end of series, the Masters arrive

This universe created by Spider Robinson is hilarious. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and Lady Sally's House are all full of the same humour. If you like puns or riddles...these are special that way. ( )

This will be it for me and Callahan. Some of the stories are great but not enough to keep going. ( )

A collection of four stories set in Callahan's Place, where the bad puns flow as freely as the booze, where the regulars include such colorful personalities as a seven-foot-tall alien cyborg and a talking dog, and where everybody not only knows your name, they're also capable of solving all your problems before Last Call.

This is actually the third collection in the series. I read the first one so long ago as to barely remember it and missed the second one, but as the author himself assures us in the introduction, they're all meant to stand on their own, anyway. I gather this series as a whole is regarded as something of a light classic in science fiction circles, and I can kind of see why. The basic premise is fantastic, and Robinson's writing is pleasant and fairly lively, at least when his characters aren't delivering philosophical speeches. But, I don't know... It's all just silly enough to induce a bit of eye-rolling, but not sufficiently silly to pass through into being pure goofy fun, and that level of silliness combines oddly with a certain strain of science-fictional earnestness that I'm no longer quite as fond of as when I was ten years old and devotedly watching the original Star Trek. In other words, it's mildly entertaining, but to me the execution really just doesn't quite live up to the concept. ( )

This is Spider Robinson's third collection of stories about Callahan's Saloon. Stories include 'The Blacksmith's Tale,' 'Pyotr's Story,' 'Involuntary Man's Laughter,' and 'The Mick of Time.' It's the last book about Callahan's Saloon itself, but the series continued as Jake Stonebender, the narrator, opened Mary's Place (see 'The Blacksmith's Tale' to learn why it's called that) and later the gang relocated to Key West. ( )