#Keith Laumer

[humanoidhistory]

Jack Gaughan's cover art for The Long Twilight by Keith Laumer, 1969.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[bracketsoffear]

Bolo (Keith Laumer et. al.) ""Bolos might fail. They might die and be destroyed. But they did not surrender, and they never — ever — quit."

A series of stories, originally by Keith Laumer, that were later expanded into a Shared Universe by other authors. They detail the exploits of the Bolo, autonomous AI tanks that are supposed to have evolved from the standard main battle tank of the 20th century.

These aren't your normal tanks. For one, their designers decided that bigger was better, and since the only thing that could really take down a Bolo was another Bolo, they just kept building the Bolos bigger and bigger, to the point where even the stealth tanks mass 1,500 tons. Or in some novels the Mark XXXIII weighs 32,000 tons.

There are plenty of examples of why this is Slaughter, but the aptly-named Final War, culminating in a mutual campaign of total extermination between humans and Melconians that turned a whole spiral arm of the Milky Way into a lifeless waste of dead or hopelessly contaminated planets, takes the cake. It is notable that plans of Operation Ragnarok, the human half of the equation of genocide, were based on a scenario initially created to illustrate utter madness of such campaign. Even the eponymous sapient supertanks start cracking under the weight of their orders by the end, succumbing to bloodlust. When one of the very few surviving Bolos, Shiva, reawakens, he is horrified by the atrocities that he himself had not been above committing under the pretense of following orders."

The Iliad (Homer) "(Unless otherwise noted, translations are by Peter Green.)

"Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath of great Achilles, son of Peleus, which caused the Greeks immeasurable pain and sent so many noble souls of heroes to Hades…" (translation by Emily Wilson)

The Iliad is the archetypical war story. It traces the destructive path of the demigod Achilles, who sets in motion a devastating series of events when he refuses to fight the Trojans in a pique of pride. The infamous catalogue of ships in Book 2 gives a sense of the mind-numbing scale of a war fought over something as intangible as the pride of men and gods. The lavish descriptions of battle and the accounts of individual deaths and wounds give a sense of the utter devastation of war and the grief it leaves behind:

"Not in vain from [Diomēdēs's] hand did the missile fly, but struck Phēgeus full in mid-breast, threw him clear of his horses. Then from the fine-crafted chariot Idaios sprang down, but dared not make a stand over his slain brother, nor would he himself have escaped the black death spirit without the aid of Hēphaistos, who saved him, hid him in darkness, to ensure that aged Darēs [father of Phēgeus and Idaios] was not wholly undone by grief."

Without the help of Achilles, the Trojans begin to gain ground on the Greeks. Torn between his pride and his concern for his comrades, Achilles agrees to let his beloved Patroclus disguise himself in Achilles' armor to hearten the Greeks and scare the Trojans:

"All at once [the Greeks] came charging out like a swarm of wasps by the roadside that boys have a way of provoking to fury, constantly teasing them in their nests along the highway, as children will, creating a widespread nuisance, so that if some traveler passing by should happen to annoy them by accident, they with aggressive spirit all come buzzing out in defense of their offspring-- like them in heart and spirit the Myrmidons now streamed forth from the ships, and an endless clamor arose…"

Hector, prince of Troy kills Patroclus and unleashes the unbridled wrath of Achilles, who becomes so enraged he slaughters every Trojan in his path so gruesomely he enrages the River itself:

"Achilles, scion of Zeus, now left his spear on the bank, leaning against a tamarisk, and charged in like a demon, armed only with his sword, horrific deeds in mind. He turned and struck at random, and ghastly cries went up from those caught by his sword: the water ran red with blood…"

"My lovely streams are currently all awash with corpses; I can't get to discharge my waters into the bright sea, I'm so choked with the dead, while you ruthlessly keep on killing!"

When the River almost drowns Achilles, he's terrified--not of death, but of being robbed the glory of his promised death at the hands of the Trojans: "If only Hektōr had killed me, the best-bred warrior here, / then noble had been the slayer, noble the man he slew…"

In The Iliad, war is destruction and grief but simultaneously honor and glory, and Achilles is only one of the many characters who move through its battlefields like the incarnation of Slaughter itself."

[all-action-all-picture]

1973 ad for Worlds Unknown No. 2 from Marvel. Adaptations of A Gun for Dinosaur! by L. Sprague deCamp and Doorstep by Keith Laumer. This promo image, by Alan Weiss and John Romita, was also used as the cover.

[dvandom]

Retief and the Peter Principle

Inspired by James Nicoll's essay on SF and the Peter Principle.

For those not into 70s SF, Jaime Retief is the protagonist of Keith Laumer's more light-hearted ironic post-Golden Age space opera stuff, a counterpart to his grimmer Bolo stories (albeit potentially set in the same universe, or Retief is in an AU of Bolo). He works for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne (CDT), a secret agent of the James Bond mold masquerading as yet another ineffectual CDT drone. The typical story involves the CDT trying to do something stupid on an alien world, and while technically following orders Retief manages to salvage the situation by just being So Much More Clever than his ostensible superiors. A common point of tension is that the Terrans have the military might to crush any opposition, but without Retief (and possibly a few others like him scattered about), the Groaci would eat our lunch and dominate known space.

It's basically read as a broadly satirical take on U.S. attempts at diplomacy, a comedy of errors against an enemy that shouldn't be that much of a challenge but somehow is (Groaci war tech is mostly knockoffs of older Terran tech, and they don't have nearly as much of it). So, Retief has to make sure he has the proper hemi-semi-demi-formal leisure suit for the afternoon meeting, while also keeping the Groaci from stealing a planet out from under the CDT. Retief's boss is good at covering his own ass, taking credit for Retief's actions (especially those that were ostensibly direct violations of orders), etc. Classic struggle of the only competent guy at the company to keep things from falling apart when the institutional culture is just crap, right?

Now...it's quite possible that this surface reading is all that Laumer intended. But, while it's been many years since I read the books, I never got the impression that Retief himself though "blow the Groaci away" was actually a preferred solution. Whoever Retief really answers to seems to be generally okay with the "diplomats, not armadas" policy.

Potential Death of the Author time. Regardless of what Laumer really meant, these days I see the situation as a case of the entire Terran government suffering from the Peter Principle, in which they have been promoted above the level of their competence.

They are very good at military solutions. It's often pointed out that they could throw a switch and roll over the Groaci-held worlds on a moment's notice, without scratching the paint on the dreadnaughts. But at some point in the relatively recent past, they decided to be Better. To work towards diplomatic solutions, make allies rather than vassals. And the ludicrously incompetent actions of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne demonstrate that no one really knows how to do that. The warlike phase went on long enough that institutional memory of diplomacy was lost, and they're forced to fall back on historical records going back to when Terrans were restricted to Terra. They desperately want to be the United Federation of Planets instead of being the Empire, but it's outside their competency. Meanwhile, the Groaci (and probably some other minor powers) have realized that this levels the playing field a LOT. They can do stupid and bad diplomacy as well as the Terrans can, and it's a lot more likely to get them what they want than trying to pick an actual fight in which they'd get vaporized. Some of them might even be honestly better at diplomacy than the CDT.

Retief's job, then, is to troubleshoot the process. The true brains behind the Terran government are smart enough to know they have no idea what they're doing, a lot of wheels are being reinvented and turning out to be rectangular. So Retief is put in a position to chisel them into a more round-ish shape before disaster happens.

Retief is the sergeant who keeps the newly minted lieutenant that is the CDT out of trouble, while being careful to maintain the illusion of the chain of command. Hemi-semi-demi-usually.

[cinematic-literature]

Black Mirror S06E03 (Beyond the Sea)

Book title

The Siren Song of Tranquility

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1965) by Robert A. Heinlein

Galactic Odyssey (1967) by Keith Laumer

The Dolphin and the Deep (1968) by Thomas Burnett Swann

[beetle3000-1]

I made an addition to a post that I guess didn't pick up at all, but I wrote a lot so I feel compelled to make this its own Bolo propaganda post:

if you're looking for a good sci-fi series where the men and women are all treated equally (in the vein of the og post), then I'm gonna be extremely cliche and recommend

THE BOLO SERIES THATS RIGHT, GIANT SENTIENT SPACE TANKS

Oh and I guess there's human characters too - for the age of the series at times, the female characters are often treated well and are seen as equals to the men. Except for whatever goes on with the Mark III bolos sometimes but they hardly ever show up in stories. ...Weird shit. ANYWAYS if you like the idea of GIANT SENTIENT SPACE TANKS that have more chivalry and loyalty than their own human creators, and you also like a narrative that will:

• Make you violently patriotic for places and people that don't exist

• Make you cry over either some of the most gutwrenching shit ever, or the most uplifting shit ever

• Make you slam your fists on the table like an enraged chimp

then this is a very very good series to pick up ok.

ALSO THE COMBAT DESCRIPTIONS ARE TOP NOTCH IF YOU LIKE WAR STORIES

do you see that magnificent bastard up there. he has a bigger heart and sense of righteousness than like 90% of the human race and I am NOT kidding. if you read this series you WILL fall in love with giant sentient space tanks.

[beetle3000-1]

AS A MATTER OF FACT YES it does that extremely well

does the ending recontexualise the beginning, that’s the question.

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Untitled by Steve Via Flickr: Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, January 1960. Contains "The Funnel of God" by Robert Bloch, "Diplomat-at-Arms" by Keith Laumer, and "The Complete Father" by David R. Bunch. Cover by Albert Nuetzell.

[randomfusilier]

[beetle3000-1]

I'm gonna be extremely predictable here and I'm gonna recommend

THE BOLO SERIES THATS RIGHT, GIANT SENTIENT SPACE TANKS

Oh and I guess there's human characters too - for the age of the series at times, the female characters are often treated well and are seen as equals to the men. Except for whatever goes on with the Mark III bolos sometimes but they hardly ever show up in stories. ...Weird shit. ANYWAYS if you like the idea of GIANT SENTIENT SPACE TANKS that have more chivalry and loyalty than their own human creators, and you also like a narrative that will:

• Make you violently patriotic for places and people that don't exist

• Make you cry over either some of the most gutwrenching shit ever, or the most uplifting shit ever

• Make you slam your fists on the table like an enraged chimp

This is a very very good series, ok.

ALSO THE COMBAT DESCRIPTIONS ARE TOP NOTCH IF YOU LIKE WAR STORIES

do you see that magnificent bastard up there. he has a bigger heart and sense of righteousness than like 90% of the human race and I am NOT kidding. if you read this series you WILL fall in love with giant sentient space tanks.

classic scifi novels by men r always like. page 1 here’s a cool scifi idea i had. page 2 i hate women so much it’s unreal

[bracketsoffear]

Bolo (Keith Laumer et. al.) ""Bolos might fail. They might die and be destroyed. But they did not surrender, and they never — ever — quit."

A series of stories, originally by Keith Laumer, that were later expanded into a Shared Universe by other authors. They detail the exploits of the Bolo, autonomous AI tanks that are supposed to have evolved from the standard main battle tank of the 20th century.

These aren't your normal tanks. For one, their designers decided that bigger was better, and since the only thing that could really take down a Bolo was another Bolo, they just kept building the Bolos bigger and bigger, to the point where even the stealth tanks mass 1,500 tons. Or in some novels the Mark XXXIII weighs 32,000 tons.

There are plenty of examples of why this is Slaughter, but the aptly-named Final War, culminating in a mutual campaign of total extermination between humans and Melconians that turned a whole spiral arm of the Milky Way into a lifeless waste of dead or hopelessly contaminated planets, takes the cake. It is notable that plans of Operation Ragnarok, the human half of the equation of genocide, were based on a scenario initially created to illustrate utter madness of such campaign. Even the eponymous sapient supertanks start cracking under the weight of their orders by the end, succumbing to bloodlust. When one of the very few surviving Bolos, Shiva, reawakens, he is horrified by the atrocities that he himself had not been above committing under the pretense of following orders."

The Fog (James Herbert) "An earthquake cracks open a secret bioweapon buried underground for disposal, and which causes people and animals who breathe it to go utterly homicidal. The main plot surrounds Jon Holman, an Environmental Officer for the British government, who is present at the fog's dramatic entrance and spends most of the book trying to stop the fog; meanwhile, Herbert occasionally takes us on little side trips to see what horrible thing the fog is making happen next."

[oldmanyellsatspaceship]

The new episode is up! I read "Doorstep" by Keith Laumer.

[deepdarkspaceblog]

'Bolo' Envisions the Machines of Future War

'Bolo' is big and imaginative but not without its flaws. War is hell on everyone and everything. #sf #scifi #books #bookreview

Bolo (1977) by Keith Laumer collects six tales about the eponymous war machines giving a chronological overview of their history. Each story reveals a little more about the Bolos and their awe inspiring power. What this collection produces is overreaching narrative that is both thoughtful and fun. The Bolo Fighting Units, or simply Bolos, have a long history. Starting out as improved versions of…

[superbdragoncollection-stuff]

it wheezes and squeaks along, trundling and groaning. It has a great turret, with several lateral gun batteries. It bristles with scanners and cameras and sensors; almost all of them are battered, scored, and shot away. It's tracks are completely destroyed. It uses wheels the tracks had been mounted on to move. It's proud unit insignia is scraped and ruined.

Then, it wheezed, "Bolo...HVY...of the line...reporting..."

You are working the gate in the afterlife and for the first time ever, something the humans built has shown up to be processed. You’re not sure what to do, this… entity shouldn’t have a soul, but here it is in front of you, freshly dead and awaiting the next life.

[head-vampire]

The Time Bender by Keith Laumer (1966)

Art by Rowena Morrill