Customer Reviews

The Callahan Chronicals [With Headphones] (Playaway Adult Fiction)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was introduced to Spider Robinson stories by a waitress at Beth's Cafe in Seattle back in 1989, I've been hooked ever since. This is a reprint of some of the "Callahan" Books. If you like Brin, Bujold, Dickson, Frankowski, Heinlein, Hogan, McCaffrey, Modesitt Jr, Rosenberg, or Rowley you will like Spider Robinson. He's unique, but his flavor compliments each of them.

This book includes the previously released books titled: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Time Traveler's Strictly Cash, and Callahan's Secret.

Callahan's is a mythical pub in Halifax where people are healed. Callahan doesn't believe in drinking in the dark, sitting on stools, recorded music, or snoopy questions. Patrons pay $1 for any drink served. After receiving their drink they can exercise their option. They can toe the chalk line, make a toast, and pitch the glass into the fire place OR they can collect their change from the cigar box by the door. It's a place where people learn that pain shared is halved, but joy shared is squared. It's not like A.A. or group therapy, it's more like a place where you celibrate being human. Since it came out I've offered friends and aquantences a money back guarantee; if they don't like it, I'll buy it back at their cost. In the 4 years it's been out I haven't had one taker.

Callahan's Place is the ideal of the neighborhood bar: a place people go not so much to drink as to be together and share their lives. The Place's motto is that shared pain is lessened, while shared joy is increased; its regulars are a bunch of working-class joes who have developed an amazing degree of compassion and empathy ... not to mention a matter-of-fact outlook towards the occasional time-traveler or space alien who drops in.

It should be emphatically noted that the Callahan's books are not science fiction, although they're still speculative fiction -- Robinson is exploring the psychological universe, not the physical one. Nevertheless, this book alternates between laugh-out-loud hilarious and deeply moving, almost to the point of spiritual experience.

Unfortunately, as the series went on the stories got longer, incorporated more sci-fi elements and less humanity, and finally turned into just interminable rhapsodizing by Robinson about what would constitute the Ideal Party. All of the good stories (and the first couple of bad ones) are fortunately collected in this convenient volume, thus sparing you the horror that is Callahan's Key.

That's the lesson of Callahan's Bar, and it's why Spider Robinson's Callahan stories are the most warmly _humane_ speculative fiction since Theodore Sturgeon.

Actually the same could be said of his non-Callahan stories, and I've mentioned in another review that the Callahan tales aren't my personal favorites of his work. But they are very, very good; the best of them -- and all of the best are included in the present volume, along with the second-stringers -- will draw you in, rip you apart, fix you up better than before, and then turn you loose to get on with your life. The later Callahan (and para-Callahan) _novels_ are okay too, but the original short stories are like the first twenty-four Holmes tales by Conan Doyle: the later stuff just couldn't touch them. The _very_ best of them (most of which make up most of the first volume) are pure magic.

This collection (the title of which is spelled correctly) assembles all of the original three books, with the exception of the non-Callahan material from _Time Travelers Strictly Cash_. It also incorporates some other neat features, like the 1976 introduction by Ben Bova, a Callahan bibliography, and some additional stuff by Spider (including the Callahan "short story" that was published on the Internet a few years ago).

The stuff has held up mighty well. I usually recommend that newcomers to Robinson start with _Mindkiller_ and _Time Pressure_ (available in the combo volume _Deathkiller_), but you could start here instead if you like. The important thing is to start _somewhere_; Robinson's fiction, profoundly hopeful without being even remotely Pollyanna-ish, is almost a multivolume primer on the difficult art of nonviolent conflict resolution.

This is a colection of the Callahan stories, from the night Micky Finn first walked into Callahan's to the explosive (ouch) climax years later. It does not contain the post-Callahan stories of Mary's Place, or the para-Callahan stories of Lady Sally, both of which I hope will be available in simular editions. Spider Robinson is sometimes called the sucessor to Robert A. Heinlein, a fact that he says he finds humbling and somewhat suprising. This book contains his earliest work, the stuff he won the Campbell award for, and many that were Hugo quality even though none of them actually won. If you are not familiar with Spider (his legal name by the way), this is a great introduction to a great writer. If you know Spider but not Callahan, be prepared for a much lighter touch than the rest of his work. If you know Callahan, you'll be as happy as I am to have these stories in one book. In any event, buy this, pour a glass of you favorite, enjoy, and make a toast when you're through!

I first read "The Guy with the Eyes" 25 years ago, when it came out in Analog. It is the definitive story to illustrate Survivor Guilt, and is well worth the price of the book alone. If you are trying to understand a friend suffering from PTSD, read this story. It will teach you more than a dozen textbooks on the subject...and that's just the first story. There's 20 or more stories in this book, each one is eminently enjoyable, and each one has a valuable point to teach you about life. I have passed the Callahan's books to all of my friends, and even people that don't like SF, will enjoy Callahan's. A friend of mine has only read five non-fiction books in the last 10 years - all of them were in the Callahan's Universe. Put it another way - I rarely buy hardcover books - they're too expensive and bulky. But if I see Spider Robinson as the author, I'll gladly fork over the cash, because I can't stand to wait the 6-8 months for it to come out in paperback. And I'll probably buy it in paperback, because when I'm on the road, re-reading a Spider Robinson story is often better than picking up some of the over-priced schlock populating Airport Bookshelves.

The stories that make up this book (or, technically, the stories that made up the three books in this collection) are some of the best stories in modern SF. Spider tells a good tale, full of puns, pop culture references, and characters that are often admirable and/or likeable, if not believable. And the stories have enough weight to them that the comedy comes as a breath of fresh air. Really, that is Spider's main skill. He can create a tale that is like life: sad in parts, funny in parts, and you can never quite tell which will come next... humor or pathos.

But Spider really did take some time to get into full swing, in my opinion. Some of the Callahan stories (usually the early ones) are a bit overly-sentimental, bordering on schlock. And some of the things that happen in the stories seem forced or contrived. It seems that everyone breaks into spontaneous cheers, or roaring laughter, or (Spider's favorite description) "table-pounding" hysterics. And usually, they crack up over nothing. But over time, this eases. Spider seemed to become more natural, and his writing developed a better flow.

In the end, I think I like Spider Robinson not for his writing style (which, sometimes, is contrived), or his plots, which are often virtually non-existant events around which the characters interact. Instead, his strengths are in his characterizations. Jake, Doc Webster, Mickey Finn, Ralph von Wau Wau... so many characters, each one a treat. Every time I crack open a Callahan's book, I know that I'm not in for much of a plot. Instead, I'm in for great people and some cracking good dialogue.

In the end, Spider's books are like the bar. You go in for the people, not the action. The action is secondary... the action comes FROM the characters. It's like spending a night with good friends. Nothing actually happens all night, but you wouldn't trade the evening for a million exciting adventures.

Entropy is an omnipotent force. It erodes and degrades just about every facet of our lives. But not at Callahan's. Spider Robinson paints a picture of a place where people are genuinely interested in each other. It isn't a utopic scene where nothing ever goes wrong. In fact just the opposite, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong first at Callahan's. Fortunately, the patrons of this wonderful place are capable of dealing with these problems. The characters range from the (forgive me) mundane to the utterly outrageous. The puns are some of the best (worst?) ever put on paper. Spider's characters are real. Spider has a way of grasping someone out of every walk of life and putting them together in this place on Route 25a Long Island. The lively characters show the qualities that, over time, we may all learn to embrace. To quote a line from the book, only because it fits so well, "Shared joy is increased; shared pain is lessened."

"The Callahan Chronicals" is a unique book, with a lot of fascinating characters. The problem with it is the way it will go on and on with pun after pun...and then throw in another one for good measure, even at times I feel would be more appropriate for seriousness. The book seems to swing back and forth between sob stories and corny jokes, like some sort of emotional yo-yo.

If you are really into tons of puns and jokes mixed with tragic tales, then this is the book for you. Otherwise, try borrowing it from the library first, just in case.

O.k for those of you who have not read this story before let me give you the rundown. There is this fictional place on Long Island. Now this lpace is an ordinary bar like "Cheers", only its got aliens, time travlers, talking dogs and ordinary people that are just trying to cope with the stress of everyday life.

Never before have I read a serise of books that the charecters had so much life and just plian fun. This is just one of those books that makes you think to yourself, hell the author had a lot of fun writting this stuff.

The stories are arranged conologically for 15 years and with rare exception the stories get better the further along you go very interesting sight to see.

Overall-I love these books, and if you are a rookie just getting into the I hope you will too.

There is literally nothing like "Callahan's", and there is no writer quite like Spider Robinson. He is the ideal antidote for soulless science fiction(e.g. cyberpunk) because his stories have heart. Jake Stonebender, Doc Webster, Fast Eddie, and of course Mick Callahan are the most gregarious cast of any science fiction story. If you need to get out of "The Matrix", then pull up a chair, knock back a tall one, and watch for flying glasses, bad puns, and assorted aliens, monsters, telepaths, and other strange creatures, none of whom are any stranger than you or I. Welcome to Callahan's, you'll be glad you did!