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A Plague of Demons & Other Stories
Invisible aliens ruled the Earth, and only one man could see them-and they were hunting him down.
A complete novel of science fiction adventure and a host of short novels in one large volume. A Plague of Demons: One man found out the secret behind the aliens who controlled the world, harvesting "dead" soldiers to fight wars on distant worlds-and only he could stop them, if he could keep from getting harvested himself. Thunderhead: An officer has manned an outpost on a lonely planet for years, watching for the alien enemy that may never come, forgotten by the bureaucracy which sent him there-and then the enemy came! Test to Destruction: Aliens are testing a human prisoner to determine how serious a foe the human race might be-and they have chosen the wrong man to Test to Destruction. And much more.
A complete novel of science fiction adventure and a host of short novels in one large volume. A Plague of Demons: One man found out the secret behind the aliens who controlled the world, harvesting "dead" soldiers to fight wars on distant worlds-and only he could stop them, if he could keep from getting harvested himself. Thunderhead: An officer has manned an outpost on a lonely planet for years, watching for the alien enemy that may never come, forgotten by the bureaucracy which sent him there-and then the enemy came! Test to Destruction: Aliens are testing a human prisoner to determine how serious a foe the human race might be-and they have chosen the wrong man to Test to Destruction. And much more.
564 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
3 people are currently reading
281 people want to read
About the author
Keith Laumer
498 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 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 20, 2014
This is an anthology of stories that were written by Keith Laumer back around the 1959-1970 time frame. Baen has published several short story collections along these lines, each featuring different authors’ works from a few decades ago. Many of them are (or, at least, were) available from the Baen Free Library.
I’ve tried a couple of Baen’s anthologies from different authors and I haven’t typically been that crazy for them, so I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wouldn’t rank it among my favorites, but Keith Laumer’s writing seems to hold up pretty well today and I enjoyed the anthology for the most part.
There’s an intentional theme in this anthology involving alien contact with humans. This ranges from alien invasions to long-standing wars between humans and aliens. There are also first contact situations. Not all of the aliens are unfriendly, but the majority did seem to be. The first story in the anthology, A Plague of Demons, was long enough to be considered a full-length novel. The other stories varied in size. Some were extremely short and others were long enough to have some meat to them.
Looking back on the book, I find that a lot of the stories have started to blur together for me. I find this true of most anthologies – I’m not a huge fan of the format, because I prefer more meat to my stories and I need to spend more time with a story in order for it to be memorable. However, the first story, A Plague of Demons sticks out as one of the better ones and I remember that one well. It had some twists in it that I wasn’t expecting, as did a couple of the other stories.
All of the stories are told from a single male point-of-view character. Most of those characters were pretty likeable, although there were exceptions. The stories were usually set in the future, and there was often a bit of a dystopian vibe. There seemed to me to be a slightly dark tone to most of the stories, with a somewhat pessimistic view of what the future held and also perhaps a tendency to portray authority figures as power-hungry or at least self-absorbed. In a couple of the stories, there was a laughable case of the main character meeting and apparently “falling in love” with a female character whom he knew nothing about but who was of course breathtakingly beautiful. But that played a very small role in the stories in question, and most of the stories were romance-free.
I have five other e-books by Keith Laumer, and I believe most of them are anthologies. I liked this one well enough that I will probably read them eventually if they maintain the same or better quality as this one. Anthologies can be a good choice when I need something short and uncomplicated to read because I don’t have enough reading time to invest in a longer, more complicated story.
I’ve tried a couple of Baen’s anthologies from different authors and I haven’t typically been that crazy for them, so I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wouldn’t rank it among my favorites, but Keith Laumer’s writing seems to hold up pretty well today and I enjoyed the anthology for the most part.
There’s an intentional theme in this anthology involving alien contact with humans. This ranges from alien invasions to long-standing wars between humans and aliens. There are also first contact situations. Not all of the aliens are unfriendly, but the majority did seem to be. The first story in the anthology, A Plague of Demons, was long enough to be considered a full-length novel. The other stories varied in size. Some were extremely short and others were long enough to have some meat to them.
Looking back on the book, I find that a lot of the stories have started to blur together for me. I find this true of most anthologies – I’m not a huge fan of the format, because I prefer more meat to my stories and I need to spend more time with a story in order for it to be memorable. However, the first story, A Plague of Demons sticks out as one of the better ones and I remember that one well. It had some twists in it that I wasn’t expecting, as did a couple of the other stories.
All of the stories are told from a single male point-of-view character. Most of those characters were pretty likeable, although there were exceptions. The stories were usually set in the future, and there was often a bit of a dystopian vibe. There seemed to me to be a slightly dark tone to most of the stories, with a somewhat pessimistic view of what the future held and also perhaps a tendency to portray authority figures as power-hungry or at least self-absorbed. In a couple of the stories, there was a laughable case of the main character meeting and apparently “falling in love” with a female character whom he knew nothing about but who was of course breathtakingly beautiful. But that played a very small role in the stories in question, and most of the stories were romance-free.
I have five other e-books by Keith Laumer, and I believe most of them are anthologies. I liked this one well enough that I will probably read them eventually if they maintain the same or better quality as this one. Anthologies can be a good choice when I need something short and uncomplicated to read because I don’t have enough reading time to invest in a longer, more complicated story.
February 5, 2025
3.5 stars. A Plague of Demons is definitely NOT what I expected it to be, to say the least. The book begins as a fun, science-fiction-meets-espionage pulp story and goes in a MUCH different place. While the plot is not always sensical and the writing is somewhat average, the concepts, twists and execution here were a ton of fun.
November 18, 2017
A selection of Laumer stories that I was already familiar with. Old style SF, with heroes and bad guys.
March 25, 2022
Like all his work, this is fun Laumer.
read-part
March 6, 2015I’m not rating this book, because I only took it out in order to read the title story. I have no idea of the quality of the rest of it. I’d rate that novella either two or three stars, depending. I have to admit that, while I read it, I swung from hating it to almost liking it, and back to not liking it all that much again.
“A Plague of Demons” starts out as a sort of James Bond-in-the-near-future story, descends into a Bug Eyed Monster invasion tale, and somehow winds up trying to be a Miltonian epic. It is easily the most “masculine” or homo-centric story I’ve ever read: not only are there no female characters with speaking parts, there aren’t any included as window dressing or even random bystanders as far as I can recall. The main character exists in a world that is totally, 100% male. The closest thing to a love interest in the book is a brain damaged hulking sailor, which gave me the impression that the author was gay, although there’s certainly no open acknowledgement of that, either. Apart from that, much of the story is an odd celebration of the main character’s increasing dehumanization into a perfect combat unit. At the end, this had reached such an extreme that I was reminded of Norman Spinrad’s “The Iron Dream,” which, let’s remember, was a deliberate attempt at writing science fiction from a fascist perspective.
So what’s to like about it? Well, acknowledging the rules and limitations of Laumer’s universe, he’s fairly creative in escalating the warfare from a highly localized, to an increasingly cosmic level. The pacing is impressive – there is rarely a letup in the constant imposition of increasingly dire threat to the protagonist, and action is pretty much non-stop, somehow without being tedious. Laumer’s writing style is an interesting adaptation of hardboiled detective fiction in a sci fi setting. His use of metaphor, though it can get out of control, is often amusing. Here are some examples:
Page 71: “I was as weak as a diplomatic protest.” (That one got a laugh out of me, and then another one when I learned that Laumer had worked as a diplomat before becoming a writer).
Page 72: “The minutes crawled by like stepped-on roaches.” (Chuckle).
Page 73: “I heard feet on the deck now – and a soft padding that sent a chill through me like an iron spear.” (Hm).
Page 74: “The fever had drained my strength as effectively as a drained artery.” (All right already!).
It started to take a toll, on me at least, but I admit that some of those were clever.
In the end, the whole story hinges on his effort to make it a cosmic battle for freedom against slavery, and for me, there just wasn’t enough to sell that. Laumer’s strength is in describing action and combat, but when he tries to examine motivations and philosophy, he just seems to collapse into cliché and Cold War slogans. I’ll admit that reading this story was an interesting experience, but I don’t think I’ll seek out any more of his work.
“A Plague of Demons” starts out as a sort of James Bond-in-the-near-future story, descends into a Bug Eyed Monster invasion tale, and somehow winds up trying to be a Miltonian epic. It is easily the most “masculine” or homo-centric story I’ve ever read: not only are there no female characters with speaking parts, there aren’t any included as window dressing or even random bystanders as far as I can recall. The main character exists in a world that is totally, 100% male. The closest thing to a love interest in the book is a brain damaged hulking sailor, which gave me the impression that the author was gay, although there’s certainly no open acknowledgement of that, either. Apart from that, much of the story is an odd celebration of the main character’s increasing dehumanization into a perfect combat unit. At the end, this had reached such an extreme that I was reminded of Norman Spinrad’s “The Iron Dream,” which, let’s remember, was a deliberate attempt at writing science fiction from a fascist perspective.
So what’s to like about it? Well, acknowledging the rules and limitations of Laumer’s universe, he’s fairly creative in escalating the warfare from a highly localized, to an increasingly cosmic level. The pacing is impressive – there is rarely a letup in the constant imposition of increasingly dire threat to the protagonist, and action is pretty much non-stop, somehow without being tedious. Laumer’s writing style is an interesting adaptation of hardboiled detective fiction in a sci fi setting. His use of metaphor, though it can get out of control, is often amusing. Here are some examples:
Page 71: “I was as weak as a diplomatic protest.” (That one got a laugh out of me, and then another one when I learned that Laumer had worked as a diplomat before becoming a writer).
Page 72: “The minutes crawled by like stepped-on roaches.” (Chuckle).
Page 73: “I heard feet on the deck now – and a soft padding that sent a chill through me like an iron spear.” (Hm).
Page 74: “The fever had drained my strength as effectively as a drained artery.” (All right already!).
It started to take a toll, on me at least, but I admit that some of those were clever.
In the end, the whole story hinges on his effort to make it a cosmic battle for freedom against slavery, and for me, there just wasn’t enough to sell that. Laumer’s strength is in describing action and combat, but when he tries to examine motivations and philosophy, he just seems to collapse into cliché and Cold War slogans. I’ll admit that reading this story was an interesting experience, but I don’t think I’ll seek out any more of his work.
March 27, 2011
I'm genuinely glad that the folks at Baen Books have made the effort to keep some older authors' works in print and available.
I had read some of Mr. Laumer's work with the Bolo and Retief series previously, but this collection was new to me. I really enjoyed the stories in this set. Yes, there are portions of these stories that show their age. Dated references aside, the language and plots are smooth and quite readable.
The title story caught me off guard. I didn't expect it to go the direction it went ~ and that counts for quite a lot to me these days. The other stories were just as well done. There was a constant quality level across them all – and it was good.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for high quality stories involving human contact with aliens. They don't all turn out the way you might think... but they're all worth reading to the end.
I had read some of Mr. Laumer's work with the Bolo and Retief series previously, but this collection was new to me. I really enjoyed the stories in this set. Yes, there are portions of these stories that show their age. Dated references aside, the language and plots are smooth and quite readable.
The title story caught me off guard. I didn't expect it to go the direction it went ~ and that counts for quite a lot to me these days. The other stories were just as well done. There was a constant quality level across them all – and it was good.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for high quality stories involving human contact with aliens. They don't all turn out the way you might think... but they're all worth reading to the end.
September 19, 2011
This was a free ebook for my kindle. I got this because of the best known story A Plague of Demons, which I had read before. I am familiar with Laumer's Retief stories which are a sf satire on cold war diplomacy, and still readable. The other stories are competent and written in the 50s and 60s style of hard tech/political sf which Laumer does fairly well. the characters are somewhat stereotypical, as the men are tough and resourceful and the women quiet attractive and intelligent but definitely part of the support and not the action. His ideas and aliens are well executed and believable, but a bit formulaic after the first few stories. I think a whole series of stories were written about the sentient war machines, later called Bolos, but I think I will avoid them
February 11, 2008
The titular story in this collection of novels and short stories was not the best in the collection. I actually preferred the second story "Thunderhead" with it's faster pace, and more likable characters.
August 16, 2011
Lots of dystopia. Lots of "saved by mystical mind powers." Not really my cup of tea --- I like my human heroes to actually overcome their problems using the abilities they've had all along. When mystical new powers show up at the end of a story, I feel exceedingly cheated.
September 10, 2013
I liked the stories in the collection, especially the title story. I couldn't read the book all the way through though. Eventually, I went back and finished it. Maybe I'll have better luck with other compilations by Laumer.
November 21, 2007
read 06.03.06
July 21, 2009
I'm not sure why I like this book so much but I do. It is like the old pulp sci fi.
July 12, 2011
Classic wish-fulfillment -- fun but simple.
January 17, 2012
It's a truly dreadful book, but I did derive some enjoyment from the ridiculous twists of the plot.
June 18, 2012
I can't decide if I didn't like it because it wasn't my usual sort of genre, or if it was terrible and written badly.
December 17, 2012
Typical Laumer. A good read. This is probably my third time reading this.
January 2, 2013
Read the stories Doorstep, which was ok.
and Test to Destruction which was quite good and described the good and the bad within human nature.
Did not read the rest of the stories in the book.
and Test to Destruction which was quite good and described the good and the bad within human nature.
Did not read the rest of the stories in the book.
March 23, 2013
Laumer at his best.
March 28, 2017
Meh. The opening story, "A Plague of Demons" did not hold up well since its initial publication. It felt like an outline to a novel that got filled in a little. Some of the shorter stories were a little better, but still very dated. The final story suffered the same type of issues I had with the first. They both seemed like a series of short stories strung together.
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April 2, 2018ebook
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews