Galactic Diplomat

Retief #2

by Keith Laumer

Retief is an officer of the distinguished Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, a supra-national organization devoted to keeping the peace - or more accurately, to maintaining a state of tension short of armed conflict.
Retief is not exactly in the mainstream of current Galactic diplomacy, as expounded by such giants of the C.D.T. as Crodfoller, Hidebinder, Straphanger, and his own immediate superior, Magnan. Deviously sincere, uncompromisingly venal, fearlessly cowardly, these great, dedicated public servants will seem curiously familiar as they strive to keep the peace seven hundred years in the future.
But when Retief's on the scene things have a way of coming right in the end...

Contents:

Ultimatum • (1965) • novelette (aka Mightiest Qorn)
Saline Solution • (1963) • shortstory
The Brass God • (1965) • novelette (aka Retief, God-Speaker)
The Castle of Light • (1964) • novelette
Wicker Wonderland • (1965) • novelette (aka The City That Grew in the Sea)
Native Intelligence • (1965) • novelette (aka The Governor of Glave)
The Prince and the Pirate • (1964) • novelette
Courier • [Bolo] • (1961) • novelette (aka The Frozen Planet)
Protest Note • (1965) • shortstory (aka The Desert and the Stars)

Genres: Science Fiction, Humor, Collections, Fiction, Space Opera

223 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

John 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.

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do you do when your superiors keep making the wrong selections - why agree with them and then do things your way.

Retief, a junior diplomat in the chaotic galaxy, saves the day while accidentally helping his senior officers to higher ranks.

A relaxed attitude to duty.
He looked at Retief. “Uh . . . got time for a drink?”
“I shouldn’t drink on duty,” Retief said. He rose. “So I’ll take the rest of the day off.”

Seeing a ghost?
Magnan came to an abrupt halt, clutched Retief’s sleeve. “Wha-what’s that?” he pointed. Along the corridor, something small and dark slipped from the shadow of a pilaster to the shelter of a doorway.
“Probably just our imagination,” Retief suggested.
“But it had big red eyes,” Magnan protested.
“They’re as easy to imagine as any other kind.”

Facing imminent invasion the senior diplomat Magnan takes action
“This could be an invasion, Retief! A major breach of the peace! Can you imagine how it would look in my record if the planet were invaded under my very nose!”
“Tough on the natives, too,” Retief commented. “What action have you taken so far?”
“Action? Why, I’ve canceled this afternoon’s social engagements, checked out-going passenger schedules, and sharpened a number of pencils.”

Anacronyms strike again
“I understood the Zoological Investigation and Liaison Council Headquarters had financed a couple of wildlife census stations over there,” Retief said.
“To be sure, facilities were provided by ZILCH, but, unhappily, no volunteers have come forward to man them.”

This collection of short Science Fiction stories is simply delightful. Our hero Retief jumps into dangerous situations with his own hidden plans. And while I am thinking "how is he going to get out of this" - he does!

Enjoy!

[Jim Razinha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Making my way through the Retief series, and making up for lost time as it were, Retief's style of, uh... physical ... diplomacy brings chuckles. Still, I suspect Laumer matures his product over time. There are still raw points, but also gems. Snark:

“Hardly the diplomatic approach,” Magnan sniffed. “For centuries now it’s been understood that if enough diplomats go to enough parties, everything will come right in the end.”

and

“As Chargé d’affaires in the absence of the Minister, I forbid drinking on duty!” Magnan roared. [Retief]“Surely you jest, Mr. Magnan ; it would mean the end of diplomacy as we know it—”

Wisdom:

Retief sighed. “The trouble with taking over your boss’s job is discovering its drawbacks. It’s disillusioning, I know, Sozier— but—”

More humor:

“Well, gents, I guess maybe I had you figured wrong,” he said. He looked at Retief. “Uh . . . got time for a drink?”
“I shouldn’t drink on duty,” Retief said. He rose. “So I’ll take the rest of the day off.”

And tucked away in this 1966 science fiction short story collection is a keen observation future reflective of 21st century American right-wing adherents (and Twitter users as a rule):

“There’s always a certain percentage of any population with the conviction that society is a conspiracy to deny them their rights. The right to be totally ignorant of any useful knowledge seems to be the basic one."

Spot on. Things don't seem to change, eh?

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, the hilarious send-ups of bureaucracy from Keith Laumer! Galactic Diplomat is an anthology of the Retief stories published in 1965. I’m always worried when I pick up an early anthology of short stories that I might have already read the stories in a subsequent compendium. Checking by titles, none of them seem to have been republished in Retief of the CDT nor the three novellas in Retief in the Ruins (much less the full-scale novel, Retief’s War. But, “Saline Solution,” “The Castle of Light,” “Wicker Wonderland,” and “The Brass God” were reprised in 1978’s Retief at Large. Still, it had been a long time since I’d read that last-mentioned volume and I had only a vague memory of the repeated stories when I was reading them.

What I have always enjoyed are the permutations of English that Keith Laumer used to depict alien speech. Most memorable to me and most enjoyable to reacquaint myself was the patois of the warlike Groaci. The insectoid Groaci repeatedly use infinitives instead of standard verb tenses to express such statements as the following, taken from “The Castle of Light.” Various Groaci said: “To intimidate the soft ones” (p. 86), “To unhand me, demonic one” (p. 90), “To carefully avoid being killed…” (p. 91), and “To endanger the bloated one” (p. 101). The vernacular of the Hoogans in “The Brass God” was perfectly plausible since many cultures alternate the bilabial plosives (“b” and “p”—Korean has a letter that is sometimes pronounced “p” as in “Pak” or the more common “Park” but is also pronounced “b” as in “Bach.” Hebrew usually pronounced the “beth” as a “v” in modern usage, but it is likely that the beth without a dot in it was pronounced “v” and with the dot in it was hardened to “b.”). Anyway, check out these statements from the Hoogans: “Insult to Overseer caste briest cosd you two more gredits. For you I mage special brice, three for five,” (p. 49) or “It smelts like pargain night in a choy house” (p. 52).

I also love the unlikely family names of the characters: Ambassadors Nitworth, Crodfeller, Straphanger, and Hidebinder, for example. How about the lovely diplomatic secretary (whose humorous appellation would be considered misogynist and offensive today), Ms. Braswell? Maybe, Vice-Consul Wimperton?

But those aren’t the cute elements that make me laugh the most. I enjoy the craven opportunism and frightened obsequiousness of the higher diplomats to whom Retief reports. The set-up for each story is an official report on the resolution of the story (not a spoiler, just a bureaucratic summary with no real semblance to what really happens) where the most incompetent bureaucrat is praised with ostentatious adjectives for something he didn’t do. Then, we see in the story how graft, fear, single-mindedness, and ignorance of the autochthonous cultures affected by their actions lead toward a disaster only averted, of course, by the nimble creativity of Retief (who never gets any credit).

There are also some delightful touches such as the brief description of a diplomatic ball where the man-eating plant extends a leaf toward the Groaci diplomats and quickly withdraws it (“The Prince and the Pauper,” p. 160 in the anthology). There is also a recurring snicker when Retief regularly smokes a cigar because it makes meetings shorter (pp. 130, 179).

The other element of humor is how annoyed Retief’s “superiors” become about his mingling with the indigenous population, the low-lifes. Retief’s “stupidvisors” are all about delivering power to power, wealth to wealth, and fame to fame. They really don’t care about the indigenous life forms (Does it make sense that these were written during the build-up of the Vietnam Conflict?) and pretty well cite chapter and verse of regulations to suit themselves. Retief takes time to learn the language, find out what the real issues on the planet may be, adapt to local customs, and collect unlikely (and sometimes, hilariously unhelpful) allies to solve the various crises.

I particularly enjoyed “Native Intelligence,” a story which answers the age-old question, “What happens after the revolution?” A late ‘60s era comedian once imitated a Berkeley, California radical who answered it, “I don’t know, man. Sit around and groove on the rubble?” In this case, the rebels wanted to maintain the status quo without deferring to the status of those who had worked for it. “There’s always a certain percentage of any population with the conviction that society is a conspiracy to deny them their rights. The right to be totally ignorant of any useful knowledge seems to be the basic one.” (p. 145) The story is also refreshing because most of the positive activity is not really accomplished by Retief. He is primarily what governments always assume, a diplomatic observer.

Of course, the real winners are those readers who get to observe this diplomat. I loved these stories when I first discovered them and they are still fabulous entertainment with a satirical bite.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Retief series is tongue-in-cheek science fiction, with an adventurous, reluctant diplomat as the main character. Retief is a man of action hamstrung by his bumbling, bureaucratic superiors. The "evil" aliens Retief contests with are analogs for the Soviets, and the early series was written as a sci-fi parody of US/USSR gamesmanship, so it's rather dated now, but still entertaining.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laumer, Keith. Galactic Diplomat: Nine Incidents of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. 1965. Retief No. 2. Orion, 2016.
Galactic Diplomat is a creature of its time in several ways. It is a fix-up of previously published magazine stories that have been retitled and linked with brief transitions. This was a marketing technique common in the 1960s. Add a new cover, and browsing through the paperback racks, it would have been hard to know how many of the stories one had read before. The stories were fun, but Laumer and his publishers were experts at recycling and repurposing. Retief is also the kind of hero one seldom encounters in today’s science fiction, a cigar-smoking, hard-fighting, snappy dresser with an eye for the girls. He always knows that he is the smartest guy in the room. Think James Bond in a fancy diplomatic uniform. His cigar is designed to be annoying, because when he smokes it in a conference room, he finds it shortens the sessions. He is content to play third fiddle on the team, making sure that his blowhard bosses receive the credit and that he gets his vacation perks. Retief is not slow to satirize diplomatic circumlocution. Here is an example:
“Oh, it’s not an Embargo, Your Highness,” Retief said. “I believe Ambassador Hidebinder refers to it as a unilateral shift in emphasis balance-of-trade-wise to a more group oriented—”
The monarch in question figures out that means his navy is grounded. Recycled though they be, the Retief stories always entertain. 4 stars.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laumer, Keith. Galactic Diplomat: Nine Incidents of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. 1965. Retief No. 2. Orion, 2016.
Galactic Diplomat is a creature of its time in several ways. It is a fix-up of previously published magazine stories that have been retitled and linked with brief transitions. This was a marketing technique common in the 1960s. Add a new cover, and browsing through the paperback racks, it would have been hard to know how many of the stories one had read before. The stories were fun, but Laumer and his publishers were experts at recycling and repurposing. Retief is also the kind of hero one seldom encounters in today’s science fiction, a cigar-smoking, hard-fighting, snappy dresser with an eye for the girls. He always knows that he is the smartest guy in the room. Think James Bond in a fancy diplomatic uniform. His cigar is designed to be annoying, because when he smokes it in a conference room, he finds it shortens the sessions. He is content to play third fiddle on the team, making sure that his blowhard bosses receive the credit and that he gets his vacation perks. Retief is not slow to satirize diplomatic circumlocution. Here is an example:
“Oh, it’s not an Embargo, Your Highness,” Retief said. “I believe Ambassador Hidebinder refers to it as a unilateral shift in emphasis balance-of-trade-wise to a more group oriented—”
The monarch in question figures out that means his navy is grounded. Recycled though they be, the Retief stories always entertain. 4 stars.

[Max Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first stories are written almost as a British sitcom but the rest are comfortably pulp in nature.

The tone shifts in the middle of the book and instead of reading through Pratchett-like dialogues you find yourself in the middle of enjoyable old-school pulp with fists flying and blasters blasting. Retief is somewhat of a Gary Sue and I would've preferred him to be less of but nonetheless the diplomatic intrigue is written well enough to provide entertainment.

[Rog Petersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

More fun Retief stories! What else do you need to know?

[Literati · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeeves in space kinda rocks

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amusing enough, but there is precious little diplomacy actually on display, as Retief solves most of his problems by sneaking around or punching people in the face. I suppose I expected something a bit cleverer; Retief is always omni-competent, nigh unto James Bond, and the diplomats around him are always quivering bags of ineffectual bad intentions. It's cute, but dated.