tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post4184068393034930330..comments2024-03-28T02:29:37.413-05:00Comments on Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine: Forgotten Books: EMBASSY -- Keith LaumerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02350478005243505108noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post-91807103740435457582010-06-11T16:04:45.427-05:002010-06-11T16:04:45.427-05:00Sounds like an interesting counterpoint to the Ret...Sounds like an interesting counterpoint to the Retief stuff.Evan Lewishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07620731784654779358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post-59741628982432434422010-06-11T13:18:59.337-05:002010-06-11T13:18:59.337-05:00I read this when it first came out and enjoyed it ...I read this when it first came out and enjoyed it greatly. I don't believe it has been reprinted since. Bayard at the time was described by some reviewers as Laumer's Everyman. <br /><br />Too many major "breakthrough" books suffered a similar fate as Embassy. Robert Block hoped the Star Stalker would be the beginning of a series of major Hollywood novels. John Brunner wrote what he thought would be his "Lucky Jim" but his publisher diddled about so long it's timeliness faded and the book was never published. Brunner later invested much time and energy in The Great Steamboat Race, a very good book but not the breakout one he had hoped for.<br /><br />I'm glad you brought this one back to light.Jerry Housenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post-64402366676054921542010-06-11T08:29:23.929-05:002010-06-11T08:29:23.929-05:00It and THE QUIET AMERICAN, George. Laumer wasn'...It and THE QUIET AMERICAN, George. Laumer wasn't the writer that Greene was (really?) but was a better writer than Lederer and Burdick were as a team...but mostly he was a less temperate soul than they...I'd heard of this one, but haven't ever seen a copy.<br /><br />I suspect Bayard might be the character closest to Laumer's heart, here...by the very value of him popping up again in the Imperium novel. The choppiness might've been D.R. Bensen's hasty blue pencil, to make the book fit the less expensive parameters of thinner paperback binding that Pyramid, as not the richest publisher on the row, would've preferred.<br /><br />I suspect Laumer thought he had another SAND PEBBLES as well as another UGLY or QUIET. Wonder if in the original he was more correct.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post-36259692569195632462010-06-11T07:58:12.210-05:002010-06-11T07:58:12.210-05:00I read EMBASSY way back when it was first publishe...I read EMBASSY way back when it was first published. It seemed prophetic about our involvement in Vietnam.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04546161337366365635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post-24073917862467050572010-06-11T07:23:20.402-05:002010-06-11T07:23:20.402-05:00It's Laumer's "straight" novel a...<i>It's Laumer's "straight" novel about the U. S. foreign service, which, if Laumer's to be believed, was staffed in the '60s by opportunists, lechers, poltroons, climbers, dumbasses, dullards, and layabouts.</i><br /><br />The more things change...<br /><br />I didn't know this book at all, so thanks for the review, Bill.<br /><br />JeffAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3668066.post-64239564538035091352010-06-11T07:16:53.443-05:002010-06-11T07:16:53.443-05:00A real history lesson on what the climate was like...A real history lesson on what the climate was like then.pattinase (abbott)https://www.blogger.com/profile/02916037185235335846noreply@blogger.com