Customer Reviews

Retief in the Ruins (Jaime Retief Series #14)

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When I picked up this collection of late entry stories (all originally published in 1986) of Jame Retief, the "ugly Terry" of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, I did not expect to find a great work of science fiction literature. I did expect to be reasonably entertained. I found instead that the stories were actually boring and dull. What is the difference between these stories and the Retief stories of the early 1960s? For one thing, while the earlier stories were satirical, they were also space opera. They poked fun in a light, entertaining manner. The later stories are all satire, with little adventure. The satire is heavy-handed and aimed at obvious targets, and the stories are much too long. The earlier Retief stories tended to be short, tight novelettes. The stories in this collection ("Retief in the Ruins," "There is a Tide," and "The Woomy" ) are all overwritten novellas. Too bad, too bad. Laumer wrote a lot that was much better.

A collection of stories about the famous Retief character, using the most unwieldly prose writing imaginable. If he eliminated all the `Swifties' (`ly' adverbs) from the book, it would probably only be twenty pages long. There isn't much substance there aside from the dialogue, which looks like this:
"Boy, it's hot out here," Retief said ARIDLY.
And, of course, the annoying "see issue #500" problem, as in the sections of dialogue that go like this:
He spoke to them in the tone of an Ambassador With A Severe Bowel Cramp (#2447-ed.)