Between the lines of the official histories of the frontier worlds of
the 29th Century lie a myriad "confidential" accounts of the boners,
near-catastrophes, and interstellar crises that were bound to occur when
human meets non-human. The adventures of the interplanetary diplomat
Retief loom large in those highly classified reports. They also loom
large in the eyes of devoted science-fiction readers because the cosmic
tight-rope diplomacy of Retief compose a body of science-fiction
adventure guaranteed to be astounding, amazing, startling, galactic,
weird, and thrillingly wonderful. ENVOY TO NEW WORLDS was the first book
to present Retief's adventures to the s-f public.