Off the Wall at Callahan's - Softcover

Robinson, Spider

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765310465 ISBN 13: 9780765310460

Publisher: Tor Books, 2004

Synopsis

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 Saloon to Lady Slings the Booze). After the original Callahan's Place was destroyed, all of these gems were painstakingly deciphered from blown-up old photos of the wall behind the bar, where Callahan let his customers scrawl graffiti in place of the usual mirror. So technically, every word is "off the wall." Further ennobled by numerous interior B&W illustrations by Phil Foglio, there are even capsule bios at the end for every person (real or imaginary) quoted in the graffiti section.

Welcome to Callahan's Crosstime Saloon . . .There's no place like it in this, or any other, universe.

About this title

About the Author

Spider Robinson, winner of three Hugos and a Nebula, was born in the Bronx and raised on Long Island, and has been a Canadian resident for 30 years. Holder of a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York, he worked as a folksinger and journalist before publishing his first story in Analog in 1973. He now lives with his wife Jeanne Robinson (co-author of the Hugo- and Nebula-winning Stardance trilogy) on an island outside Vancouver, B.C., where they raise and exhibit hopes.

Eleven of his 31 books are set in Callahan's Place, a fabulous tavern founded by a time traveler, where puns flow as freely as beer, and smell far worse. The most recent is Callahan's Con [Tor July 2003]. He has contributed a regular editorial column, "Future Tense," to Canada's national newspaper, The Globe & Mail, since 1995. In 2000, he released Belaboring the Obvious, a CD of original music with the legendary Amos Garrett ("Midnight at the Oasis") on lead guitar, and in 2001 he was a celebrity judge at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.

From Publishers Weekly

The merciful thing about this book is that no one makes it a secret that it's being done for the money. And that's where the pity ends, as Spider Robinson (yes, he legally changed his name to Spider) takes epigrams and aphorisms rent from their natural environments--generally from his enormously successful club stories about Callahan's Place--and leaves them to stand (or fall) on their own, with the help of some quaint Phil Foglio illustrations. Those who didn't long ago tire of stories about Callahan's Place may glory in this self-indulgence, which Robinson modestly compares favorably to Robert A. Heinlein's The Notebooks of Lazarus Long , Heinlein at least had the integrity to include only quotes from his own works. Robinson, apparently unable to fill a book with the wit and wisdom of Callahan's Place (although the introduction cagily implies that there will be a second volume), includes quotes from varous other sources, including Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Chip Delany, Tom Waits and The Rockford Files . There are two sections of puns, all excerpted from the short stories, and some songs (sans music or even chord sequences) with lyrics such as ``My love is like horniness, in that it never quits, / But I'd love you if you didn't have those tits.'' Several of the epigrams are similarly well-conceived, and a few--unlike The Notebooks of Lazarus Long --are outright mean-spirited. It is difficult to dislike a book by someone who enjoys cunnilingus and Ed McCurdy, but Robinson ( Lady Slings the Booze ) does his damnedest to make this book unappealing.

Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0765310465
• ISBN 13: 9780765310460
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160