John Keith Laumer (June 9, 1925(1925-06-09) – January 23, 1993) was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time). Keith Laumer is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of super tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service." In addition to his Bolo and Reteif stories, Laumer's more serious aventures included the subjects of time travel and alternate world advantures such as found in his "The Other Side Of Time", "A Trace Of Memory", and "Dinosaur Beach. Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations ("In the Queue", was nominatied for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966. During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time. In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years, Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment: Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books. -- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11) His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them. Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered, free-flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today. Books concerning the Bolo self-aware tanks. Co-author book credits also indicated at Bolo Self-aware Tank. Satirical adventures of Retief, the galactic diplomat. Books set in the Imperium mythos: a continuum of parallel worlds policed by the Imperium, a government based in an alternate Stockholm. In the science fiction novel Worlds of the Imperium, the Imperium is formed in an alternate history where the American Revolution did not occur, and the British Empire and Germany merged into a unified empire in 1900. The protagonist, American diplomat Brion Bayard, is kidnapped by the Imperium because the Brion Bayard in a third parallel Earth is waging war against his abductors. Further adventures follow after Bayard decides to remain in the service of the Imperium. A comic equivalent of the Imperium mythos, in which the hero has the ability to travel to feudal/magical alternate Earths.