Themes
In the course of the stories, Retief encounters and resolves problems, usually between multiple parties, on numerous worlds. Whether establishing new missions on alien worlds, dealing with the clash of self-determination with established interests, preventing war, or solving cultural clashes, the devil is in the detail. He is master of derring-do, a cunning, fast-thinking, smooth-talking, tough brawler, solving problems through the rapid application of clever dealing, judicious violence, and complete disregard for the directives of the Corps and his immediate superiors. In contrast, most of his fellow diplomats in the CDT are protocol-obsessed, petty, small-minded, arrogant, ignorant, cowardly, and notoriously corrupt. Naturally Retief's career in the CDT is often stalled and he is very poorly regarded by his peers. The only member of the CDT who has any respect whatsoever for Retief's resourcefulness (grudging though it may be) is Retief's immediate superior, a feckless, pencil-pushing career bureaucrat named Ben Magnan who often ends up in the field with Retief.
Many stories begin with a quote from the official CDT history, praising the Corps' high-minded ideals and giving all the credit for the triumph in the following story to anyone other than Retief. Targets of bureaucratic and geo-political excess skewered by Laumer include hair-splitting diplomatic protocol (often represented by required dress — the early late evening hemidemisemi-formalwear, for example), meaningless awards (the fig leaf with clusters), the Cold War (the alien race known as the Groaci are direct analogues to the USSR in many stories, as were the Klingons early in the Star Trek franchise), and a panoply of excruciatingly-nuanced facial expressions, catalogued by number in the official CDT handbook, and exemplified in the following quote:
| “ | "A most perceptive observation, Chester," Earlyworm said, bestowing a 24-w (Gracious Condescension) leavened with a hint of 7-y (Expectation of Great Things in Due Course) on the lucky bureaucrat, at which his fellow underlings around the table were quick to bombard him with approbation, ranging from Faintlady's 12.7-x (Knew You Had It In You, Fella) to Felix's more restrained 119-a (We're All Pulling For You, Lad), to which he responded with a shy 3-v (Modest Awareness of Virtue).
"In fact," Earlyworm interjected a Cold Return to Objectivity (91-s) into the lightning interplay of ritual grimacing... |
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Read more about this topic: Jame Retief
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)