Retief of the CDT Book

If you're deciding whether to read this book based on the cover art or the blurb, stop that at ONCE!

My recollection of Retief is that he was a somewhat effete type: and he's not a 'hero'. He's a diplomat and a spy (too often, those two dovetail). He's manipulative and a 'shadow behind the screen' type.

If I were making comparisons, I'd likely compare Retief to Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat. And there was probably quite a bit of crosspollination between the two, in fact.

Note that the Terrans and the Groaci may differ in physical morphology, but not substantially in any other way. They're about equally quarrelsome, trammeled by red tape, greedy, oppressive, etc. Retief has to practice his arts on his own superiors as much as on the Groaci and the various indigenous peoples.

In these series stories, I never remember which stories are in which volume. So I'll keep a running tally, for my own future reference and those of others, as I reread this.

Contents:

(1) Ballots And Bandits: A newly-'liberated' society struggles to overcome the interference of the CDT to obtain free elections and a less oppressive treaty. Watch for the qualifying ordeals for membership in the 'Tsugg'.

(2)Mechanical Advantage: Gaining civil rights for robots on a planet where all other intelligences have died off. Fair enough, though I do understand that the diplomats are worried about it spreading offworld. I do wonder how intelligent machines managed not to learn things that Archimedes and Galileo and the like worked out centuries ago on Earth, though. Don't they have ANY geometers? Who designs their buildings? Eventually they'll run out of old buildings, even if they do carry out much-needed repairs.

(3) Pime Doesn't Cray: Stringy and spooneristic indigines complicate and assist in the search for a missing building. (Out of curiosity, what do they need septic systems for?)

(4) Internal Affair: In an attempt to establish diplomatic relations with vermiform life forms on a windstorm world, first it's necessary to FIND them.

(5)The Piecemakers: It's not that hard to figure out that the plants are intelligent. But how many of them there are is harder to parse. By the way, I'd think there must be at least SOME insects--or are all the plants wind-pollinated?