Customer Reviews

Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

All good books are based on characters. No matter how good or bad the plot, if the characters aren't well developed and interesting, the book sucks. This book has great characters, fairly archetypal, but still well rounded and interesting.

As with all Brust books, this a mystery in the Arthur Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes style. Whether set in a fantasy or SciFi, the setting is just local color to flavor the meat of the book - solving the mystery.

This is one of those books I re-read about once a year. I always pick up something new each time I read it. The first time you read it, you might find it hard to keep up with all the characcters (four who work for the bar, four who live in the bar, and four ~bad guys.) With all mystery books, it's a fun read to see who dun it and why - it's not about defining the bad aspects of society who drove some charcters into the story line (although this IS explained...)

I'd recommend this or any Taltos book to anyone - regardless of if you read SciFi/Fantasy or not (I usually don't...) His local color is amazing - refined to the level of Twain or O Henry. The only downside is Brust clear obsession with hungarian cooking, as he pretty much lists each and every meal the charcters have in minute detail. This part gets on my nerves, but I'm not a foodie, so that's a big reason - but regardless, it's not annoying enough to spoil the yarn Brust spins.

This book would make a GREAT movie.

Brust is justly known for his Vlad Taltos fantasy series, and he has written several other books outside of that series that are well worth reading. This book is somewhat of a departure for him, being more science fiction oriented than fantasy.

The main building block of this book is a rather unique restaurant that moves itself through space and time whenever a nuclear weapon is exploded in its near vicinity. Inside the restaurant is an Irish folk-song band that accidentally was caught up during the restaurant's first move. As the plot develops and the restaurant makes several moves through time and to other planets, the band begins to realize that they are part of an attempt to change future history by opposing a group that keeps going around starting nuclear wars. Not a bad concept, but it does lead to somewhat episodic patches, rather than being a linear whole.

Much of the characterization comes through as individual flash-backs to defining events in their lives; present time dialogue and interaction with others is somewhat flimsy, but overall there is certainly enough `reality' to these characters to carry the story. Of course, as a band, their music intrudes in several places, which certainly provides some atmosphere, but I found Brust's description of some of this quite a bit over my head, not being a musician myself. I've run into this same problem with Emma Bull (who was a member of the same band as Brust) and Spider Robinson - it is simply very difficult to describe in written language what is almost totally an aural experience, but I'll give him good marks for a decent stab at trying.

While the final resolution of the story made sense and was satisfying, I found that the basic motivation/rationale behind the war starting group just did not seem adequate justification for their actions. As this is central to the basic story, this is a fairly major flaw.

Still, it's an enjoyable read, though not up to the standards he set in the Taltos set.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

An unexpectedly sweet and moving examination of folk-music, young love, life on the road, and the Meaning of Life inside a standard, rather pro-forma sci-fi time-travel adventure. I liked it quite a bit. FENG is a pleasant and entertaining way to pass a few hours. "B+"

Note that the very cool cover (by James Gurney) is a bit misleading as to the actual *contents* (revealing why would be a spoiler), but it did induce me to pick up the book, and it's really neat art, so Gurney (& Tor) get points for doing their jobs right. Whoever is the art director there gets a vote of thanks from me, as even minor Tor authors usually get tasteful, attractive, relevant covers. Not to mention clean and attractive interior layouts. Bravo!

Brust's comment on FENG: "Not one of my better efforts, I think, but there are bits of it I like. It started out to be funny, developed a serious side, and I was never able to get the elements to blend the way I wanted them to. Grumble grumble. It's always pleasent to run into someone who liked this book; it means that I can still do all right when I'm not on my game." --from dreamcafe.com

Happy reading!
Pete Tillman

I'm reviewing this to balance the one and two star reviews. This is only my second Brust book, and I enjoyed it a lot. I got it for its cover that reminded me of Robinson's Callahan books. There are similarities. Both have a lot of humor, both are out to save the universe with who finds their way to the bar, both are both "little" and "big" stories.

But Brust's is a novel and is able to give more time to character development, not just to the musicians, as one reviewer put it, but everyone who is part of the story. The intermezzos between chapters describing how characters got from here to there were fascinating. Brust also has an interesting plot device. I recommend it, and I'd drink there in a flash. (And hear great Irish music!)

This book just blew me away. When I read it i had no idea that the same author who wrote the Vlad Taltos series that I loved had anything to do with this book. Each time I read it I find myself being drawn further into the sad, exciting, and beautiful mind of our hero, Cowboy Feng... not to give anything away. When I say hero, i mean it with a capital H. Out to preserve humanity, and music and good cooking all together, and a hippie besides! The book is a semi cronological set of occurences that are interspersed with brief moments from the pasts of the leading characters, concealing a frightening plot point which remains unimportant until the last paragraph of the book. I say unimportant because the book is really about its characters. Its about love and faith and dealing and accepting and not accepting the inevitable even when it is fate. Its also about falling in love and the secret about the importance of what can be done with a goat. It puts paranoia in its place. In todays world it is extremely relevant, and more people should read it. While a very brief read, it is very worthwhile. Over the number of years since I first found it in my high school library, I went out and found it, bought it, and read it about once a year. It is not a long book, and not a sophisticated book in the conventional sense, but somehow it just keeps getting better and better. Every time I read it I fall in love with the title character again. This book has high marks on my personal list of classics of the 20th century. I think every child should read it. 'Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille' is a time travel tragedy of epic porportions.

I love this book! I can't believe it's out of print! I've taken to stockpiling Brust novels; they seem to come and go...

The timeshifts--both literal and Faulknerian--keep this book fast and exciting. I love the casual descriptions of how the worlds change farther from Earth, the crack about how Star Trek still exists several centuries later, the really creepy ideas about irrational fear of AIDS, and, of course, the mystery of Who Is Cowboy Feng?????

Brust nails the details (just like in the Vlad books, whose timeline is so well worked out that the first books refers to events that aren't explained for years), giving subtle hints about Sugar Bear and Cowboy Feng, so that when he does finally tell us, the resolution is incredibly satisfying, like being shown pieces of a jigsaw puzzle one at a time before finally seeing the whole.

The cover and title of this novel, and even the first couple of chapters, make it seem like a story in the vein of Spider Robinson. But it gets dark-- very dark, and pretty sad. While he was writing this, Brust must have been having romantic troubles or something, because the novel is very cynical and pessimistic about love and the relationship between men and women.

All in all, the novel was a downer, and the conclusion didn't seem to merit the sacrifices I had to make along the way. Much more bitter than sweet.

I was brought to this book through Steven Brust's Taltos series, thinking they were good; how about this? Cowboy Feng impressed me even more, and I began to see that Mr. Brust not only knows how to build suspense and weave a tight plot, but infuse a story with insight into human nature and relationships. It's sci-fi and it's good sci-fi, but it's the emotional rollercoaster that makes it worth the ride. Add to that great descriptive writing, dialogue, and plotting that doesn't show you what's coming, only makes you want to get there (but not in a hurry).

Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill is the place to be. It's not just the food and the music (two things Brust is very much into), it's the fact that the place jumps through space and time just moments ahead of whatever it is that destroys the world where it last rested. It's up to the denizens of Cowboy Feng's -- the staff and the house band -- to find out who's behind the planetary annihilation and put an end to it. In other hands, this would be a suspenseful thriller aboud a deadly plague and a vast conspiracy, but this book enjoys the same cocky tone as Brust's Vlad Taltos series, only in a very different setting, so it's exciting *and* fun.

I don't read much science fiction, anymore, but this is one of the best of that genre that I've read in a long while. It's completely original, unlike so much sci-fi these days that seems copied from everything else. This is one book that doesn't go to the used-book sellers!