Spider Robinson – författare

Twenty years since Spider Robinson first revealed the existence of Callahan’s Place, the original bar is gone. Mike Callahan is gone, too, but his spirit lives on in the new bar, named Mary’s Place for his daughter.

On this particular day, nothing seems to be going right for Jake Stonebender, proprietor of Mary’s Place. First a huge storm rips the roof off the bar—and moments later, drops another, better roof on it. Then, Mary Callahan and her husband show up, unconscious, literally out of nowhere, and they bring bad news to the barfolk: a nasty three-eyed, three-toed, three-everythinged purple monster is going to descend upon them within mere hours.

Through laughter and tears, with puns powerful enough to melt Formica, the most famous bar in all spacetime is going to rock this night. But will the Earth survive?

The heartbroken recluse…

The hardboiled cop…

The walking wounded telepath…

And the serial killer.

Russell Walker retreats from the shock of his wife''s death by becoming a hermit in the woods of British Columbia. However, it seems the world won''t let him escape so easily, for he finds himself thrust into a precarious role as intermediary between a telepath called Smelly—so sensitive he can''t stand to be near most people—and Constable Nika, a skeptical police officer who needs Smelly''s insight to track down a monstrous serial killer.

Shara Drummond was a gifted dancer and a brilliant choreographer, but she could not pursue her dream of dancing on Earth. So she went to space, creating a new art form in three dimensions. And when the aliens arrived, there was only one way to prove that the human race deserved not just to survive, but to reach the stars. The only hope was Shara, with her stardance.

The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Stardance series pioneered the concept of zero gravity dance, which even sparked the interest of NASA and shortlisted co-author Jeanne Robinson for a seat on a space shuttle to become the first actual freefall dancer in space. Though theChallengerexplosion cancelled that dream, now Jeanne is being given a second chance to choreograph dance in space … on film.

This sequel to Stardance returns to the rarified world of Top Step, an asteroid in orbit above twenty-first-century Earth. There, for the price of all one’s worldly possessions, humans are able to live in a vaccum indefinitely by joining with a symbiotic lifeform that provides all needed nourishment.

For Rain McLeod, a forty-six-year-old dancer whose failing body is about to end her career, the Starseed program is the only way to continue living her dream. But for others, including several religious groups and power hungry countries back on earth, the existence of Stardancers represents a threat to all humanity. When a missle attack threatens Top Step and Rain’s lover, Robert, is implicated as a prime suspect, Rain must choose between her private dream and the greater good in a world poised on the verge of an evolutionary leap.

The discreet little bar that Jake Stonebender established a few blocks below Duval Street is simply called The Place. There, Fast Eddie Costigan learned to curse back at parrots as he played the house piano, the Reverend Tom Hauptman learned to tend bar bare-chested without blushing, Long-Drink McGonnigle discovered the margarita and several señoritas, and all the other regulars settled into comfortable subtropical niches of their own. Nobody even noticed them save the universe. Over time, the twice-transplanted patrons of Callahan’s Place attracted a pixilated collection of local zanies so quintessentially Key West that they made the New York originals seem almost normal. The elfin little Key deer, for instance—with a stevedore’s mouth; or the merman with eczema; or Robert Heinlein’s teleporting cat. For ten slow, merry years, life was good. The sun shone, the coffee dripped, the breeze blew just strongly enough to dissipate the smell of the puns, and little supergenius Erin grew to the verge of adolescence. Then disaster struck. Through the gate one sunny day comes a malevolent, moronic mastodon of a Mafioso named Tony Donuts, Jr. He’s decided to resurrect the classic protection racket in Key West—and guess which tavern he’s picked to hit first? Then, thanks to very poor accessorizing, Jake’s wife, Zoey, suddenly finds herself in a place with no light, no heat, and no air—and no way home. The urgent question of her whereabouts turns out to be a problem so complex that even the entire gang, equipped with teleportation, time travel, and telepathy, might not be able to crack it in time. And while all this is going on, Death himself walks into The Place. But this time he will not leave alone.

Under the of the world''s finest theme park lies a secret which could alter the course of human history.

Twelve-year-old Mike, a misfit genius with a terrible secret to hide, takes refuge behind the scenes of Dreamworld, a futuristic theme park where hope exists as it does nowhere else. Annie, a midget old enough to be Mike''s mother, has lived in Dreamworld for 13 years without revealing her presence to visitors or staff. She takes Mike in hand, and they settle down to a long, happy life together…until they discover that the trolls who maintain Dreamworld are multiplying at an alarming rate without explanation. As the trolls continue to multiply, they must discover why, or it could mean the end of Dreamworld—and the real world.

Knotted in conflict and turmoil, what was a wonderful, carefree place becomes a battleground on which Earth''s future is at stake. Only Mike and Annie, two unconventional heroes, can save it.

Upon his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy of novels and short stories that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein''s masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Then he set it aside to focus on other novellas.

The detailed outline and notes he created for this project lay forgotten for decades, only to be rediscovered almost a half-century later. Now the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand that outline into a full-length novel. The result is vintage Heinlein, faithful in style and spirit to the Grand Master''s original vision.

When Joel Johnston first met Jinny Hamilton, it seemed like a dream come true. And when she finally agreed to marry him, he felt like the luckiest man in the universe. There was just one small problem—he was broke. His only goal in life was to become a composer, and he knew it would take years before he was earning enough to support a family.

But Jinny wasn''t willing to wait, and when Joel asked her what they were going to do for money, she gave him a most unexpected answer. She told him that her name wasn''t really Jinny Hamilton—it was Jinny Conrad, and she was the granddaughter of Richard Conrad, the wealthiest man in the solar system. Now that she was sure Joel loved her for more than just her wealth, she revealed her family''s plans for him: he would be groomed for a place in the vast Conrad empire and sire a dynasty to carry on the family business. Most men would have jumped at the opportunity. But Joel Johnston wasn''t most men. To Jinny''s surprise, and even his own, he turned down her generous offer and then set off on the mother of all benders—and woke up on a colony ship heading out into space. There he found himself torn between regret over his rash decision and his determination to forget Jinny and make a life for himself among the stars. He was on his way to succeeding when his plans—and the plans of billions of others—were shattered by a cosmic cataclysm so devastating it would take all of humanity''s strength and ingenuity just to survive.

This omnibus edition contains the trilogy of science fiction books that introduced the world to Mike Callahan and all of the regulars at Callahan’s Place.

Callahan’s Crosstime Saloonis the neighborhood tavern to all of time and space, where the regulars are anything but. These time travelers, talking dogs, alcoholic vampires, and cybernetic aliens really, truly care about each other. It’s the rare kind of place where bad puns are as appreciated as good conversation.

Time Travelers Strictly Cash is their policy, but then again everybody pays cash at Callahan’s. Lay your money on the bar, name your poison, step up to the line drawn on the barroom floor, and after drinking make a toast and throw the glass into the fireplace. It’s an odd tradition but one that’s led to some interesting stories. And don’t worry about the cost—Callahan gets his glasses at bulk discount.

Callahan’s Secret may be one that nobody—not even the regulars—would guess, or it may be as simple as listening to all those post-toast stories. After all, shared pain is lessened and shared joy is increased—a simple concept that could, after a few drinks, lead to saving the world.

Nobody blends good science with bad puns as brilliantly as Spider Robinson, as his legion of devoted fans will attest. Now he''s back with the latest chapter of the Callahan saga—an improbable tale of impending doom, a road trip, space, drugs, and rock ''n'' roll.

The universe in is desperate peril. Due to a cluster of freakish phenomena, the United States'' own defense system has become a doomsday machine, threatening the entire universe. Only one man can save everything-as-we-know-it from annihilation. Unfortunately, he''s not available. So the job falls instead to bar owner Jake Stonebender, his wife Zoey, and their super-intelligent toddler, Erin, not to mention two dozen busloads of ex-hippies and freaks, Robert Heinlein''s wandering cat, a whorehouse parrot, and misunderstood genius-inventor, Nikola Tesla, who is in fact alive and well.