| Title | : | Callahan's Secret (Callahan's, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812572297 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812572292 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 |
| Publication | : | First published July 1, 1986 |
| Awards | : | Locus Award Best Collection (1987), Analog Award Best Novella/Novelette for "The Mick of Time" (1986) |
Callahan's Secret (Callahan's, #3) Reviews
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This is the third book in Robinson's Callahan's series, and the last with the original concept. It has four stories, one with more of a fantasy than sf feel. There are all of the familiar puns and jokes and sensitivity and sentiment and emotion that characterize the earlier books, and always had readers hoping that they'd get lucky enough to stumble onto the place sooner or later, since the idea was that those who really needed it eventually found it. Another very enjoyable read, but I found that I couldn't read his books too close together or I'd suffer burn-out.
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Awwww yiss, more puns!!!
I've been working my way through those and this is my 5th one so far as I've read the 2 Sally books as well, and it's been an entertaining ride so far. 4.25/5 stars. The author is pretty fucking creative, there's a lot of great and wild ideas in this book (and the rest of the series I've read so far) -
This is the first Callahan book and indeed the first Spider Robinson book that I can unreservedly say that I enjoyed. Perhaps that was because there were only four stories in it, so each one got more time and attention from the author and also because there wasn’t any non-Callahan material included.
My impression is certainly that Spider Robinson believes in the redemptive value of friendship and in the associated virtues of compassion and empathy. Not to mention alcohol, humour, and music, which are also extolled as great joys.
Be warned, these stories are pun-laden. If you adore punning, you will love Robinson’s work. If you are like me and merely tolerate puns, be advised that I did not find them overly obnoxious. Probably if I had an audiobook, I would have snorted a few times.
This is book 207 of my science fiction and fantasy reading project. -
The last in the trilogy about Callahan's. Puns are prevalent, and as a reader, they don't have any appeal for me. Some of Robinson's seem particularly tortured, so the extent where I was sounding them out out loud to try and get the joke. Since I read the trilogy in the omnibus edition, I might have also been reaching my limit on Callahan's bar.
"The Blacksmith's Tale," kind of a love story, unusual in the group. Poignant twist and philosophical musing. Quite emotionally wrenching.
"Pyotr's Story" had an interesting urban fantasy twist. There's a wake for the guitar Lady Macbeth, and Pyotr has to ferry more drunks home than usual. Clever twist.
In the edition I had, there's a short author interlude here discussing puns and a reader contest.
"Involuntary Man's Laughter" is partly set on Punday night--be warned. The bar gets together to solve the problems of a man with a speech problem.
"In the Mick of Time" a great secret of Callahan's comes out. Feels a little preachy and contrived. Closer to novella. -
My 1996 booklog notes that this is one of his best, and that I liked it on reread. Carol reminded me of the bad puns, but some of these stories were pretty funny. Hmm. Wonder if I still have a copy? The library doesn't.
Nope, no copy. If I see a cheap used one, might pick it up? -
Mickey Finn and Mary...lots of great revelations. The characterizations are deeper than in most of the other Callahan's books/stories, and that only adds to the enjoyment.
The only flaw, and it's a minor one, is that I sometimes feel like the dialogue is taking place on a plane I cannot reach and do not aspire to. I don't know if that's Spider Robinson being too hip, too clever, but I do know that by the end of the story it makes sense and the momentary feeling of not being one of the smart kids passes. Turns out it makes perfect sense. -
I want to give this more than 5 stars. I have enjoyed all of the Callahan stories, and the empathy in them has touched my soul many times, but the last story in this volume was something transcendent.
ETA: I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea based on my review here; this is not a serious book. I would describe it as fun and zany, and full of puns. It can make you feel deeply, especially when you meet a character whose pain is very much like your own, but the writing is very lighthearted, and the mood always turns back to merriment in the end. Some might find that too silly, but I think it's cathartic to laugh after a big dose of compassion. -
Well, this series is starting to get boring FAST. All of the stories seem to have lost the charm that I saw in the first book. In fact, it made me think whether I want to continue with the series or not. This book was flat out BORING. In all honesty, I think I will give the fourth book a go, but I will stop FAST if I'm not into it.
I am giving this one a 2 out of 5 stars. -
I re-read this book a lot. This and most of the rest in this series, of which this particular book is the 4th. I think.
If I ever were to meet
Spider Robinson in person, I would kiss him full on the lips and probably weep. While the series ran out of steam after awhile (see the less-than delightful
Lady Slings the Booze for reference), the Callahan's Place and Lady Sally books were top-notch escapism for me growing up. Hell, their top-notch escapism currently. Intelligent, thoughtful books about humor and love. They formed (or helped to form) my opinions on both sex and alcohol. The books also made me feel not so alone. I'm sort of weird, but everyone in the books is pretty weird and not disliked for it. Even when I was athletically "skinny," I was still a broad-shoulders, round-hipped and full-breasted big girl, and the supposedly sexiest woman in the whole series is written as an Irish girl who runs 250 pounds if she is an ounce. I'm a balance-craving pacifist, and these books are about striking balance as a way to achieve peace.
These books are full of puns and puzzles and world history, and usually in a way which manages to teach the reader about word play and human history without ever dropping the gentle assumption that everyone already knows all this stuff. Never condescending but never unintelligibly intellectual, either.
The series can sometimes get a little self-congratulatory. A little contrived and pretentious, sure. But if those are the worst faults you come across in the whole series, that's still not too bad. -
I wish I could say I liked this better than I do, but this one falls short of the first two. That may be because this one felt more like a novel than a collection of short stories as the first two books did. It may be how suddenly reliant the book was on cursing (but we all know what a prude I am when it comes to literary profanity). The big climax didn't really knock my socks off either. It was worth reading, but I hope the next one gets its mojo back.
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This is, according to Spider Robinson, the "last" Callahan book...and in some ways, it is. However, do not despair if you are only now discovering the marvelous people who frequent Callahan's! The series continues on, in a slightly different form, for eight more books, and good times abound!
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Very funny collection of SiFi short stories. Recommended
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Callahan's Secret appears to have been Robinson's attempt, like Doyle's in The Reichenbach Falls (which he mentions) to put the series to bed at last. I was saddened at the time, but when the inevitable financial pressures got to Spider's web... One a personal note, one of the stories has a bunch of Princes Bride references, and I believe that when I first read this book was when I was motivated to hunt high and low for a copy of the book. Of course, by now everyone in the galaxy has seen the movie.
There are only four stories in this collection, though they are lengthier than the stories in earlier collections. The first, The Blacksmith's Tale (a nod to Chaucer?) tells how Jake meets Callahan's daughter, Mary, and falls hopelessly in love with her (a theme that reappears every so often in Robinson's novels), but she gets introduced to Mickey Finn, and it's love at first sight for her, leaving Jake in the cold, so to speak. We finally get the rest of the story on Finn, which leads us to the climactic story at the end of this book. There's a throwaway line in this one about Mary's mother being Lady Sally, madame of the finest whorehouse in the area, which leads to later Robinson stories about Lady Sally's.
Pyotr's Story is actually almost an urban fantasy bit, long before the genre became so overwhelming. Where would a vampire who became an alcoholic long ago hang out? At Callahan's Saloon, of course, and his ability to filter out alcohol from the patrons' bloodstreams has helped alleviate many a hangover.
Involuntary Man's Laughter comes up with a novel solution (in an era when PCs, laptops and smart phones were either nonexistent or very very rare) to befriending a person who suffers from severely socially debilitating diseases, and including him in Callahan's magic.
The Mick of Time is the story of what happens when the alien race whom Finn once served finally shows up to find out what became of their missing spy/slave. What do you do when an irresistible force encounters and immovable object like Mike Callahan. The solution in part lies in all of the patrons of Callahan's achieving a telepathic gestalt (another them that turns up often in Robinson's works). Robinson introduces a suitcase nuke - it seems like this is long before I'd heard of them in other types of literature or media - to save the day, and incidentally destroy the bar.
Oh, no need to shed any tears, you know it's getting resurrected. -
This is an odd duck of a book. The Callahan stories in the first two books are largely stand alone pieces with Easter eggs for those in the know. This one takes those pieces and tries to create a larger whole. In the end, I don't think it succeeds. It falls into the pitfalls I see in Spider's novels, where there's a bigger picture which fails to support an interesting narrative.
This collection is also rife with signs of the time. The positions of the sole female character are utter bullshit and embarrassing.
This book also succeeds in many ways which the earlier stories fail. The humour is more consistently good. The writing is better.
To my recollection, this isn't as good as the latter stories and it definitely doesn't feel as good as the first two collections. But they are worth reading and seeing how the characters are moving forward. Depending on the edition, you may even see a cameo by Spider, giving a candid (and likely embarrassing in hindsight) description of Callahan's place in the zeitgeist of the early internet.
In the end, if you've read the earlier stories/ collections, then read this. If not, don't bother. -
This is yet another old and dear favorite which I haven't read in a decade or so. I was in my late teens when I bought this, I think; my edition was released in '86, and I bought it new, so… Wow. This isn't like me at all. I admit it: I was a prude. Probably could still be considered one, I suppose, compared to the universe in general, but me in my teens - ? Reading it now, not that it's graphic, but still – I can't believe I not only bought this book but read it, loved it, and have never had the least trace of guilt clinging to it despite sex, drugs, and booze… But that's Callahan's. That's Spider Robinson. Yes, there's a very '70's attitude toward the aforementioned sex, drugs, and booze – as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, go for it. Yes, there's raunchy humor, not usually to my taste … but this raunchy humor, unlike that in most "comic" movies made today for example, is funny. And underlying everything is an attitude that takes "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone" a few miles further. The purpose of Callahan's Place isn't simply not to hurt – it's a place of healing.
Callahan's Secret is actually the third book in the series, though it was my first experience of Spider Robinson. It was, as the introduction tells, the final book, at the time. It was, however, not a trilogy. Not. (I was jaded about trilogies for a very long time because of that introduction. Still am, I guess, really.) It made me want to open a bar. Seriously. I've never even hung out in a bar, apart from that one period when I worked at Barnes & Noble, and that was hanging out with friends, not hanging out in a bar – apart from that I don't know as I've even been in a bar. But after the high of the Callahan's books, I wanted to try it. However, the odds of even the geek bar I would open attracting an alien, a talking dog, or even a Jake Stonebender are beyond astronomical (even allowing for reality) – I am no Mike Callahan. You can't have Callahan's without Callahan. (Well, you sort of can, but that's another book.) Callahan's is not a place random people go to get drunk. From the Wikia: "Due to the location, walk-ins are rare and it's generally held that, with a few exceptions, people don't find Callahan's unless they're sent or they need to find it." ("The bar is described as being located on Route 25A in Suffolk County on Long Island in New York state. It is marked by a single sign and is set back from the road far enough to be easily missed." Clever of Spider – Rte. 25A pretty much runs the length of Long Island, all of which if I'm not mistake is Suffolk County. I wonder if not being able to find Callahan's (while it was still there to be found) meant that readers just didn't need it enough.)
The heart of Callahan's is what hooked me from the very beginning. The stories are laugh-out-loud funny, completely unpredictable, and never, ever shy away from deep emotion. The characters who fill the stools and throw the glasses and peanuts at Callahan's Place have evolved into a true community of folk who care about each other, and know what to do with that.
I just did a quick 'net search, and found a Callahan's Place …
in Newfoundland. My mother comes from Newfie. Stephenville! You could fly in and head straight to the Place! We have family in Newfoundland still that could – and might well! – go there. I'll be grinning over this for a while. Wonder what that Place is like.
I need a Callahan's. I really do. I keep thinking I've found an online version – that's exactly what my problem has been. With TORn, with Goodreads, I thought I had found a group of people who might approach psychicness as the Callahan's regulars did. And now I realize that the reason I am so unreasonably and deeply disappointed when it doesn't turn out that way, when I'm the only one dumb enough to throw myself heart and soul into the thing hoping for others to meet me in the middle. Both groups referred to themselves as "family" – on TORn the common term was "TORnsibs" – and maybe by others' definitions they are families. However, I happen to have a great family whom I know is solidly behind me, supportive and caring and always there if I need them as I am for them. That's not, apparently, what others think of as family. And apparently what the Callahan's habitués consider friendship is a different species from how the online "friends" I've had define it.
It was interesting to read this when I did. As I've recognized the seeds for a lot of my opinions in things like M*A*S*H (views on war, for example, and my complete and utter lack of any desire to get drunk), so I can distinguish the seeds to my adult conception of friendship in the Callahan's Place stories. I've been blaming L.M. Montgomery and such – I've had and now have a small group of good friends, but never had a "bosom friend" quite like Diana Barry – and that is a big part of it. But it's here, where one Placer sees a friend's problem and goes off to bring someone back at gunpoint to fix it, where a friend's problems are instantly perceived with the immediate desire to listen as wanted and help as possible, where any one regular will do anything, literally, for any other – it's holding that up beside real life that I realize where I've gone askew. I expect – not simply "too much", really. I expect everything.
To be read either sarcastically or not, depending on your own inclination: Thanks a lot, Jake and Spider. Thanks heaps. -
The previous book was crap filled so I'm not sure why I thought this one would be different.
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A fun three star read that won its fourth star in the last few pages with its big climactic ending that relied largely on the power of empathy (and small nuclear bombs tbf).
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More surprises and a cool conclusion. The family grows literally and there are big developments you just have to read if you love Callahan's.
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This was my first time entering the saloon, and I think I might become a regular. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first story and almost put the book down but the other three completely changed my mind.
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Third, and probably best, of the Callahan series, this is a set of four solid stories set at the world's greatest saloon. Many years ago, this served as my introduction to this merry crew, and I still love it, but...
This book has certainly aged better than the first in the series, but is still a bit chauvinistic and smugly liberal (as an occasionally smug and accidentally sexist liberal, I recognize the symptoms), and the endgame is quite silly, which is a bit awkward when the fate of the world is at stake. Still, diversity is better served here than in previous entries, and the puns are still awful. So, if you're willing to ignore the occasional continuity flub or outdated soapboxing, you'll have a good time. Besides, any book with both a talking German Shepherd and an alcoholic vampire can't be all bad... -
[These notes were made in 1989:]. The tone is almost off-puttingly flip, at first. But beneath all the cleverness, the persistent reader finds a surprisingly warm and tolerant layer of humanity. And this despite a really intimidating barrage of bizarrerie, apparently set on Earth in our time. For instance, the narrator, Jake, goes up on the roof and meets - with immediate & intimate results - Callahan's daugher, Mary. So far, so normal - or at least identifiable, right? But then to cap it off, Jake's alien friend Mickey Finn floats down from the sky and gives them both a magic shield from rain which stays with them for the rest of the book. I should explain that this is a collection of short stories (and not the first) about the same set of characters, but short stories which appear to have been published in sequence, so the stories, though episodic, are pretty much like chapters in a book. Each one, except for the last, revolves around a different alien character, including a reluctant vampire and some telepaths. Robinson, a transplanted American now living in Canada, is a confirmed punster - there are some real groaners in here, and even a little word-game in one of the chapters (for which Robinson thoughtfully provides the answers.) The first several chapters set up a little world. The last one explodes it - Callahan reveals himself as a time traveller & with the help of his friends preserves the Earth from an intergalactic meance, then disappears.
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I like Robinson's Callahan's Place stories much better than his other stuff. The focus on communication, empathy, and emotional problem-solving works for me more consistently than pure SF idea stories do. (I am not quite as charmed by the puns as Robinson himself seems to be, however.)
The big setpiece in this one is "The Mick of Time," the big finale for the Callahan's setting and some of the longer-running plot threads. I didn't really feel a pressing need to have them wrapped up, but as Robinson alludes in the Foreword, every series must meet its Reichenbach eventually. It mostly worked - Callahan's origins made sense, the closure for the Mick Finn plot worked fine, and the conclusion seemed inevitable. The only part that bugged was the gratuitous info about the PoV character Jake's original problem, which I'd mostly forgotten about and definitely didn't care about.
The rest of them were generally fun, although Jake and Mary's meeting had that sort of weird 70s-era free love vibe that reads as deeply sexist and creepy and so, so completely oblivious about it. It's trying so hard to be progressive, and just doesn't make it very far out of its own era. But in the proper historical context, it's rather charming. -
I fully admit to having a weakness for light, comic science fiction, as well as short stories that center around a bar or other cozy sort of spot where regulars congregate (
Arthur C. Clarke's
Tales From The White Hart leaps to mind) and this ticks all the boxes. I'm sorry I had to start with the last book in what the author swears isn't a trilogy, but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. I definitely want to go back and read the first two.
NB: This book features some shockingly bad puns. Fair warning. -
Oh my, I did not see that secret coming. According to the foreword this was the last Callahan story, but I have been told that there are many more. There are fewer stories in this book, but they are much longer and richer, and call in question perception. Human perception on the world and those in it. As human beings we tend to all think a certain way, to impose our perceptions of emotions and rationalizations onto others. But what happens when the person is not human, when their motivations are beyond what we know, beyond our understanding. How then can we impose our views of morality, of love upon them?
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The third book in the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series, it is on par with the other Callahan's books and an enjoyable read. What I like about the Callahan books is that he preaches through laughter.
I had the honor of sitting down and talking to Spider at Tri*No*Con in 2005 and we found we had a couple friends in common. He is one of the most unassuming, friendly authors I've ever met. He seems to constantly be surprised at his celebrity. About the only thing I didn't like that he did was to finish off two of Heinlein's posthumous books. But I digress.
If you want a funny, thought-provoking, smooth read, pick up all the Callahan books. You won't be disappointed. -
What a ride! Just a refresher -- I started reading this series (which has been on my to-read list for 20 years) over the summer. I love how each story can be read as a separate part but that they are cumulative. While I've read every story with a keen interest and appreciation for Spider's rare talents, none of them gripped me like the one at the very end of this book. All at once it made perfect sense and no sense at all. I experienced both gut-wrenching sadness and heartwarming joy. And then more sadness.
I am still kicking myself for waiting so long to read this series, but then again I'm also thrilled to know there are still so many of Spider's books still waiting for me. -
This was originally the end of the series. However, numerous spinoffs have been done. Timetravellers unite against alien roaches. Did MiB rip Spider off. As with the first two books, this is a series of stories from the point of view of Jake (aka Spider). They are fun and show the love and compassion that people can possess.
This is an enjoyable read. I highly recommend it for everyone who enjoys science fiction or the old TV show Cheers.
