Fulminata reviewed Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
Review of "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
A collection of short stories originally published in Analog Magazine back in the early to mid 70s about Callahan's Place, a fictional bar on Long Island that's basically the bar from the theme to Cheers mixed with the occasional paranormal or alien visitor.
The stories generally have depressing beginnings, but happy endings with a lot of puns in between.
In retrospect, the final story, written for the collection's first publication in 1977, is unintentionally depressing. It posits that the world is showing signs of improving given that the US ultimately failed to sell the Vietnam War to the American people, and that a corrupt President was successfully removed from office. Looking around at today's world shows this as being a false hope.
For this, and other reasons, I enjoyed these stories a lot more when I was younger, but they're still worth the read.
