The Draco Tavern - Softcover

Niven, Larry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765386437 ISBN 13: 9780765386434

Publisher: Tor Books, 2006

Synopsis

When a tremendous spacecraft took orbit around the Earth's moon and began sending smaller landers down toward the North Pole, the newly arrived visitors quickly set up a permanent spaceport in Siberia. Their presence attracted many, and a few people grew conspicuously rich from secrets they learned from talking to the aliens. One of these men, Rick Schumann, established a tavern catering to all of the various species of visiting aliens, a place he named the Draco Tavern.
From the mind of #1 "New York Times" bestselling author Larry Niven come twenty-six tales and vignettes from this interplanetary gathering place, collected for the first time in one volume, including:

"The Subject Is Closed": A priest visits the tavern and goes one-on-one with a chirpsithra alien on the subject of God and life after death.

"Table Mannners: A Folk Tale": Rick Schumann is invited to hunt with five folk aliens, but he's not quite sure what their hunt entails, or if he will be the hunted.

"Losing Mars": In this previously unpublished tale, a group of aliens who call Mars and its moon home arrive at the tavern only to find that humans have mostly forgotten about their neighboring planet.

About this title

About the Author

Larry Niven is the award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces, and fantasy novels including the Magic Goes Away series. His "Beowulf's Children," co-authored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a "New York Times" bestseller. He has received the Nebula Award, five Hugos, four Locus Awards, two Ditmars, the Prometheus, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award, among other honors. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

From AudioFile

Bartender as storyteller is a tried-and-true literary device. Niven offers up a number of short stories and musings about the aliens visiting a tavern in 2030. An interplanetary watering hole provides plenty of material for sci-fi fans; the stories are full of the unique perspectives of these travelers and their accounts of their home planets. Rick Schumann is characterized as the classic bartender by narrator Tom Weiner. He is inventive in his characterizations of the visitors who engage Schumann over the bar. Weiner gives the same attention to short pieces that he does to full stories and provides continuity without being overbearing. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0765386437
• ISBN 13: 9780765386434
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384