Four for Callahan

The Callahan Touch; Spider Robinson (Ace Books, ISBN 0-441-00133-5).

Callahan's Legacy; Spider Robinson (Tor Books, ISBN 0-812-55035-8).

Callahan's Key; Spider Robinson (Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-58060-4).

Callahan's Con; Spider Robinson (Tor Books, ISBN 0-765-34165-4).

When we last saw the gang at Callahan's, they had just foiled an invasion of the Earth by setting off a "borrowed" atomic bomb (it was a small one!). However, as a result, Callahan's Place was destroyed.

We then went off on a multi-book side trip through Lady Sally's Place, a brothel that was the equivalent of Callahan's Place. (All the earlier books were reviewed by me in past years, just thumb back in the listings.)

We now have the stories of Mary's Place and The Place. This set opens up with Jake Stonebender putting the finishing touches on Mary's Place, the replacement for Callahan's Place. In addition to trying to build a place where the gang can once again hang out, Jake is trying to open what is essentially a school for telepaths. The gang used telepathy to defeat the alien invasion that destroyed Callahan's Place; they're hoping to get that feeling back again. Much of the first book revolves around the opening of Mary's Place, the long jam session that started the place off, and Jake finally getting love into his life again.

This was a pretty lightweight entry into the series. However, it is redeemed by those unique Robinson touches, little details that he tosses in that have you wondering "gee, that could really happen". My favorite was his tale of the man who opened a shop where he made you the perfect cup of coffee. He was wealthy, so could afford to take the time to craft every cup. Eventually he built The Machine, which would make the perfect cup of coffee, or, by extension, the perfect Irish Coffee (known at Callahan's and Mary's as God's Blessing). Jake ends up with the prototype, in a tale that has you wishing, "if only..."

With the second book, Mary's Place comes to an abrupt end. Juggling the impending birth of his wife's child, another alien invader, and an implacable bureaucracy, the gang manages to birth the baby and save the world, but loses out to the county code. A short entry, compared to some of the Lady Sally books, but this one felt more like "old times" to me.

With the third book, the gang emigrates, en masse, to the Keys where they find a more suitable environment (no snow!) for drinking and trying for the telepathic touch. The trip down is a hoot, Robinson manages to work in a few characters from other author's works, and we even get to save the world (this time from mankind).

Finally, with the fourth book, two ghosts of the past revisit in the form of the son of Tony Donuts (from the Lady Sally tales) and a relation of the unstoppable bureaucrats of the second book of this sequence. The problems are again solved and the gang is one step closer to that telepathic goal. However, in a very moving sequence, they lose one of the oldest members of the original group from Callahan's.

I've been reading these stories since they first appeared in Analog mumble mumble years ago. While I prefer the short stories to the novels, I found this quartet to be, overall, a lot closer to the original tales than the Lady Sally books were.

Now I just have one problem. I've run out of Callahan tales to read! Get on it, Spider!