Keith Laumer 50 min read

Retief is shooting dice in the wardroom when the Ambassador's summons comes, 'I'll take the rest of your money later,' he tells the players, and follows the flustered junior diplomat out.

Keith Laumer's 1963 story is a sparkling social-SF space opera starring his interstellar troubleshooter Retief. Witty, satirical, sharp golden-age SF. Read it for prime Laumer, bureaucratic bungling and interstellar intrigue undone by a cool, competent diplomat who is always three moves ahead of his own superiors.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Jack Gaughan