{"id":1209,"date":"2011-10-22T21:34:12","date_gmt":"2011-10-23T05:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1209"},"modified":"2011-10-22T21:34:12","modified_gmt":"2011-10-23T05:34:12","slug":"review-callahans-crosstime-saloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1209","title":{"rendered":"Review: Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s<\/em> stories are, in the right corners of the SF world, regarded as almost legendary.\u00a0 They have a particularly devoted cult following that’s the right kind of interesting to attract my attention.\u00a0 How many series of short stories result in a USENET group designed not to discuss the stories, but to mimic their environment?<\/p>\n

As stories go, they are very much of their time – 1970’s SF magazine shorts that catch the feeling of the era and entertain.\u00a0 They lean more heavily on the genre trappings of fantasy than SF, but they are about reflecting human values into changing times which may be SF’s definition.\u00a0 They also reflect 70’s SF’s love of wordplay and bad puns.\u00a0 This is clearly the same era that created The Flying Sorcerers<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 I mention that not to run down Callahan’s<\/em> or The Flying Sorcerers<\/em> – which I see is available for the Kindle, so watch this space – but if you’re allergic to puns, Callahan’<\/em>s will make you swell up like a balloon.<\/p>\n

As far as the writing goes, the stories all amble along with enough drive to keep the reader interested but not so much urgency that Robinson misses a chance to talk about a shaggy dog.\u00a0 The tone captures the feel of telling stories at a bar pretty well.\u00a0 As for characters, the only real character is the bar itself.\u00a0 There are folks running around with personalities and histories, but they’re all a little more decent than real people are, so I don’t feel like I could meet them.\u00a0 The bar itself is a semi-magical force for compassion, and I think of the patrons as facets of that force more than characters.<\/p>\n

Robinson doesn’t quite say that about his fictional bar, staff, and patrons, but he’s also clear that there’s more to the place than meets the eye.\u00a0 Callahan’s is unrealistic in the way a dialogue in great noir novel<\/a> is unrealistic; it becomes iconic.\u00a0 I can’t imagine really walking into Callahan’s (any posts you find from me in alt.callahans not withstanding), but it’s fun to read about it and surprisingly reassuring that it has acquired such a following.<\/p>\n

Strongly recommended, if you can cope with the puns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s stories are, in the right corners of the SF world, regarded as almost legendary.\u00a0 They have a particularly devoted cult following that’s the right kind of interesting to attract my attention.\u00a0 How many series of short stories result in a USENET group designed not to discuss the stories, but to mimic their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1213,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}