobile senior officers during his time in the military... The actual story is fairly predictable, meanwhile.
A Relic of War ★★★½ | The people of a backwater colony confront the military history of their giant rusted battle robot "mascot." Possibly the best-crafted story in the collection in terms of length-to-plot-to-characterization ratio. "Cocoon" edges it out slightly because of the dramatic tonal shift and nihilistic punch.
OVERALL : ★★½, rounded down to ★★. There are some good stories in here (I recommend "Cocoon," "A Relic of War," and to a lesser extent "The Body Builders") but as a collection, especially a "Best of" collection, I don't recommend it.
May 18, 2016
A nice overview, especially for those who know Laumer only through his "Retief of the CDT" or "Bolo" works. Not completely consistent in holding my interest, but that's the beauty of short story anthologies -- if one doesn't work for you, maybe the next one will.
Read this in high school, but still have my copy in storage.
Read this in high school, but still have my copy in storage.
June 29, 2011
I sometimes forget how much I enjoy Laumer's stuff. Always interesting and inventive. I like his more serious stories better than his humorous ones, but he's always entertaining. This is a collection of his shorter tales and is well worth the investment of time.
July 15, 2012
Can't seem to get enough of these books full of short stories by Keith Laumer and various authors who write in his style, epic and unique he definitely has a imagination many authors can only wish they had.
August 2, 2011
It said best of.... maybe this wasn't as good as his completed writings. If there was a charmer in it, I forgot it by the end. A fun departure from SK though in the realm of readable short stories.
November 2, 2011
Like rediscovering pop rocks! this author is a master who dynamites fish in one's mind
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews