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Title: Callahan's Cross-time Saloon
Author: Spider Robinson
Genre: SF short story anthology
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A collection of short stories all set in a bar on Long Island where broken manly men go to get their hearts healed. Even if they're aliens.
Thingummies: These short stories were published in the first wave of character-centric science fiction, following the Golden Age focus of Asimov and Clarke on plot and science. I can see why they would have felt like a breath of fresh air at the time. I'm not entirely sure how well they aged, decades after the wash of disillusionment that accompanied Vietnam, Nixon, and early drug rampages. If you pay enough attention to history, then the attitude of "society is falling apart because it doesn't conform to my nostalgic vision of my childhood" gets pretty repetitive.
There are some clever concepts here, from redefining time travel to a novel way of dealing with a living time bomb. There are a lot of bad puns, which should please some. There's also a very...masculine feel, that makes me feel very much like these stories are not for me, just as Callahan's bar itself is apparently entirely uncongenial to my gender. Because they're manly men, you see, and while they're progressive enough to let each other cry out their heartbreak, they're not progressive enough to do so if women are around. Or to allow that perhaps women are also in need of the miraculous redemptive services that Callahan's offers, which are apparently enough to save the world. Unless you're female.
One of the last stories also reveals something of the nature of Callahan himself that I think undercuts quite a lot of Robinson's own argument.
So. They're very much a product of their time. They were probably pretty thoughtful and touchy-feely for the time. They're well written and contain some very clever little thought experiments. But I did not feel particularly welcome in this particular bar.
Author: Spider Robinson
Genre: SF short story anthology
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A collection of short stories all set in a bar on Long Island where broken manly men go to get their hearts healed. Even if they're aliens.
Thingummies: These short stories were published in the first wave of character-centric science fiction, following the Golden Age focus of Asimov and Clarke on plot and science. I can see why they would have felt like a breath of fresh air at the time. I'm not entirely sure how well they aged, decades after the wash of disillusionment that accompanied Vietnam, Nixon, and early drug rampages. If you pay enough attention to history, then the attitude of "society is falling apart because it doesn't conform to my nostalgic vision of my childhood" gets pretty repetitive.
There are some clever concepts here, from redefining time travel to a novel way of dealing with a living time bomb. There are a lot of bad puns, which should please some. There's also a very...masculine feel, that makes me feel very much like these stories are not for me, just as Callahan's bar itself is apparently entirely uncongenial to my gender. Because they're manly men, you see, and while they're progressive enough to let each other cry out their heartbreak, they're not progressive enough to do so if women are around. Or to allow that perhaps women are also in need of the miraculous redemptive services that Callahan's offers, which are apparently enough to save the world. Unless you're female.
One of the last stories also reveals something of the nature of Callahan himself that I think undercuts quite a lot of Robinson's own argument.
So. They're very much a product of their time. They were probably pretty thoughtful and touchy-feely for the time. They're well written and contain some very clever little thought experiments. But I did not feel particularly welcome in this particular bar.
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 05:11 am (UTC)From:I'd felt like the Callahan's books were a gap in my nerd social literacy. Now I don't feel so bad for never reading them.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 12:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 05:19 pm (UTC)From: