Their Finest Hour (The Best of the Bolos)
A legendary creator of space opera and military science fiction adventures, Keith Laumer was a captain in the U.S. Air Force and later an officer in the U.S. diplomatic corps, serving throughout the world—all of which activity provides a solid background for his crackling adventure tales as well as his justly famous epic satirical comedies featuring Retief, the galaxy’s canny, two-fisted diplomat. Laumer’s best-loved creations, however, are the Bolos—gigantic tanks controlled by artificial intelligences, fighting to protect mankind against both alien and human enemies.