Cosmic Cocktails - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0756403987 ISBN 13: 9780756403980

Publisher: DAW, 2006

Synopsis

Bars and taverns are a time-honored human tradition--the perfect gathering places to trade news and gossip, to hang out, to complain, to celebrate, or just somewhere travelers can pass the time. Each has its own special and loyal clientele, though some welcome all comers.

But what will such watering holes be like in the future? What form might they take on distant worlds--some human-run, some not--and on space stations? Who would be likely to frequent such places, and what tales would they have to tell?

Here are fifteen original yarns that take you bar-hopping around the galaxy to places where you'll encounter: An alien life-form that needs to be drunk to get drunk. . . .A reporter on the trail of the true story about a legendary space pilot. . . .A couple of spacers who'd been led to a bar they might never blast out of again. . . .A saloon where time travelers might run out of time. . . .And more interstellar adventures that will have you wishing you could belly up to the bar-or its alien equivalent-and spend and evening taking in these tales beyond your wildest imagining. . .

About this title

About the Author

Denise Little worked for Barnes & Noble/B. Dalton Bookseller for many years, first as a bookstore manager, then as their national book buyer for romance, science fiction, and fantasy fiction. She then joined Kensington Publishing, where she edited her own line of romance, Denise Little Presents. She's currently executive editor at Tekno Books.

From Publishers Weekly

In conceiving this anthology of bar stories from outer space, editor Little drew inspiration from her own experience "living in Green Bay in the winter ... trapped all the time inside artificially heated shelters sealed against a hostile environment." The result, a collection of 15 all-new tales from largely unknown writers, is a winning treat just in time for the cold months. Many stories evoke what may be the original Space Bar & Grill, the bustling cantina from Star Wars, as in Stephen Mohan, Jr.'s description of a Hershin trader: "waxy blue-gray skin, twenty or thirty shiny black eyes sprinkled around a fist-sized sensory node set on a slim neck stalk." Others recall the mind-bending neo-noir of Philip K. Dick, as in Allan Rousselle's intoxicating story about a hired killer traveling back in time to terminate the inventor of a time machine. Playing out like an episode of The Twilight Zone, Annie Reed's clever tale follows a woman's inventive revenge on a Lothario, as she turns his every lie into a reality, making him the most wanted man on 17 planets. Without a marquee name in the mix, this low-key pub crawl is surprisingly consistent, delivering a punchy blend of shocks, laughs and otherworldly action with only a few stale brews among them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: DAW
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0756403987
• ISBN 13: 9780756403980
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Little Denise