Book DescriptionCallahan's Place is the neighborhood tavern to all of time and space, where the regulars are anything but. Pull up a chair, grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths...and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time.About The AuthorSpider Robinson, winner of three Hugos and a Nebula, was born in the Bronx and raised on Long Island, and has been a Canadian resident for 30 years. Holder of a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York, he worked as a folksinger and journalist before publishing his first story in Analog in 1973. He now lives with his wife Jeanne Robinson (co-author of the Hugo- and Nebula-winning Stardance trilogy) on an island outside Vancouver, B.C., where they raise and exhibit hopes. Eleven of his 31 books are set in Callahan's Place, a fabulous tavern founded by a time traveler, where puns flow as freely as beer, and smell far worse. The most recent is Callahan's Con [Tor July 2003]. He has contributed a regular editorial column, "Future Tense," to Canada's national newspaper, The Globe & Mail, since 1995. In 2000, he released Belaboring the Obvious, a CD of original music with the legendary Amos Garrett ("Midnight at the Oasis") on lead guitar, and in 2001 he was a celebrity judge at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.

Book DescriptionA collection of sayings, songs and words of wisdom from Spider Robinson's "Callahan's" novels.From Publishers WeeklyThe merciful thing about this book is that no one makes it a secret that it's being done for the money. And that's where the pity ends, as Spider Robinson (yes, he legally changed his name to Spider) takes epigrams and aphorisms rent from their natural environments--generally from his enormously successful club stories about Callahan's Place--and leaves them to stand (or fall) on their own, with the help of some quaint Phil Foglio illustrations. Those who didn't long ago tire of stories about Callahan's Place may glory in this self-indulgence, which Robinson modestly compares favorably to Robert A. Heinlein's The Notebooks of Lazarus Long , Heinlein at least had the integrity to include only quotes from his own works. Robinson, apparently unable to fill a book with the wit and wisdom of Callahan's Place (although the introduction cagily implies that there will be a second volume), includes quotes from varous other sources, including Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Chip Delany, Tom Waits and The Rockford Files . There are two sections of puns, all excerpted from the short stories, and some songs (sans music or even chord sequences) with lyrics such as "My love is like horniness, in that it never quits, / But I'd love you if you didn't have those tits." Several of the epigrams are similarly well-conceived, and a few--unlike The Notebooks of Lazarus Long --are outright mean-spirited. It is difficult to dislike a book by someone who enjoys cunnilingus and Ed McCurdy, but Robinson ( Lady Slings the Booze ) does his damnedest to make this book unappealing. Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review"If one were given the task of creating Spider Robinson from scratch, the best way to do it would be to snatch James Joyce from history, force-feed him Marx Brothers films and good jazz for the better part of a decade, then turn him loose on a world badly in need of a look at itself."-_Vancouver Sun_ "Nobody's perfect. But Spider comes pretty damned close."-Ben Bova Product DescriptionCallahan's Place is the neighborhood tavern to all of time and space, where the regulars are anything but. Pull up a chair, grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths...and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time.

Book DescriptionFor years, Callahan's was the place where friends met to have a few drinks, tell a few jokes, and occasionally save the world. Until that unfortunate incident with the nuke a few years ago....But Jake Stonebender and his wife have opened a new Callahan's, Mary's Place, and all the regulars are there: Doc Webster, Fast Eddie the piano player, Long Drink McGonnigle, and of course the usual talking dogs, alcoholic vampires, aliens, and time travelers. Songs will be sung, drinks will be drunk (and drunks will have drinks), puns will be swapped...and as a three-eyed, three-legged, three-armed, three-everythinged alien flashes through space toward the bar, it just might be time to save the world again....Amazon.com ReviewThis is the fifth book in the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series, a short read that once again brings together the Callahan regulars in a plot that combines the usual group therapy, the best/worst puns ever to see print and epic, world-saving deeds. This time around the gang must save Earth from a decidedly nasty alien, and only group telepathy will do the trick. Spider Robinson, whose cutting wit and keen insights are in full force, takes the opportunity to dive deep into the psyche of his various mainstay characters, making for some darkly intimate reading. From Publishers WeeklyPuns, palindromes and assorted witticisms abound in this latest addition to science fiction's longest running in-joke, first presented in book form in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977), most recently in The Callahan Touch (1993). Robinson, who has won a Hugo, a Nebula and a John W. Campbell Award, follows his usual formula here. Lovable narrator and bartender Jake Stonebender, who took over from lovable narrator and bartender Mike Callahan after Mike decided to go time-traveling, gradually introduces the large cast of oddball drunks and barflies who inhabit the Long Island tavern known as Mary's Place (which itself replaced Callahan's Place after that tavern blew up in a nuclear explosion two episodes ago). The regulars include at least one alien, an Artificial Intelligence, a supernatural being or two and a talking dog named Ralph Von Wau Wau. As usual, a couple of new oddballs wander into the bar and tell their stories. Then a crisis arises?here, occasioned by an alien lizard-cyborg bent on the destruction of Earth. The boys soon take care of the situation, however, by drinking a lot of beer and Irish coffee, telling jokes and not losing their cool. Plot is secondary in the Callahan stories. What Robinson's many fans look for above all is humor, wordplay and a complicated web of allusions to favorite rock lyrics, classic SF stories and previous Callahan tales. They get plenty of each here and should feel right at home, again.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.