Review: Time Travelers Strictly Cash by Spider Robinson

When last we met, I was raving about the preceeding collection of Callahan’s stories, Callahan’s Cross-time Saloon . This is the second such collection of Callahan stories, and, while I still love the Callahan universe, I can definitely say I liked the first book better.

This second book was another collection of short stories, only four of which were actually set in Callahan’s, which, because I didn’t include a summary in the previous review, is basically the coolest bar ever and the kind of place I would hang out in real life, despite the fact that I don’t like bars all that much. Anyway, the rest of the book (which is really what we were talking about) consists of a few of Robinson’s other science fiction stories, most of which I thought weren’t all that good. (The exception being the excerpt from Mindkiller and the very last story in the collection, the name of which I’ve forgotten.) There were also a couple of essays, one his first-ever book review column for Galaxy magazine, one an essay about Robert A. heinlein which, if Robinson had written it today, would have been all over fandom wank, and one a speech he made about fandom and the craziness (or lack) therin.

As I said, I definitely liked the first set of Callahan stories a lot better. The rest of this collection felt extremely uneven and a little (by which I mean a lot) self-indulgent. If you're going to pick this particular book up, skip the nonfiction altogether, read the Callahan stuff, and then read the last story, and you'll hit the highlights.

Grade: C+