Retief's War [Anglais] [Broché]

If you are looking for a fun book which doesn't take the world too serious then this is it!

This book was a great change from the typicaly long and extensively developed books which are becoming more and more common nowadays. Though not a deep and moving book (which I appreciate) it does provide many inovative ideas about possible (if improbable) alien species; their lovable too. You really get into saving the aliens and bagging the bad guys, all in the Retief fashion (two fisted diplomat, James Bond in space?), of course.

Lots of laughs.

The secret to the Retief series is their strong tongue-in-cheek attitude. Taken at face value, the unimaginative reader might stumble over the sub-moronic aliens, the unlikely settings, or the fact that reality seems to often stand on it's head, for no obvious reason. But if you read these series as a parody of the James Bond series, then you can relax and enjoy the experience.

And the subtext of Mankind as having a noble, heroic streak is the best ego boost I get from Sci-Fi. Let other authors portray humans as weak, greedy, venal, flawed : Laumer's Retief is a hero in the strongest sense of the word. If the future holds people like Retief, then maybe Mankind will survive to grow out of our weaknesses.

_Retief's War_ (1967) is the third Retief book and the first Retief novel. It was originally a three-part serial in _If_ in 1965 and was accompanied by some handsome Jack Gaughan illustrations. I have always felt that the ideal length for a Retief story is that of the short novelette. When you stretch a Retief piece to novel length, you become more aware that the characters are cardboard and that the plot is all external action rather than internal conflict. Yet Laumer does better with the novel than you might expect.

Part of the appeal of the novel is the snappy dialogue:

"Closer attention to your _Daily Bulletin from the Bird's Nest_ ," [Magnan said], "would go far toward homogenizing your thinking on the subject."
"I thought that was something they did to milk."
"The term refers to a voluntary alignment of viewpoint of group-oriented polarity; a sort of moral horsepower for maximal thrust toward the objective."
"I'm not sure that pasteurized thinking is rich enough in intellectual vitamins to satisfy my growing curiosity about what Ikk is up to." (23)

Another asset is the color of the setting. It is a jungle-filled planet populated with a large number of creatures who are part chiton, part wheels, part machines. The plot centers around one rascally race called the Voions who have been given police powers by the Diplomatic Corps and who are on the verge of taking over the planet. Thrown into the mix are a would-be dictator, a group of Terran rum traders, a spaceship full of beautiful girls that has crashed in the jungle, a number of bungling ambassadors, some villainous and calculating Groaci, several tribes of cannibals, some giant flying carnivores... and, of course, the unflappable Jame Retief. Laumer manages to juggle enough of these colored balls so that you are at least partly distracted from the limitations of the novel. Good, light fun.