Review: The Callahan Touch by Spider Robinson

Title: The Callahan Touch
Author: Spider Robinson
Genre: Science fiction
Grade: B-
Reason for Reading: I discovered Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Place stories last year, and that was one of the coolest discoveries I made. Unfortunately, the books sort of vary in quality so I can’t read too many of them at the same time. But today I’d finished the book I’d been nursing for the better part of a week and wanted something short.

Synopsis: Callahan’s Place was, essentially, the world’s coolest bar. Everyone who was meant to find the place did, and the place operated under the principle that shared joy is increased and shared pain decreased. Then, at the end of the third Callahan book, the original Callahan’s place bar was destroyed. It’s been several years since that happened, and now Jake Stonebender, one of the former Callahan’s regulars, has opened up Mary’s Place, a bar that operates under the same principle as Callahan’s. And sure enough, strange and wonderful things happen. We meet, variously, a mischievous creature of Irish legend, a man who believes himself responsible for AIDS, the luckiest man on Earth, and an intelligent computer, not necessarily in that order.

My Thoughts: Like I said above, I really like the Callahan stories. I always feel a lot more cheerful after I’ve read one of Robinson’s books, and this is no exception. I really like Robinson’s optimistic view of human nature, and it was lovely to reconnect with characters I’ve always liked.

I’m not sure, though, that I’sd recommend this series to anyone who was new to science fiction as a genre, and that continues to be my biggest criticism of the series. Robinson assumes that his readers are, like him, SF readers, and that we’ve all read and liked the same stuff that he does. Which is, needless to say, slightly irritating. But if you think you can ignore the references to the boys club of SF writing, I would definitely at least pick up Callahan’s Cross-Time Saloon. You won’t want to start the series with this book, because there are a lot of references to spoilers from previous books.

Another thing I’d point out is that if you’re not a libertarian, or disagree strongly with those views, Robinson isn’t going to work for you. I generally agree with him on principle most of the time, but sometimes thinking about what would actually happen if we kept his politics in mind hurts my head. And let’s not even get started on the man’s sexual politics, or I’ll be tempted to lower this book another grade point based on a couple of random throwaway lines that really shouldn’t be analyzed.

I don’t feel like this is one of my better reviews, so I guess I’ll summarize. I think Robinson’s good for a nice, uplifting, feel-good story. And this book is definitely one fans of the series will enjoy. For newcomers, start with Callahan’s Cross-time Saloon and see if you’re hooked.