The Madman From Earth

J. Retief isn't your typical diplomat. He's the kind of diplomatic attach who walks into an alien negotiation armed with sarcasm and a deep suspicion of his own government. Assigned to the backwater world of Groac, Retief quickly discovers that humanity's first contact with this reclusive alien civilization went spectacularly wrong, and now the bureaucratic consequences are coming due. The Groaci remember everything, and they hold grudges across generations. As Retief navigates impossible cultural customs, political machinations within Earth's own Foreign Service, and a conspiracy that reaches all the way back to first contact, he finds that the real enemy might not be the aliens at all. Laumer's prose crackles with irreverent wit and sharp observations about how humans manage to complicate even the simplest first contact. This is science fiction as sharp social satire: a planet-full of misunderstandings, and one man who's tired enough of the nonsense to actually do something about it.