Aging baby-boomer Russell Walker wants only to retreat from the world and the shattering death of his beloved wife, into the woods of British Columbia. But the real world won't let him become a hermit. Instead, he finds himself thrust into the mystery of a series of mass murders by a monstrous sa...
I had pretty good fun with this one. It's a big story, all over the place. I really enjoyed the bits with Tony Donuts. I wasn't completely impressed with the interactions with Erin when she was two years old, because that leads to temporal gaps that can't easily be explained. For instance, if she...
A lot of fun. This was about Lady Sally's Brothel, which sounds like a place all of us would love to visit, if not work. It's like a high-class whorehouse with plenty of style and plenty of cool people. So obviously, we go hang out at Lady Sally's to get our primal leanings in order, then we mose...
Spider's 1976 first novel, in its umpteenth reincarnation. Isham Stone is the second-best assassin left in a shattered world. He's many miles from home, half-dead, his left arm is gangrenous, and he possesses--like everyone else--a sense of smell 1000 times better than a wolf's. Ahead of him, in ...
I first read one of Spider's short short stories in either an Analog or a Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine (my dad's hand-me-downs). I do remember it being a Callahan's Crosstime Saloon short, and I was instantly hooked. I couldn't get enough of his stories. Then, in 1986 I read Night Of Power...
I am conflicted about this one. I just read it again - in whole, so It is good enough, surely? Niven writes well, no question. I am a fan of his writing, and have read many of his books. However this one, at the end of the day, annoys me. Unfortunately, to explain why, I must refer toi specific p...
I re-read this book a lot. This and most of the rest in this series, of which this particular book is the 4th. I think.If I ever were to meet Spider Robinson in person, I would kiss him full on the lips and probably weep. While the series ran out of steam after awhile (see the less-than deligh...
Wireheads, addicted to an electric current fed into the pleasure centers of the brain, are the new junkies. Karen, a former wirehead who barely escaped death by pleasure, is determined to bring down those who sell the wireheading equipment, but she and her lover Joe instead turn up evidence of a ...
Very interesting book, I have to admit. With the focus on the main male lead, this actually could've been a sci-fi, YA book, but has several scenes which clearly make it oriented more toward adults. Spider Robinson creates a fantastical world of escapism in "Dreamworld" - a place where people go...
Spider Robinson is weird.The plot is thus: a giant evil alien lizard (with 3 breasts) is on its way to destroy the earth. So the main characters decide to share how they all first came to be a barfly at Mike Callahan's tavern. In short.I can't help but feel by this stage Robinson was getting a te...
All the best lines from the Saloon at the far-out edge of space-time!Off the Wall at Callahan's is a collection of epigrams, maxims, proverbs, observations, eye-watering puns, and original song lyrics distilled from the first five volumes of the Callahan's Place series (from Callahan's Crosstime ...
Three novels complete in one volume. Stardance: Shara Drummond was a gifted dancer and a brilliant choreographer, but could not pursue her dream of dancing on Earth, so she went to space, creating a new art form in three dimensions. And when the aliens arrived, there was only one way to prove tha...
Contents:Melancholy Elephants (1982)Half an Oaf (1976)High Infidelity (1984)Antinomy (1978)In the Olden Days (1984)Chronic Offender (1981)No Renewal (1977)Common Sense (1985)Rubber Soul (1982)Concordiat to "Rubber Soul" (1985) essayFather Paradox (1985)True Minds (1984)Satan's Children (1979)Not ...
Opening Night at Mary's Place is the hottest ticket in the galaxy - a brand-new bar with some old familiar faces. Jake's back, along with Doc, Fast Eddie, and the rest of the Callahan's gang. And just when things couldn't get crazier, guess who shows up in the Mick of Time to make sure they do...
4.0 stars. I think the above describes the essence of the book much better than I can, but I will go ahead and ramble for a few paragraphs anyway. However, before I begin PLEASE BE AWARE that this review contains some overt sentimentality and just plain sappiness. If it gets to be too much, you m...
Man, this is uneven. The foreword explains why - it's basically half of the original collection, plus a bunch of stuff stuck in there to make up space. And it shows. It's not that there's zero value in a review column from 1975, or a transcript of a speech about fandom, but they really don't fit ...
FROM THE CRIME TO THE RIDICULOUSFrom the offbeat but razor-edged imagination of Spider Robinson: stranded time travelers; squabbling cosmic warriors; reincarnated rock stars; blind starship pilots; monsters both human and alien; tomorrows formed by today's trends -- this Spider weaves a web of wo...
A strange blue light has brought a visitor from the future to an American commune in Nova Scotia. The visitor's name is Rachel, a beautiful woman from another civilization... and another time. Her one-way mission is simple: collect data on the past of the human race.But why does she risk immortal...
SO I DARED! AM I MAD? AM I? And not just any dead man… He was unreasonably tall and thin, with jet black hair brushed straight back, a ferocious but sanitary mustache, and the kind of brows on which pencils could be balanced. He was dressed in the height of fashion for the 1920s, but every i...
—the Buddha Of Antonio Donnazio Junior his own mother had once said, “You know how some people don’t know shit? Little Tony don’t suspect shit.” (To which his maternal grandfather had replied, “Fuckin A. Little prick makes his old man look like that Lord Stevie Hawkins. Whaddya mean, who?...
I have made good judgments in the future.” —J. Danforth Quayle TESLA DISAPPEARED ON business of his own, promising to catch up with us after we reached Florida. Three weeks later, we were ready to roll. Okay, I’m skipping over a lot of details. An i...
Depressing because it rubbed his nose in the fact that he simply had nothing more pressing to think about. He had not sunk so low that assassins threatened him; rather he bad risen so high that they were a welcome relief from boredom. You must understand that he was unquestionably and indisputabl...
Saturday, June 23, 2007 Heron Island, British Columbia, Canada So much of my energy was going into just staying upright and moving slowly forward that it wasn’t until I spotted my mailbox-bank coming, five or six hundred meters up ahead on the left, that I realized I not only was going to ...
Off The Wall at Callahan's If you’re raped, don’t charge the bastard with rape. Charge him with indecent exposure. It is much easier to get a conviction for that charge than for rape. The defense is not allowed to ask anything about your sexual history or how you were dressed at the time...