Just finished it, Spider Robinson being one of the tiny number of authors I buy immediately in hardback (along with OSC, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Jennifer Crusie, for similar and vastly different reasons), and I'm sitting here poleaxed. In recent Callahan's books I had been feeling a bit more distanced. I remember reading each new story as it appeared back when they were "just" shaggy dog bar stories with a sf twist, and welcoming the new episodes as they went to book length, but the last one or two seemed to be getting repetitive. The wealth of new and bizarre characters and the number of coincidences and the ever-present cosmic threat that can only be handled by a big group of telepathic barflies... I love his writing and I'm glad the group is in a happy Place now, but I miss the intimacy of the older stories, the less cosmic stakes, the bar games.
"Callahan's Con" is much more intimate, a welcome change of pace, where the life-or-death stakes are localized to the immediate group instead of the universe. I still miss the bar games, and some of the cliches are still overused, but a few are turned on their head to good and unexpected effect, and the puns are always thick underfoot. I laughed out loud several times, and I don't do that often (I read too much funny stuff to be easily startled anymore).
And, dammit, a character dies, and I was nearly in tears, and I'm still morose and smiling and feeling like I could use a good cry to get it out, and judging from previous experience I'll probably spend the next few days rereading all the other Callahan books now.
[ August 01, 2003, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Can't wait to grab this book. I've loved the Callahan stories, but yes, I'd been feeling a little less in love with the novels, as well. It gets a little old saving the universe every time...
Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :
IwantitIwantitIwantit!
I read the excerpt on Spider's site, but it does little to fill the need!
Spider will be toastmaster at Worldcon, wish I could be there too!
Thanks!
*pads off to Amazon*
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
*grumbles* By the time I can afford it it'll be in paperback! *shambles off to haunt library*
Posted by larisse (Member # 2221) on :
**Spoilers people... spoilers.... j/k. When it comes to book reviews I have a goldfish's memory.**
I can't wait to get this book. I remember the first time my friend talked me into reading Time Travelers Strictly Cash . She handed me her first edition and from the first page I was hooked. (Yes, she trusts me that much and yes, I returned the book .)
I find Spider's Callahan series funnier than the Hitchhiker series and that is saying a lot for me. I've love all the characters (Fast Eddie and Jake and Mary et al). I wish there was such a bar. Forget Cheers, I want to go to Mike's place and throw glasses and tell tall-tales with puns so horrendous that people spray soda out their noses.
Sadly, I have not read Callahan's Key just yet.
Come to think of it... I need to reread Lady Slings the Blues.
And when saving the universe starts getting old, I wanna get off the ride.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Chris, thanks. (And Jennifer Crusie, you too? Ha! She got me through my recent tough times. )
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
CT: Yup, big Crusie fan. I love humor in any genre, but this was a new one for me. I read "Welcome to Temptation," loved it, and as is my wont went searching for her other stuff. I didn't know at the time that she started off in series romances... Imagine a middle-aged guy, with beard and paunch, nervously entering the only section of the bookstore he's unfamiliar with (the Harlequin pits) and looking in vain for a single author in literally thousands of identical books. I finally got em all, with some effort and the Internet, and now they're being slowly reprinted anyway. Ah well.
larisse: I was careful not to reveal too much, certainly not as much as the book jacket or his site does. I don't want to spoil any surprises, but I want to run around and read long passages of it to friends, too. Must... fight... urge...
[ August 01, 2003, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I was just going to ask you who Jennifer Cruise was--I'd never heard of her. I take it that she rises above the genre?
Hey, speaking of Spider Robinson, does anybody have a copy of Time Pressure handy? I was wanting to post its first line or two in the Opening Lines thread, but my copy of it is unfortunately in a box in an attic in KS, with no hope of being excavated before the thread in question has been deleted from the board.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I just finished Time Pressure. Its sitting still by my couch at home.
I love Spider, but I too am getting a little tired of "We all become telepathic and save the world" endings.
ps. Hatrack is Calahan's bar.
[ August 01, 2003, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Dan_raven ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Cool Dan, will you either post the first paragraph or so for me, or email it to me so that I can post it?
I know what you mean about the endings, but I do love the fact that Spider is so determindly positive in his books.
Anybody read The Free Lunch (or something like that--I can't quite remember the title)?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Crusie is bubble-gum fun with a quick wit and quirky characters. Sort of like Terry Pratchett, but set in the modern world, without any dwarves or magic.
I read the rereleased versions after the cover art on Getting Rid of Bradley caught my eye at a secondhand store. Borders & B/N carry much of her rereleased stuff, but usually only one or two copies of each, in my experience.
Crusie was a delicious antidote to my own family weirdness and squabbles. Light, clever, and occasionally spot on. She wrote one of my favorite quotes ever: something like, "Well, if I can't be a good example, I'll just have to serve as a horrible warning."
Posted by larisse (Member # 2221) on :
Chris...
Don't worry. I had to fight that urge with Harry Potter 5. I finished it way before any of my friends did, and I had to metaphorically bite my own tongue to keep from spilling the "everyflavor" beans to them.
Dan...
You've had that thought, too. Hatrack just gives off that vibe don't it.
*steps up to the proverbial fireplace and sails a glass on in*
**Crash**
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
quote: It was a dark and stormy night...
Your suspension of disbelief has probably just bust a leafspring: how can you believe in a story that begins that way? I know it's one of the hoariest cliche's in pulp fiction; my writer friend Snaker uses the expression satirically often enough. "It was a dark and stormy night--when a shot rang out..." but I don't especially want you to believe this story--I just want you to listen to it--and even if I were concerned with convincing you there wouldn't be anything I could do about it, the story begins where it begins and that's all there is to it.
Spider Robinson Time Pressure.
It also has one of the best endings I've ever read:
quote: Epilogue
I guarnatee that every word of this story is true.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Thanks Dan! That's probably my favorite beginning to a book ever. And as you point out, the epilogue would be pretty hard to beat too.
I've started The Free Lunch, btw. It's okay, but so far it hasn't grabbed me like most of Robinson's other stuff.
Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :
It took a while to get the book in question, and when it did, I was reading Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties. I finally picked it up yesterday, and just finished it.... Spoiler Stupid novel! I thought I would never feel grief for a fictional character, but I've known Doc so long that I feel like I've lost an old friend. Bye Doc!!! A great read!!!
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
.) ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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![[Mad]](mad.gif)
I thought I would never feel grief for a fictional character, but I've known Doc so long that I feel like I've lost an old friend. Bye Doc!!! ![[Cry]](graemlins/cry.gif)