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Retief #15
Reward for Retief
Intergalactic diplomat Jame Retief investigates the planet Sardon whose inhabitants have a marked dislike for Terrans and who also appear to be hiding something from outsiders
247 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
2 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
About the author
Keith Laumer
497 books225 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.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 1, 2023
Retief is part of a diplomatic mission to Zany-Doo, a planet, where, it turns out, just about anything can happen, and your wildest desires can come true. What could possibly go wrong?
First off, I love that cover! And it's not just an allusion to a famous painting; it actually does figure into the story. As with previous Retief books, the female characters are few and far between, more decorative than functional. I don't personally find this to be a major flaw in Laumer's writing, but it's definitely noticeable, even more so now that I'm in my fifties than it was when I was a teenager.
This is also much further along in the Retief series than I've ever been. I basically read the first two, and then jumped straight to this one. So there's suddenly all sorts of narrative baggage that must have accrued over time: Retief and Magnan are now on a first name basis with each other; there are frequent references to cataloging facial expressions by number and letter (e.g. 571-j); dimensions given with an extra coordinate (space/time/vug.) Those who have been reading the books in order no doubt take this all in stride, but it was somewhat jarring for those who skipped ahead (i.e. me.)
The book's also disorienting to begin with since many games are played with reality. The nature of Zany-Doo is such that people and places appear and disappear with startling abruptness. Laumer dones eventually explain everything, but not until pretty much the end. And there's all sorts of playfulness with the language going on that adds to the confusion.
Laumer fans should also note a Bolo appearance at one point.
In the end, I'm glad I read this, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two Retief books. Whether this is due to its being a novel vs. the short stories of the earlier books, or whether the series was just running out of steam is an open question.
First off, I love that cover! And it's not just an allusion to a famous painting; it actually does figure into the story. As with previous Retief books, the female characters are few and far between, more decorative than functional. I don't personally find this to be a major flaw in Laumer's writing, but it's definitely noticeable, even more so now that I'm in my fifties than it was when I was a teenager.
This is also much further along in the Retief series than I've ever been. I basically read the first two, and then jumped straight to this one. So there's suddenly all sorts of narrative baggage that must have accrued over time: Retief and Magnan are now on a first name basis with each other; there are frequent references to cataloging facial expressions by number and letter (e.g. 571-j); dimensions given with an extra coordinate (space/time/vug.) Those who have been reading the books in order no doubt take this all in stride, but it was somewhat jarring for those who skipped ahead (i.e. me.)
The book's also disorienting to begin with since many games are played with reality. The nature of Zany-Doo is such that people and places appear and disappear with startling abruptness. Laumer dones eventually explain everything, but not until pretty much the end. And there's all sorts of playfulness with the language going on that adds to the confusion.
Laumer fans should also note a Bolo appearance at one point.
In the end, I'm glad I read this, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two Retief books. Whether this is due to its being a novel vs. the short stories of the earlier books, or whether the series was just running out of steam is an open question.
April 8, 2020
I remember seeing all the promotional material at a now-long-gone bookstore in 1989 when the book came out. Years later, I finally read it. I've enjoyed other Retief stories and novels by Laumer, but this was disappointing.
It starts well, about Retief and Magnan going to Goldblatt's Other World and meeting hostile caterpillars from which they escape, and having their heads surrounded by some sort of flying things which don't bite them. It turns out that the planet was discovered centuries ago by an explorer only to have the discovery misfiled by the CDT bureaucracy and forgotten. The Groaci of course are also interested in this planet.
Trouble is, "Reward For Retief" evidently was originally intended to be a short story, but a lot of filler material was thrown in that didn't advance the plot with the idea of making it into a novel, and it didn't work. Author Keith Laumer had a debilitating stroke in 1970 and lost his ability to produce coherent stories afterward, and one gets the idea that he (or someone else) took an old story and stuck in a lot of other writings of his, and it shows.
It starts well, about Retief and Magnan going to Goldblatt's Other World and meeting hostile caterpillars from which they escape, and having their heads surrounded by some sort of flying things which don't bite them. It turns out that the planet was discovered centuries ago by an explorer only to have the discovery misfiled by the CDT bureaucracy and forgotten. The Groaci of course are also interested in this planet.
Trouble is, "Reward For Retief" evidently was originally intended to be a short story, but a lot of filler material was thrown in that didn't advance the plot with the idea of making it into a novel, and it didn't work. Author Keith Laumer had a debilitating stroke in 1970 and lost his ability to produce coherent stories afterward, and one gets the idea that he (or someone else) took an old story and stuck in a lot of other writings of his, and it shows.
March 30, 2024
This is one of Laumer’s later stories, written after recovering from his stroke. This might have made a good novella, but stretching it to a novel overstrained the material so that for a good portion of the book, the characters just stumble around in circles. Choose one of the earlier Retief books without so much padding and repetitive bits of humour.
March 4, 2019
Se potessi dare 0 stelle in modo significativo lo farei. E dire che a me solitamente piacciono gli Sci-fi con narrazione vecchio stile, ma questo è proprio scritto male.
January 9, 2022
Can be confusing early on, but if you stick with it, it's a good story.
September 6, 2011
Laumer must have been a diplomat or in the military or both to have written so humorously (but believably) about bureaucratic red tape. Retief always manages to find a way through it or over it or around it to save the day. I love these novels, despite being a bit repetitive.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews