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[alyson]

The Callahan Touch and Callahan's Legacy by Spider Robinson

Robinson has a whole series of books based on a continuing set of characters. I first read some of them in college, and at this point probably have all of the books in the series (so far--he still seems to be writing them.)

The narrator is a guy named Jake who is one of many who like to go to this one bar, Callahan's Place. At the time of these two books, Callahan's Place has been gone for several years, and Jake has chosen to open a new bar in Callahan's memory.

Actually, The Callahan Touch concerns the opening of his bar, and Callahan's Legacy is about the closing of it.

All of the patrons of the bar are friends or acquaintances of each other, and the bar never has a sign, nor does it advertise, but people find it anyway: only people who need to, for one reason or another. The patrons are engaged in an ongoing experiment to achieve telepathy, and they have been successful in the past and have hopes of being so again. They work on the experiment by drinking, and having fun, and making atrocious and painful puns. This is also helpful for saving the world, or the universe, more than once.

These are nice comfort-food books. I read most of Robinson's books at least once a year. I like his writing style (most of the time) and his attempt through his characters to see everyone fairly and nonjudgmentally. I must admit, though: it is in Callahan's Legacy that he has his only instance of slightly annoying judgementalism, but it has the excuse that the very ugly person at whom he has all of his characters laugh is also the person who gets the bar closed.

I'd recommend any of the Callahan books for some light-hearted, uplifting sci-fi.
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[galactic_dev]

Robinson is interesting. I read his first book in this series, I think, and it struck me that each story was an episode of Night Court as done by the Sci-Fi channel, which had its pros and cons.

Then I read his serious attempt to argue that Robert Heinlein was not sexist, and I could no longer take Robinson seriously. Did I judge him too harshly?

[jeffp]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but just about everything I've read by Heinlein is crap. He's sexist to the core, and a bore to boot. I won't read anything by him anymore. It just irritates me.

[shaw]

[alyson]

I can see the Night Court metaphor. It works for me. I always liked Night Court, too.

Part of what Robinson goes on about, in the areas that I respect, is trying to judge people as fairly as one can. He may have been wrong about Heinlein--in fact, I agree with you--but who cares? I like other things that he says.

You could possibly even make the observation that a person who makes such a huge attempt to get you to be fair and equitable and to respect all manner of folks "protesteth too much," especially when you notice him not following his own lead. Well, does he get credit for trying?
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