Keith Laumer 53 min read

'It is rather unusual to assign an officer of your rank to courier duty,' Magnan tells Retief, 'but this is an unusual mission', the Soetti mean to seize Jorgensen's Worlds by force.

Keith Laumer's 1961 story is a sparkling social-SF space opera starring his interstellar troubleshooter Retief. Witty, satirical, sharp golden-age SF. Read it for prime Laumer, bumbling diplomacy and alien aggression undone by a cool, competent agent, in one of the earliest and best Retief adventures.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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