Against a raging backdrop of interplanetary intrigue. This time the resourceful officer of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne must deal with horrors unknown as he hunts the universe for a stolen ballet theatre. The courageous Terran must fight the five-eyed Groaci, outwit the ferocious Tsuggs, and reason with the talking flowers he finds in the midst of his dangerous mission. But in spite of all this, in the face of the vagaries of alien plots and the wild ambitions of his superiors, Retief remains strong and unshakable - and in peaceful and just control of the galaxy!

The twenty-seventh century planet of Quopp is a world where Earthmen walk cautiously or not at all. The inhabitants are weirdly diabolical creatures, possessing spoked-wheel limbs and sprouting steel-sharp talons. Plans are afoot to place these singular beings under a single government friendly to Earth. But Jame Retief, officer of the distinguished Corps Diplomatique Teresstienne, a supra-national organization devoted to keeping the peace, has discovered that evil forces are undermining the whole scheme. Deviously sincere, uncompromisingly venal, fearlessly cowardly, Retief goes to work against mounting planetary intrigue and more than once brings those around him to the brink of nervous collapse.

How are thing on Rockamorra? Bad, very. Earth Ambassador Pinchbottle has contracted to fight a dinosaur, and it's up to troubleshooter Jame Retief to keep him from being stomped, mangled, or eaten. Things are tough on other planets, too, with a civil war on Skweem, a dying race om Sulinore, and mudstorms on Schweinhund's World. These seven stories show the Galaxy's hippest diplomat at his unexpected and jaunty best.

Lumbaga is a planet without known virtues - but with some decidedly odd natives. For every Lumbagan is simply an arbitrary assortment of semi-independent organs inspired by a lust for mayhem. But even the most undesirable chunk of galactic real estate attracts its quota of rival overlords, and the fiendish Groaci had a scheme for absorbing Lumbaga into their sphere of influence. It was working well, too, until it involved Retief, Terran diplomat extraordinary. To his powerful intellect, the machinations of the Groaci were child's play...

When he awakens in a skid row alley, Adam knows nothing. Not who he is, nor where he's from. Money is a mystery. So are women. All he begins his new life with is a will to survive. But he learns fast: first, how to get away; then how not to have to. In the beginning Adam wants to be friends with us. Before he's through he just might run the human race off its feet...

"In the next few days you will master the rules and techniques for every activity, skill, talent, sport and art ever mastered by any human being anywhere. You will be as expert at clipping flints as at architectural drawing. You will be able to juggle, walk a tightrope and add the numerals on the sides of passing freight cars as fast as any idiot savant. You'll absorb all the information in all the books - the human race's entire heritage of knowledge..." This was only the beginning of the experiment that was to turn a petty thief into the mos brilliant and powerful man ever to hold the earth in thrall. This was only the first step on the path of conquest mapped out for - THE ULTIMAX MAN.

It starts out as a weird but seemingly understandable assignment, bodyguarding a mad politician whose keepers have decided to let him "escape" as a sort of reality therapy. But to understand the Senator, Florin must enter the Machine, an reality will never be the same. From now on he's a Knight of Delusions.