Keith Laumer 32 min read

Consul-General Magnan has sat on a mining claim for a week, weighing every 'ramification', and the unflappable Retief, tired of the dithering, decides to move things along in the asteroid Belt.

Keith Laumer's 1963 story is a sparkling social-SF space opera starring his beloved interstellar diplomat Retief. Witty, satirical, sharply funny golden-age SF. Read it for prime Laumer, bureaucratic buffoonery undone by a cool, competent troubleshooter who actually gets things done.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

32 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay