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The undefeated

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This is not the science fiction I usually read, as it involves super heroes (disguised as ordinary men), tanks-on-steroids called Bolos, and standard guy-against-the-universe plots. But nobody does a better job with this kind of material than Keith Laumer. I love his stuff and it makes a nice break from cyber-dudes and computer games.

"The Undefeated" consists of four novellas published from 1963 through 1967 in "Galaxy" and "Worlds of Tomorrow" sci-fi magazines. They are:

"WorldMaster"--After the defeat the Soviet Bloc (yeah, I know, a bit dated) in a fierce space battle where his admiral's ship appeared to hang back out of the fight, Captain Maclamore learns that his commander is saving space's last remaining battleship for better things--like helping him take over as supreme ruler of Earth. Does Captain Mac want to join his old friend in the new World Order? Heck, no. Mac's going to take out the wannabe-El-Supremo or die trying. (Anyone with a 'carefully lamp-tanned' face has got to be a bad guy in a Laumer novella.)

"The Night of the Trolls"--Eighty or so years after the Big War, Jackson wakes up in a top-priority research center and discovers that what used to be America has been bombed back to the Stone Age. What exactly happened while he was asleep? In order to find out, Jackson must first get by the rogue Bolo that guards the research center where he had slept away eight decades.

"Thunderhead"--Lieutenant Carnaby has been stranded for twenty-one years on a miserable mining planet with a single surviving (if you can call it that) settlement. He tends his beacon station, wondering if the Fleet has forgotten him---"Maybe they're too busy fighting the Djann to check in with every little JN beacon station on the Outline." When a message does finally come through, Carnaby's flitter is long defunct, and he must make the long climb up Thunderhead to reset his beacon. If he does make it to the top, it won't be much fun. The long-absent Fleet has asked him to call an enemy warship down on top of himself.

"End as a Hero"--A bit more tongue-in-cheek than the first three stories. Grantham (a Retief clone) escapes from the enemy Gool (gigantic icky telepathic slugs) and makes his way back to Earth, only to discover his own people are trying to destroy him because they think his mind is controlled by the Gool. After the first few attempts to blast him into atoms have failed, Grantham does some serious thinking on how to persuade his commanding officers that he's still on their side.