Keith Laumer
A lens about my favorite author and quiet possibly the greatest science fiction writer of all time.
Amazon Spotlight
Retief and the Warlords (Jaime Retief Series #4)
Amazon Price: (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $2.95
Used Price: $0.01
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Recommendations
If you loved Retief and the Warlords (Jaime Retief Series #4), you might also enjoy:
Keith Laumer at a Glance
John Keith Laumer (June 9, 1925-January 23, 1993) was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).
Writing career
Keith Laumer is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959-1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns:
fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence
broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
[edit] Model airplane designer
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Bolo
Books concerning Bolo war machines: self-aware tanks. Co-author book credits also indicated at Bolo Self-aware Tank.
Bolo (1976)
Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade (1986)
Rogue Bolo (1986)
The Stars Must Wait (1990)
The Complete Bolo (1990)
[edit] Retief
Satirical adventures of Retief, the galactic diplomat.
Envoy to New Worlds (1963)
Galactic Diplomat (1965)
Retief's War (1966)
Retief and the Warlords (1968)
Retief: ambassador to space; seven incidents of the Corps diplomatique terrestrienne (1969)
Retief of the CDT (1971)
Retief's Ransom (1971)
Retief: Emissary to the Stars (1975)
Retief at Large (1978)
Retief Unbound (1979)
Retief: Diplomat at Arms (1982)
Retief to the Rescue (1983)
The Return of Retief (1984)
Retief (1986)
Retief in the Ruins (1986)
Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude (1986)
Reward for Retief (1989)
Retief and the Rascals (1993)
Retief! (posthumous, ed. Eric Flint) (2002)
[edit] Retief Comics
6 Issues of Keith Laumer's Retief by Mad Dog Graphics
13 Issues of Keith Laumer's Retief by Adventure Comics
1 Paperback
[edit] Imperium
Books set in the Imperium mythos: a continuum of parallel worlds policed by the Imperium, a government based in an alternate London. In the science fiction novel Worlds of the Imperium the Imperium are a race or culture that formed in an alterate history, where the American Revolution did not occur and the British Empire and Germany merged into an unified empire in 1900. Laumer writes about the main character, Bayard, who goes after an evil dictator of another world by using an interdimensional space traveling device called the Maxoni-Cocini field generator.
Worlds of the Imperium (1962)
The Other Side of Time (1965)
Assignment in Nowhere (1968)
Beyond the Imperium (omnibus edition of The Other Side of Time and Assignment in Nowhere) (1981)
Zone Yellow (1990)
Imperium (omnibus edition of Worlds of the Imperium, Assignment in Nowhere and The Other Side of Time, ed. Eric Flint) (2005)
[edit] Time Trap
Time Trap (1970)
Back to the Time Trap (1992)
[edit] Lafayette O'Leary
A comic equivalent of the Imperium mythos, in which the hero has the ability to travel to feudal/magical alternate Earths.
The Time Bender (1966)
The World Shuffler (1970)
The Shape Changer (1972)
The Galaxy Builder (1984)
[edit] The Avengers (based on the TV series)
#5: The Afrit Afair (1968)
#6: The Drowned Queen (1968)
#7: The Gold Bomb (1968)
[edit] The Invaders (novelizations of the TV series)
The Invaders (UK title The Meteor Men, A Story of Invaders published as by Anthony LeBaron) (1967)
Army of the Undead (UK title The Halo Highway published as by Rafe Bernard) (1967)
Enemies From Beyond (1967)
[edit] Standalone books
How to Design and Build Flying Models (non-fiction) (1960, revised in 1970)
A Trace of Memory (1962)
The Great Time Machine Hoax (1964)
A Plague of Demons (1965)
Embassy (non-genre) (1965)
The Frozen Planet (5 stories, title story by Keith Laumer) (1966)
Catastrophe Planet (1966)
Earthblood (with Rosel George Brown) (1966)
The Monitors (filmed in 1969) (1966)
Galactic Odyssey (1967)
Nine by Laumer (collection) (1967)
Planet Run (with Gordon R. Dickson) (1967)
The Day Before Forever and Thunderhead (two short novels) (1969)
Greylorn (collection) (1968)
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy (collection) (1968)
The Long Twilight (1969)
The Seeds of Gonyl (If magazine, never published as a book) (1969)
The House in November (collection) (1970)
The Star Treasure (1971)
Deadfall (alternative title Fat Chance, filmed as Peeper in 1975) (1971)
Dinosaur Beach (1971) (originally published as The time sweepers in 1969)
Once There Was a Giant (collection) (1971)
The Big Show (collection) (1972)
The Infinite Cage (1972)
Night of Delusions (1972)
Timetracks (collection) (1972)
The Glory Game (1973)
The Undefeated (collection) (1974)
The Best of Keith Laumer (collection) (1976)
The Ultimax Man (1978)
The Breaking Earth (revision of Catastrophe Planet) (1981)
Star Colony (1982)
Knight of Delusions (revision of Night of Delusions) (1982)
Chrestomathy (collection including many excerpts) (1984)
End as a Hero (1985)
The Other Sky and The House in November (1985)
Alien Minds (collection including many excerpts) (1991)
Judson's Eden (1991)
Beenie in Oz (with March Laumer, Tyler Jones, Michael J. Michanczyk) (1997)
Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side (posthumous omnibus, ed. Eric Flint) (2001)
Odyssey (posthumous omnibus, ed. Eric Flint) (2002)
A Plague of Demons and Other Stories (posthumous omnibus, ed. Eric Flint) (2003)
Legions of Space (posthumous omnibus, ed. Eric Flint) (2004)
John Keith Laumer (June 9 1925?January 23 1993) was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).
Amazon Spotlight
Bolos II: The Unconquerable (Bolos, Book 2)
Amazon Price: $6.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $6.99
Used Price: $2.49
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Usually ships in 24 hours
Amazon Recommendations
If you loved Bolos II: The Unconquerable (Bolos, Book 2), you might also enjoy:
Three reasons to love Keith Laumer
- He was a great visionary with a wild imagination.
- He created the Retief series.
- He created the Bolos series.
Visit The Keith Laumer WebSite
- Keith Laumer Website
- Keith Laumer was one of the best hardcore science fiction writers of all time, the master of time travel and alternate worlds. This site was created in his memory as too little has been written about this troubled man.
- The Keith Laumer Webpage
- SF author Keith Laumer describing his life and writing
Amazon Spotlight
Dangerous Vegetables
Amazon Price: $5.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $5.99
Used Price: $0.31
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Usually ships in 24 hours
Amazon Recommendations
If you loved Dangerous Vegetables, you might also enjoy:
Great Keith Laumer stuff from Amazon
Poll: Which is better?
Amazon Spotlight
Earthblood: and Other Stories
Amazon Price: $11.90 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $14.00
Used Price: $3.98
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Usually ships in 24 hours
Great Keith Laumer Stuff on eBay
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
Amazon Spotlight
Envoy to New Worlds (Jaime Retief Series #1)
Amazon Price: (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $2.95
Used Price: $0.71
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating:
Amazon Recommendations
Amazon Error: Could not open remote connection
What is Science Fiction?
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and capitalization) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media. In organizational or marketing contexts, science fiction can be synonymous with the broader definition of speculative fiction, encompassing creative works incorporating imaginative elements not found in contemporary reality; this includes fantasy, horror, and related genres.
Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas".
Science fiction is largely based on writing entertainingly and rationally about alternate possibilities
in settings that are contrary to known reality.
These may include:
*A setting in the future, in alternative time lines, or in a historical past that contradicts known facts of history or the archeological record
*A setting in outer space, on other worlds, or involving aliensSterling, Bruce. "Science fiction" in Encyclopædia Britannica 2008 [http://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=66289&fullArticle=true&tocId=235716]
*Stories that involve technology or scientific principles that contradict known laws of nature
*Stories that involve discovery or application of new scientific principles, such as time travel or psionics, or new technology, such as nanotechnology, faster-than-light travel or robots, or of new and different political or social systems
Amazon Spotlight
Imperium
Amazon Price: $19.00 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $25.00
Used Price: $8.23
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating:
In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served.
Amazon Recommendations
If you loved Imperium, you might also enjoy:
Great Stuff for Sci-Fi fans on CafePress
Amazon Spotlight
A Plague of Demons & Other Stories
Amazon Price: $15.00 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $15.00
Used Price: $0.69
Release Date: 12/31/1969
Avg. Customer Rating:
Usually ships in 4 to 7 weeks
Amazon Recommendations
If you loved A Plague of Demons & Other Stories, you might also enjoy:
Great Stuff on eBay
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by