https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3424586.html

Collision Course:

It’s early but very competent Silverberg, a new wrinkle on the Cosmic Duel theme where humanity and one group of aliens are competing for control of our galaxy and a godlike force intervenes to force a settlement. Particularly entertaining in that the humans in Team Earth don’t get on with each other at all. Needless to say, no women characters appear except in flashbacks.

Nemesis from Terra:

Fairly standard but well executed pulp planetary romance / space opera, with desert Mars, swampy Venus and our hero overcoming evil Earth industrialists and perhaps a bit of commentary on colonialism as well. ( )

This is actually the 1961 single novel, The Nemesis from Terra, but I didn't feel like creating a new book for a non-keeper that didn't have an LCN or ISBN. I picked up a small stack of ancient SciFi at a sale last year & finally started reading them, as I really feel like something simple.
Fits the bill.
I was quite put off, at first, by the selfish, egotistical attitude of the protagonist, Rick Urquahardt, until I realized that he is the perfect anti-hero. He's always getting captured, his schemes fall through,he blatantly doesn't care what happens to others (except a select couple of females).
It was also pretty amusing to read about ancient civilizations of Mars, Mercury, Venus and human dwellers. I don't know when the last time was that I read about aliens that weren't from some distant galaxy.
There was a brief spell where I wondered if this was going to be anti-Union, like Ayn Rand's books, but Rick identifies too much with the working class. So then I amused myself looking for clues that this is a thinly disguised commentary on current politics. I could correlate the hidden wasteland fortresses with Afghanistan, and the Shunnis with Suni, the exploitation of the Terran Explorations Company with [name your favorite multinational]. Except this was published in 1961. ( )