Search Worlds Without End

When John Bravais was sent on a secret mission to observe a war in North Africa he found out more than it was safe for him to know - even after he had secretly been surgically transformed so that he was as strong as a Bolo tank, and nearly as tough: Wolf-like aliens, invisible to the ordinary eye, were harvesting the brains of the fallen fighters! Brevais might have become the Ultimate Warrior, but still he was only one man against A Plague of Demons.

From the Ruins of Stonehenge to the Starships of Vallon he sought the secret of a trace of memory. When the man named Legion signed on as a soldier of fortune he did not expect to end up as the master of a private island nor to cower in ancient druid pits nor fight for his life in the great hall of Okk-Hamiloth, on a planet galaxies away.

The Earth was in shambles after the final quake had leveled the cities.

For Mal Irish the last hold on reality was the embossed gold coin he had taken from the pocket of the dead man - the man who with his last breath had told him of mastodons buried in ice and men who weren't human.

Once in possession of the coin, Mal found himself on a mysterious quest which led him to discover even stranger things - the girl who spoke the language of another world, the city under the ocean floor, and the deadly little men who followed him. He was in the power of something beyond his understanding, and he meant to find out its source before it put him to its own unfathomable uses.

Appearing from the remote future, Nexx Central agent Ravel is em-placed in America, circa 1936. His mission: to undo successive tampering of the time stream which threaten the survival of Mankind. He falls in love with a lovely, simple girl, Lisa, but in the midst of his happiness is called away to Dinosaur Beach. Dinosaur Beach is a Nexx Central station located millions of years in the past, in the Jurassic Age. But shortly after Ravel's arrival, the station is attacked and destroyed, and Ravel begins a terrifying odyssey through time. For the attackers were another time-tampering team from still a different future era. And Ravel himself is not only in growing danger but the human world as we know it..... Dinosaur beach is the most exciting and ambitious novel yet by the author of The Other Side of Time, Envoy to New Worlds, and the famous "Retief" stories.

A novel of breathtaking space adventure: Earthblood by SF legend and Bolo and Retief saga creator Keith Laumer writing with award-winning SF luminary Rosel George Brown. Humanity has been defeated by the rapacious Niss millennia ago and lies scattered across the galaxy. Young Roan, raised by aliens, is determined to reclaim his heritage and rediscover the legendary, lost human homeworld. But between Roan and home is a dangerous Niss fleet.

Also included are more tales by Laumer and by Brown, masters of humorous SF adventure with a sharp and often satirical point.

Table of Contents

• Earthblood (1966) novel by Rosel George Brown and Keith Laumer
• The Long Remembered Thunder (1963) novelette by Keith Laumer
• The Other Sky (1968) novella by Keith Laumer
• The Soul Buyer (1963) novelette by Keith Laumer
• Save Your Confederate Money, Boys (1959) short story by Rosel George Brown
• Flower Arrangement (1959) short story by Rosel George Brown
• Fruiting Body (1962) novelette by Rosel George Brown
• Visiting Professor (1961) short story by Rosel George Brown
• Car Pool (1959) novelette by Rosel George Brown
• And a Tooth (1962) short story by Rosel George Brown

THE CONQUERING HERO

Mankind was at war with the hideous Gool... and losing. Then, beyond Ganymead, one man fought the searing brain probe of an alien spy...and won. He mastered the power of its telepathic mind-control, captured the secret of its matter transmitters, and learned how to destroy the Gool Overlords. He called intelligence with news of the victory and headed home.

Straight into a barrage of Terran nuclear warheads.

Past missiles, shells, and assassins, he made it home -- alone, badly wounded, and branded a traitor by conventional Terran wisdom that said no one could survive the Gool brain probe. No one, that is, except a brainwashed puppet deliberately allowed to survive to serve the Goos as a spy.

But he must survive Earth's attempts to kill him -- because no matter how much his fellow humans want him dead, he knows that he is the only one who can lead them against the Gool and have a chance at victory.

One of the most bizarre and original fictional concepts ever attempted, this book is a remarkable tour de force for a quintet of today's top writers of speculative fiction. From a common story- hook--Bailey's death at the Euthanasia Center--each author was commissioned to extrapolate his own individual vision of Bailey's fate. No two even remotely resemble one another, and with consummate individuality each of the stories validates beyond doubt the incredible fertility of both the science fiction genre and its singular practitioners.

Table of Contents:

• The Fatal Fulfillment - (1970) - novella by Poul Anderson
• Murder Will In - (1970) - novelette by Frank Herbert
• Maverick - (1970) - novella by Gordon R. Dickson
• The Region Between - (1970) - novella by Harlan Ellison
• Of Death What Dreams - (1970) - novelette by Keith Laumer

The Convulsing Earth had shattered Civilization and Something Was Moving In To Pick Up The Pieces

Mal was heading across an America ravaged by worldwide earthquakes when he ran into a dying stranger who babbled of men who weren't really men. The stranger had an unusual gold coin in his pocket which no expert could identify, and soon, Mal was to discover some things who wanted that coin were on his trail...

Steve Dravek awoke in a nightmarish city and immediately had to fight for his life against ruthless organ-stealing gangs. His last memories are of a vanished time from over a century ago. And someone is hunting him through the dark city, someone who seems to know him better than he knows himself...

The commander of the spaceship fleet that just annihilated the enemy armada has decided to become world dictator unless his second in command can stop him...

A national test condemns a man to a life of unskilled labor, unless he can find a way around the system...

A full-length novel, and a host of short novels and more fill an action-packed volume by the master of science fiction adventure.

Table of Contents:

• Catastrophe Planet - (1966) - novel
• The Walls - (1963) - shortstory
• Founder's Day - (1966) - novelette
• Placement Test - (1964) - novelette
• Worldmaster - (1965) - novelette
• The Day Before Forever - (1967) - novella
• Afterword - essay by Eric Flint

Down and out on planet Earth...

It was raining, starting to sleet. My last ride had dumped me twenty country miles from nowhere. If I didn't get warm soon I was going to die. That's why I took a chance on that weird corn silo, even after I knew it was... something else... and that's why I, Billy Danger, woke up 400 light years from home, "native" gun bearer for a lordly alien and his beautiful mistress.

AKA: Spaceman

Contents:

• 7 - Greylorn - (1959) - novella
• 58 - The Night of the Trolls - [Bolo] - (1963) - novella
• 109 - The Other Sky - (1968) - novella by Keith Laumer (variant of The Further Sky 1964)

• 166 - The King of the City - (1961) - novelette

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It was originally published in Orbit 7 (1970), edited by Damon Knight. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Award Stories Six (1971) edited by Clifford D. Simak and the collection The Big Show (1972).

Contents:

• 5 - The Body Builders - (1966) - novelette
• 33 - The Planet Wreckers - (1967) - novelette
• 59 - The Star-Sent Knaves - (1963) - novelette
• 94 - The War Against the Yukks - (1965) - novelette (variant of War Against the Yukks)
• 135 - Goobereality - novelette

When Marl Judson, fleeing a rapacious government that wanted not just his fabulous wealth but his life, crash-landed on a uninhabited planet, he thought he was marooned without hope of rescue, so he prepared himself to live out his remaining years as best he could amidst the planet's weird hallucinogenic flora. But head-twistting flowers (which Judson learned to avoid) were only part of the planet's weirdness: it was possessed of some sort of field effect which made time play strange tricks; temporal anomalies sometimes resulted in cause preceding effect and bizarre compressions and expansions of the normal pace of events.

In such an environment time had no meaning; has Jusdson lived centuries alone, or only decades? Or is it years? Or all of the above? He doesn't quite know, but when another ship crashes the strange time effects allow(ed) him to conduct an experiment aimed at producing a perfect society, a veritable Judson's Eden. The the Snake arrives in the form of the government that marooned him - and the Snake wants Judson's Eden for itself.

Investigation of reality. It starts out as a wierd but seemingly understandable assignment, bodyguarding a mad politician whose keepers have decided to let him "escape" as a sort of reality therapy. But to understand the Senator, Florin must enter the Machine, and reality will never be the same. From now on he's a... Knight of Delusions.

Also published as Knight of Delusions.

Contents:

• Cocoon - (1962) - short story
• Dinochrome - [Bolo] - short story (variant of Combat Unit 1960)
• Doorstep - (1961) - short story
• End as a Hero - (1963) - novelette
• Hybrid - (1961) - short story
• The Long Remembered Thunder - (1963) - novelette
• Placement Test - (1964) - novelette
• A Trip to the City - novelette (variant of It Could Be Anything 1963)
• The Walls - (1963) - short story
• Introduction: The Universe, According to Laumer - essay by Harlan Ellison

This collection of three novels by the creator of Retief features three heroes on interstellar adventures.

Table of Contents:

• Preface (Odyssey) - (2002) - essay by David Weber
• Galactic Odyssey - (1967)
• A Trip to the City - (1967)
• Hybrid - (1961)
• Combat Unit - (1960)
• The King of the City - (1961)
• Once There Was a Giant - (1968)
• Dinosaur Beach - (1971)

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1968. It is included in the collections Once There Was a Giant (1971) and Odyssey (2002).

The newly disvovered planet Corazon has just been opened to prospecters, and ruthless Senator Bartholomew wants only one man to stake a claim for him. but this man--veteran explorer Captain Henry--will have no part of the venture. As conqueror of several planets, and now 135 years old, he longs for retirement and relaxation. blackmailed, however, by the Senator, into rejuvenation treatments and committed to the new mission, hendry shrewdly devises his own scheme for revenge...

Coming in fast and low, the huge ship made planetfall. Three years out from Terra, the colony ship Omega had reached her destination, and the crew began to off-load the cargo and passengers.

Then the ship vanished.

Against the vast panorama of an unexplored universe, Keith Laumer sets this first volume of the history of the world called Colmar - mankind's first venture among the stars.

Introduction by Barry N. Malzberg. Contains short stories from 1961 to 1970:

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1976) - essay by Barry N. Malzberg
• The Planet Wreckers - (1967) - novelette
• The Body Builders - (1966) - novelette
• Cocoon - (1962) - shortstory
• The Lawgiver - (1970) - shortstory
• Thunderhead - (1967) - novelette
• Hybrid - (1961) - shortstory
• The Devil You Don't - (1970) - novelette
• Doorstep - (1961) - shortstory
• A Relic of War - (1969) - shortstory

Table of Contents:

• In the Queue - (1970) - shortstory
• A Relic of War - (1969) - shortstory
• The Big Show - (1968) - novelette
• Message to an Alien - (1970) - shortstory
• The Plague - (1970) - novelette
• Test to Destruction - (1967) - novelette

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1967. The story can also be found in the collections The Day Before Forever and Thunderhead (1968) and Future Imperfect (2003).

Table of Contents:

• The Day Before Forever - (1967) - novella
• Thunderhead - (1967) - novelette

Commodore Tan Dalton, of Terra's Space Navy, is approached by the Softliners, politicians who want to avoid war with the Hukk invaders at all costs. He is also harangued by the Hardliners, who want him to provoke full-scale military action.

Out in space, Dalton is faced with the harsh reality of the situation when the Hukk admiral pulls off a brilliant maneuver. Dalton's decision can mean mutiny, space war, or instant, terrible defeat.

Chester W. Chester IV, sole surviving heir of eccentric millionaire-inventor Chester W. Chester I, has entered into his inheritance: a semi-moribund circus; a white elephant of a run-down neo-Victorian mansion furnished with such hot items as TV sets shaped like crouching vultures; the old gentleman's final invension, a mammoth computer whose sole value seems to be as scrap metal; and one more thing--a million credits in back taxes. Either he comes up with the million credits, or it's up-the-river for Chester for a long, long time.

That's why Chester is desperate enough to use the Generalized Nonlinear Extrapolator (Genie for short) to perpetrate one of the biggest entertainment scams of all time--The Great Time Machine Hoax.

When he awakens in a skid row alley, Adam knows nothing. Not who he is, nor where he's from. Money is a mystery. So are women. All he begins his new life with is a will to survive. But he learns fast: first, how to get away; then how not to have to. In the beginning Adam wants to be friends with us. Before he's through he just might run the human race off its feet...

THE COMBATANTS

Two godlike blood enemies engaged in a war older than history.

THE BATTLEGROUND

An out-of-control nuclear plant whose cataclysmic destruction will spell the end of the Earth.

REFUGE

None - on a planet swept up in the awesome terror of the last panic.

Even after the set had been turned off, the T.V. blared the announcement: ' Citizens of Earth, I am Tersh Jetterax. It is my pleasure to announce to you that a new government has now taken over the conduct of all public affairs.' And thus the US was in the hands of the Monitors, the strangely polite yellow clad beings whose powers were such that they could render everyone helpless -- without shedding one drop of blood! Who were they? The Russkies? An alien race from another planet?

"In the next few days you will master the rules and techniques for every activity, skill, talent, sport and art ever mastered by any human being anywhere. You will be as expert at clipping flints as at architectural drawing. You will be able to juggle, walk a tightrope and add the numerals on the sides of passing freight cars as fast as any idiot savant. You'll absorb all the information in all the books - the human race's entire heritage of knowledge..."

This was only the beginning of the experiment that was to turn a petty thief into the mos brilliant and powerful man ever to hold the earth in thrall.

This was only the first step on the path of conquest mapped out for - THE ULTIMAX MAN.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in two parts in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, in September and October 1977. There are no other know publications of the novella but is was later expanded to the full novel The Ultimax Man (1978).

Envoy to New Worlds

The Machiavelli of cosmic diplomacy. Collection of Retief stories.

Flight From Yesterday

Yesterday in America, tomorrow in Atlantis.

Worlds of the Imperium

When Brion Bayard was kidnapped and brought to the alternate world where Earth's history took a different turn, it was not a pleasant experience. It was, however, a startling experience. Here was a world that was just like the Earth he was taken from--with just a few subtle changes. On top of all this, Brion was given a puzzling assignment by his captors. He was to secretly enter a palace, and kill a dangerous and tyrannical dictator. There was one, small catch--the hated dictator in this world was the mirror image of Brion Bayard. For on an Alternate Earth, Brion's is his own worst enemy!

Seven from the Stars

As they watched humanity and Earth being destroyed they were determined to fight and survive, but they now faced an enemy able to live undetected in a human host, unrestricted by time and space, and determined to rule!

A single-volume edition of "Bolo" and "Rogue Bolo". The most powerful servants of the Terran Empire are machines endowed with artificial intelligence, designed to protect humankind - and the most powerful of all are the Bolos. They started out as simple tanks but now control the entire galaxy.

Table of Contents:

• The Night of the Trolls (1963) - novella
• Courier - [Retief] (1961) - novelette (variant of The Frozen Planet)
• Field Test (1976) - short story
• The Last Command (1967) - short story
• A Relic of War (1969) - short story
• Combat Unit (1960) - short story
• Rogue Bolo (1986) - novella
• Final Mission (1986) - novella
• A Short History of the Bolo Fighting Machines (1976) - short story

Originally developed as far back as the 1980's by the Bolo Division of General Motors, these great artillery machines took on awareness in later designs and gradually began to replace man in that most human of endeavors: War.

But let BOLO speak for itself. In the action-packed Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade, the ultimate fighting machines tell their own fascinating, far-ranging and ultimately tragic story...

Table of Contents:

• A Short History of the Bolo Fighting Machines (1976) - short story
• The Night of the Trolls (1963) - novella
• Courier - [Retief] (1961) - novelette (variant of The Frozen Planet)
• Field Test (1976) - short story
• The Last Command (1967) - short story
• A Relic of War (1969) - short story
• Combat Unit (1960) - short story

The saga of the first completely automated bolos - and perhaps the beginning of the end for the human race.

Table of Contents:

• Rogue Bolo (1986) - novella
• Final Mission (1986) - novella
• A Short History of the Bolo Fighting Machines (1976) - short story

Awakened from suspended animation aboard his exploration starship, John Jackson is shocked to discover that the ship never left Earth - and that he has slept a century after a world war. Facing a nightmare wilderness inhabited by neo-barbarians and sentient tanks, Jackson is the only man who can bring the world to its senses.

Contents:

• Worlds of the Imperium - [Imperium (Keith Laumer)] - short fiction
• Combat Unit - [Bolo] - (1960) - short story
• Doorstep - (1961) - short story
• Stranger in Paradox - (1961) - novelette
• The Star-Sent Knaves - (1963) - novelette
• A Hoax in Time - (1964) - novel (variant of The Great Time Machine Hoax)
• The King of the City - (1961) - novelette
• Cocoon - (1962) - short story
• Hybrid - (1961) - short story
• It Could Be Anything - (1963) - novelette
• The Long-Remembered Thunder - (1970) - novelette (variant of The Long Remembered Thunder 1963)
• The Walls - (1963) - short story

Contains:

• Assignment in Nowhere
• The Other Side of Time

Appeared in Ace Double F-127 in 1962.

When Brion Bayard was kidnapped and brought to the alternate world where Earth's history took a different turn, it was not a pleasant experience. It was, however, a startling experience. Here was a world that was just like the Earth he was taken from--with just a few subtle changes. On top of all this, Brion was given a puzzling assignment by his captors. He was to secretly enter a palace, and kill a dangerous and tyrannical dictator. There was one, small catch--the hated dictator in this world was the mirror image of Brion Bayard. For on an Alternate Earth, Brion's is his own worst enemy!

Imperial Intelligence Agent Brion Bayard was catapulted into nothingness by an unknown force and woke to find himself in a universe not his own. Surrounded by hulking, cannibalistic ape men who called themselves Haroon, Bayard was soon entrapped in a web of time lines. He found himself running from the Hagroon into the arms of Dzok, the educated monkey man of Xonijeel; transported by Dzok to a universe where Napoleon the Fifth was in power and left there to the tender powers of the beautiful witch woman Olivia; struggling in the bonds of a fictitious past, always striving to regain his lost universe of Zero-zero Stockholm so he could bring the warning which might save his world from sudden, violent death.

It seemed as though the world was eroding right under everyone's feet. Stories disappeared from magazines; the baron's silver coat of arms, polished in the morning, was pitted with corrosion by afternoon; toadstools were springing up from every corner. And these were but the first signs of the coming plague, a cancerous orgy of patternless vitality seeking to engulf the world...

To stem the tide.... Carefree Johnny Curlon, indelicately plucked from his fishing boat one evening, is bluntly informed by high powers that he is a man destined for a role in great affairs: only his unique powers can prevent the coming probability crisis that threatens to turn the world into bubbling chaos...

Rats beware - The Imperium's on your tail! Brion Bayard, once of our own timeline and now imperioum Agent extraordinaire, had been on some-pretty damgerous missions before - but never had he encountered so noxious a foe as the invading legions of giant plague-ridden rats who walked like men, spreading disease across the multiple universes of the imerium.

Draftsmen can't fight dragons.

Then again, that's usually no problem - they generally don't have to. But Lafayette O'Leary does. When an accidental overdose of self-hypnosis wrenches him out of the dull (but safe) Mrs. MacGlint's Clean Rooms and Board and deposits him in the feudal, bedragoned world of Artesia, it takes him a little while to catch on, even with the attentions of the beautiful Princess Adoranne. Then he decides that he likes this new life of his - except for the part where he's supposed to get killed...

Twas boring in Artesia... or so thought Sir Lafayette O'Leary, ex-draftsman from Earth, and now seemingly ex-interdimensional swashbuckler extraordinaire as well. His battles were all won, his dragons all slain, and life was just the same boring round of riches, royal hunts and regattas.

Boring, boring, boring; until he walked past the azalia. Suddenly Artesia was gone, and O'Leary was trapped in "Melange," a world of giants and pirates, a world where goons and harlots are the spitting images (literallly!) of his own aristocratic Arteisan associates. And because they think that he's his double, lots of his new friends want O'Leary dead. Unless he can get through the interdimensional gate and find the continuum path back home, O'Leary's life will never be boring again. Just short.

Lafayette O'Leary, to his acute discomfiture, has an exhilarating and terrifying tendency to slip continua. And what might that mean?

It might mean finding oneself a gypsy with a ring in his ear at one moment, and then suddenly a crippled birdman unable to leave his nest because of the awkward loss of teleporting talent.

It might mean battling one's way back to the time stream where he started -- only to find himself already there, lording it over the populace like a tyrant.

The world, as Lafayette O'Leary knew it, disappeared in a flash. Perhaps it was his own doing - after all, he had the uncanny gift of creating alternate realities by sheer mental power.

But the result was a nightmare gone out of control. All O'Leary wanted was to find his wife and return to the familiar world of Artesia. Yet no sooner did he manage to extricate himself from one bizarre situation than he was thrust into another, equally threatening...

There was only one thing to do: he had to penetrate the very center of power from which his destiny was being controlled and - take it into his own hands!

Omnibus Contains:

• Protocol (ss)
• Sealed Orders (ss)
• Aide Memoire (ss)
• Policy (novelette)
• Palace Revolution (novelette)
• Retief's Ransom (Novel, #6)

Table of Contents:

• Protocol - (1962)
• Sealed Orders - (1962)
• Cultural Exchange - (1962)
• Aide Memoire - (1962)
• Policy - (1962)
• Palace Revolution - (1961)

Table of Contents:

• Ultimatum - (1963)
• Saline Solution - (1963)
• The Brass God - (1965)
• The Castle of Light - (1964)
• Wicker Wonderland - (1964)
• Native Intelligence - (1963)
• The Prince and the Pirate - (1964)
• Courier - (1961)
• Protest Note - (1962)

James Retief, assigned to unite hostile Quoppian tribes for the sake of Earth's security, must first foil the destructive plans of the evil Groaci and encounters the beautiful princess, Fifi.

Life is just a bowl of Terries (and the phrase Terran Dip has taken on a whole new meaning)

Terran diplomats are the epitome of good taste--but do they taste good? That is the question on every alien mandible as the Haterakans invade the human-occupied Goober Cluster in search of new feeding grounds.

The Cluster is in deadly danger-- but "provocation" of the Haterakans might jeopardize the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne's new foreign aid program and so is forbidden, no matter what the aliens' choice of hors d'oeuvres. Alas for the chitinous aliens; just when they think they have discovered a wonderful new food supply they run smack up against a diplomat who refuses to act like one. Leave it to Retief to spoil everything.

How are thing on Rockamorra? Bad, very. Earth Ambassador Pinchbottle has contracted to fight a dinorsaur, and it's up to troubleshooter Jame Retief to keep him from being stomped, mangled, or eaten.

Table of Content

• Grime and Punishment - (1969)
• Giant Killer - (1965)
• The Forbidden City - (1967)
• Dam Nuisance - (1966)
• Trick or Treaty - (1965)
• The Forest in the Sky - (1967)
• Truce or Consequences - (1966)

Retief, the Galaxy's least conventional diplomat

Lumbaga is a planet without known virtues--but with some decidely odd natives. Fro every Lumbagan is simply an arbitrary assortment of semi-independent organs inspired by a lust for mayhem.

BUt even the most undesirable chunk of galactic real estate attracts its quote of rival overlords, and the fiendish Groaci had a scheme for absorbing Lumbaga into their sphere of influence. It was working well, too, until it involved Retief, Terran diplomat extraordinary. To his powerful intellect, the machinations of teh Groaci were child's play....

Against a raging backdrop of interplanetary intrigue.

This time the resourceful officer of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne must deal with horrors unknown as he hunts the universe for a stolen ballet theatre.

The courageous Terran must fight the five-eyed Groaci, outwit the ferocious Tsuggs, and reason with the talking flowers he finds in the midst of his dangerous mission.

But in spite of all this, in the face of the vagaries of alien plots and the wild ambitions of his superiors, Retief remains strong and unshakable - and in peaceful and just control of the galaxy!

Follow the further adventures of Retief - already an underground hero.

Contents:

• Ballots and Bandits - (1970)
• Mechanical Advantage - (1971)
• Pime Doesn't Cray - (1971)
• Internal Affair - (1971)
• The Piecemakers - (1970)

The Groaci peril: They're nasty little five-eyed sticky fingers who want the galaxy and will stoop to anything to get it. But when they try to sabotage one planet and use another for their garbage, it's time for Retief, that cunning and courageous emissary from Corps Diplomatique Tewrrestrienne to samsh in.

And smash in Retief does, in an extraordinary series of adventures that take him from gambling to gunplay, from the blue lagoons of the most coveted planet in the solar systems to the aid of one of the loveliest women in the galaxy - and ultimately up against the fiercest and most destructive beings in the Universe!

Contents:

• The Hoob Melon Crisis - (1975)
• The Garbage Invasion - (1972)
• An Excerpt from Retief & the Warlords (Excerpt) - (1968)
• The Troubleshooter - (1975)
• The Negotiators - (1975)

Cosmic diplomacy and Machiavellian intrigue.

The official accounts of Terra's efforts in the field of interstellar diplomacy during the 29th century are available for the dialing to anyone willing to pore through the records of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne.

For those of sufficient discernment, however, it will be evident that the Corps records, incredibly voluminous though they be, fail to tell the whole truth - indeed to some degree must obscure it. Surely if it had been guarded solely by the efforts of such persons as Ambassadors Magnan, Thunderstroke and Grossblunder, Terra's Sphere of Influence would have crumpled instantly before the diplomatic assaults of the Groaci. That it did not demonstrates that other factors were at work.
One such factor was a career diplomat named James Retief. Contained here are several accounts of his achievements, illustrating how a few able men were able to save the galaxy for Man.

Contents:

• Cultural Exchange - (1962)
• Saline Solution - (1963)
• The Castle of Light - (1964)
• Wicker Wonderland - (1965)
• The Brass God - (1965)
• Mechanical Advantage - (1971)
• Dam Nuisance - (1966)
• Grime and Punishment - (1969)
• The Forbidden City - (1969)
• The Piecemakers - (1970)
• Ballots and Bandits - (1970)
• Pime Doesn't Cray - (1971)

Table of Contents:

• Ultimatum - (1963)
• Native Intelligence - (1963)
• The Prince and the Pirate - (1964)
• Courier - (1961)
• Protest Note - (1962)
• Truce or Consequences - (1966)
• The Secret

Retief returns--to make the galaxy safe for diplomacy!

The diplomat extraordinaire faces his ultimate challenge n the embattles planer Furtheron--to keep the peace and keep himself in one piece!

Voracious Crawlie cannibals want him for dinner--while the wily Creepies are besieging Earth's embassy. Then greedy Groacians add fuel to the fire, igniting civil war for their own secret ends.

Only a rare diplomat can pull his Corps out of this stew, save his boss's hide, and preserve the future of the Galaxy!

A vast and powerful race, the Ree needed breeding room for an ever increasing population--and their expansion plans took no account of human territory. Retief, already on probation for undiplomatic behavior, earned himself the assignment of parleying with the Ree when he urged force against them. A suicide mission? Perhaps. But Retief is Retief.

It's a rare day when Terrans meet eye-to-eyestalk with the slimy little sticky-fingers - er, that is to say, the noble alien Groaci. This time the races clash on the planet Popu-Ri, once the home of a mighty interstellar power. Popu-Ri has sunk into decline... but its ancient treasures remain. Though not for long, if the Groaci have their way.

Groaci also finds Popu-Ri just the place to build a galactic warfleet. Still, for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne to respond would threaten the delicate balance of human/Groaci forces on the cocktail circuit. Therefore the ambassador must keep the lid on by doing nothing. But how to do nothing without seeming an inneffectual pantywaist? Send an observer!

Yep, the Ambassador has it all figured out. But he made one little mistake; he sent Retief...

Table of Contents:

• Retief in the Ruins
• There is a Tide - (1986)
• The Woomy

"In Zany-Doo did Jame Retief a stately pleasure dome decree..."

Retief's latest assignment is on Zany-Doo, a wild undeveloped planet whose residents have a marked dislike for Terrans. The caterpilleroid natives seem to have something to hide, but neither Ambassador Spoilsport nor Retief's ineffable boss, Ben Magnan, can figure out what it might be. The Retief and Magnan stumble into an idyllis enclave unlike anthing else tehy've seen--and realise just how special Zany-Doo is. The planet is at the center of a trans-temporal flux where the very nature of reality can be transformed by a thought.

But even in a world where reality is subject to shim, honor, courage and determination will carrey the day. After all, Retief is just a state of mind...

Terran diplomat and interplanetary troubleshooter Jame Retief must stop the belligerent, five-eyed Groaci from invading the beleaguered planet of Bloor, which is already plagued by violence between rival gangs.