Monday, 6 June 2016 04:40 pm
Book Review: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
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deckardcanineI heard of Spider Robinson's sequential short-story collection from a forum associated with the Cross-Time Cafe webcomic. My folks tell me it was tough to find a copy; the one they got for my birthday was printed in the '70s, not long after the stories' original publications. Guess it's a real cult classic.
About all I knew going in was that (1) the stories take place in the saloon and (2) Robinson had a way with puns. Well, the puns don't come as often as I expected -- mainly just in parts of the stories set on Tuesday nights, when Mike Callahan lets the winners of pun wars drink for free. In fact, it's not primarily comedy: Nearly everyone who comes in has a sob story. The major premise of Callahan's Place (as the first-person narrator, a musician, calls it) is that you won't find or hear of it unless you need it. Fortunately, it is about equally preternatural at solving problems, or at least getting people to feel much better than they likely would at an ordinary bar, so each chapter ends happily enough. I leave it to you to decide how credibly.
There are lots of quirky details about the place. For example, Callahan sells all drinks at $0.50 each, accepting only $1 bills; for an extra $0.50, you can throw your glass in the fireplace, typically after toasting something you hate. (No word on inflation since.) And while the regular patrons are mostly normal enough from what I can tell, they don't have much trouble believing when they meet an alien, a time traveler (from halfway between the publication date and the present), or some kind of superpowered mutant.
In fact, it sounds like those types collectively are more common there than women. At least the narrator admits as much: Something about the atmosphere appeals much more to men. Hope there's a female-friendly establishment just as effective at helping the needy.
Not all the stories are clearly sci-fi/fantasy. According to the foreword, one actually drew a complaint letter when published in a sci-fi mag. Editor Ben Bova, himself a pretty famous writer, simply thought it too good to pass up. But Robinson drops enough references to Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein that I don't doubt which genre he favors.
Some stories discuss the general state of the nation or world to the point that I'd have to call them a product of their time. The narrator occasionally gets a little politically incorrect to boot. That said, apart from specifics like Nixon, many modern readers, especially on the left wing, would find a lot of the attitude still applicable. I suppose that such a place would always be in high demand. (Robinson reported that readers kept asking where in New York the real Callahan's was.)
It's not exactly the fun fest I'd been hoping for, but it mostly works on its own terms. I appreciate the shortness of both the chapters and the whole book, even if it leaves me curious what else might happen at Callahan's afterward.
Now I've started a book more famous and more immersively sci-fi: The Martian Chronicles. So far it's pretty strange in its own right.
About all I knew going in was that (1) the stories take place in the saloon and (2) Robinson had a way with puns. Well, the puns don't come as often as I expected -- mainly just in parts of the stories set on Tuesday nights, when Mike Callahan lets the winners of pun wars drink for free. In fact, it's not primarily comedy: Nearly everyone who comes in has a sob story. The major premise of Callahan's Place (as the first-person narrator, a musician, calls it) is that you won't find or hear of it unless you need it. Fortunately, it is about equally preternatural at solving problems, or at least getting people to feel much better than they likely would at an ordinary bar, so each chapter ends happily enough. I leave it to you to decide how credibly.
There are lots of quirky details about the place. For example, Callahan sells all drinks at $0.50 each, accepting only $1 bills; for an extra $0.50, you can throw your glass in the fireplace, typically after toasting something you hate. (No word on inflation since.) And while the regular patrons are mostly normal enough from what I can tell, they don't have much trouble believing when they meet an alien, a time traveler (from halfway between the publication date and the present), or some kind of superpowered mutant.
In fact, it sounds like those types collectively are more common there than women. At least the narrator admits as much: Something about the atmosphere appeals much more to men. Hope there's a female-friendly establishment just as effective at helping the needy.
Not all the stories are clearly sci-fi/fantasy. According to the foreword, one actually drew a complaint letter when published in a sci-fi mag. Editor Ben Bova, himself a pretty famous writer, simply thought it too good to pass up. But Robinson drops enough references to Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein that I don't doubt which genre he favors.
Some stories discuss the general state of the nation or world to the point that I'd have to call them a product of their time. The narrator occasionally gets a little politically incorrect to boot. That said, apart from specifics like Nixon, many modern readers, especially on the left wing, would find a lot of the attitude still applicable. I suppose that such a place would always be in high demand. (Robinson reported that readers kept asking where in New York the real Callahan's was.)
It's not exactly the fun fest I'd been hoping for, but it mostly works on its own terms. I appreciate the shortness of both the chapters and the whole book, even if it leaves me curious what else might happen at Callahan's afterward.
Now I've started a book more famous and more immersively sci-fi: The Martian Chronicles. So far it's pretty strange in its own right.