This is a great collection of the Retief stories written by Keith Laumer. I bought this book from the Sci-Fi book club. The stories were picked for the collection by Eric Flint, who does a nice job of grouping the different stories and providing some basic information at the beginning of each section of the book. The character Retief, who is an up and coming diplomat throughout the stories, is absolutely hilarious. He is the smart person among the doofuses for whom he works in a diplomatic organization. The stories are very creative and involve many different alien species. There is one complete novel in the collection, but the rest are short stories ranging from about 30-60 pages each. If you like science fiction with some humor and smart writing, you will love Retief!