Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: It's better than a stick in the eye.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: It's better than a stick in the eye.

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

I�m so here for this; Callahan�s is one of my all-time favorite book series, and I have fond memories of playing this game way back in the day.

berryjon posted:

Spider Robinson had an interesting career, and the first book of his I read was Telempath. Heck, he was even tapped to adapt one of Robert Heinlein's story treatments into a full story - Variable Star (published 2006). Sadly, due to deaths in the family and his own health issues, his career as a writer has come to a halt, and his last work was in 2008.

I'm here for this.

He�s still plugging away at another book, as well as his autobiography, and does irregular blog posts on his website.

Crazy Achmed posted:

This has started out nice and weird, makes me wish I had a local bar like that. It's giving me some Hitchhikers' Guide vibes, and the voice acting is very nice so far.

Yea, there�s something quite Douglas Adamsesque over this game, especially when compared to Starship Titanic.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2023 15:32

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:32

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Rocket Baby Dolls posted:

Starship Titanic is on my list at some point. But that's only when I'm good and ready for it. I'm trying to space out the more unforgiving adventure games and I've gone through a few of them these past couple of years.

Spider Robinson recorded music for the game and they can be heard when you ask Fast Eddie to play one of his "specialities". I might try to find a way to record and upload these at some point. I'll see if I can find the music files on the disc, if they aren't then I'll have to record the songs in game.

Starship Titanic is absolutely wonderful and absolutely bonkers in how much it expects you to just figure out by trial and error.

Drunkards Song, which the game opens with, wasn't written for the game - rather, it's featured in The Law Of Conservation Of Pain, which is one of the short-stories in the first book in the series. The guitar solo is by none other than Amos Garrett, who's got a long and illustrious career.
EDIT: You'll be able to find it on Spiders website, I'm pretty sure that's where I got my copy from.

Spider has made music for several of his books, and there's quite a bit of the author in the books'/games protagonist.

BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Nov 15, 2023

# ¿ Nov 15, 2023 13:52

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Rocket Baby Dolls posted:

Thank you for the link, these are the same songs that Fast Eddie plays when you ask for one of his specialties.

Item Getter posted:

Though I played it myself back in the day, I've always felt it is one of those games that would be best experienced through watching an LP, so the audience can enjoy all the great humor and cool sci-fi art deco atmosphere without having to personally deal with some of the more dubious puzzle design. Though it's telling that they felt the game needed to be shipped with a strategy guide and we still had trouble with the precise wording on a certain "ask a robot to do something for you" puzzle.

Yeah, that says quite a lot.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2023 21:38

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Dave Syndrome posted:

Just discovered this thread thanks to Pragmatica's announcement post. Yay!

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is a game I replay every few years or so, and it was through it that I discovered Spider Robinson's books. Hope discussion of the stories isn't considered derailing the thread.

I had The Callahan Chronicals (the collection of the first three books) forever, and just a few months ago I completed my collection up to Callahan's Con and the two Lady Sally books and went on a complete rereading binge.
And boy howdy, as a non-native speaker with a reasonable understanding of English, deciphering some of the puns can be hard work. Especially when they're references to cultural phenomena of the 1960s that 1970s American readers of the books would of course know - but when you've been born in Germany in the mid-1970s, even cultural osmosis has its limits. The "yule gibbons" joke in one of the stories nearly broke my brain until I googled it. Also, we don't have the "traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter" as joke tropes, so I didn't get the punchline of the Al Phee story until this year's reread.

Still, the books are an utter joy to read, and I'd heartily recommend them to anyone who even mildly enjoys the game. The overarching theme of making the world a better place through empathy is something the world desperately needs more of. Not since Terry Pratchett have I read an author whose worldview is so... well, human at its core.

That's not to say some of the material isn't a bit dated. The writer is/was of his time, and some of the views expressed (especially with regards to sexual topics, and especially where the topic overlaps into the area of minors) made me cringe and probably wouldn't fly today. Especially the way rape is sometimes talked about as almost a casual thing really stuck out.

It's also obvious that Robinson has his favorite topics / obsessions, and sometimes when the characters talk at length about their love of certain musicians or science fiction authors, you feel like you're reading Ready Player One, just for a different subsection of geekdom. (Even so, I'm now convinced that I need to start reading at least some Asimov and some Heinlein, if only to get more of the references.)

And some of the writing, especially in the later books, is frankly getting absurd. The way the heroes deduce the impending space catastrophe in Callahan's Key is nothing short of ridiculous. The mood also gets a bit mean-spirited around the time of Key, with an unexpected amount of body-shaming for a certain antagonist, but luckily that's addressed, admitted to and resolved in Callahan's Con.
One could also accuse Robinson of lazyness: What's an author to do if he created a memorable villain and effectively killed him off (well, shipped him of to prison, presumably to be raped and killed there) in one of the books? Just invent a son of the villain, who is almost identical to his father. And then of course there's the fact that all the later books from Callahan's Secret onwards hinge on nearly the same method of resolution (telepathic mind meld).

In case it sounds like I'm putting down the material, here's the thing: I love those books. Even with all the criticism, the good in them so far outweighs the bad that they're still a hugely enjoyable read and give me the warm fuzzies like almost nothing else. I just mention these points for newcomers: Be aware that you may find some material objectionable, and once you've made your peace with that, you're in for a rare treat.

Anyway, apologies for the ramble. It's just that I'm so happy to finally find a place where I can talk about this.

On with the game, and thank you, Rocket Baby Dolls, for creating this thread!

I basically agree with everything in this post, and only want to add that Spider Robinson is, as I see it, the epitome of humanist science fiction.
His stories are science fiction of the best kind, but through and through they've got this deep core of empathy to them that's been hard to find (though thankfully, not impossible - that's reserved for finding another author who's as much of a paronomasiac as Spider and I are).

As for reading Heinlein, I think you can do much worse than reading his juveniles - but he had his Old Perverted Man phase as an author towards the end of his active writing career, so reader discression is advised.
I'm not sure I can recommend Asimov - as much as he's had an effect on society with his writing, the things that've come to light about him and which were apparently open secrets at various conventions make it hard to swallow a genre as forward-looking as science fiction, from someone so regressive.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 10:00

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Dave Syndrome posted:

Do you have any specific book or story recommendations (from any of the two) for someone who enjoyed the Callahan books?

Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series is the one series I remember reading recently, which gave me the same kind of humanist science fiction vibes.

Although since both involve aliens in some capacity, I guess calling it humanist is pretty close-minded? :v:

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 10:38

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Dave Syndrome posted:

Thanks for the tip. My wife was given two Becky Chambers books for her birthday earlier this year, but she hasn't read them yet. Guess I'll give them a go.

I meant Asimov and Heinlein specifically though - their output is somewhat massive.

Heinlein didn't really do humanist science fiction - but like I mentioned, his juveniles are a good read.
They're also kids books, but I read them when I was a kid, so perhaps that's why I have a soft spot for them.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 11:50

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Here's a mildly interesting fact: At least a few of the audiobooks of the Callahan series are narrated by Spider Robinson himself.

He's got a very good voice for audiobooks, and if you're into him doing stuff he enjoys, there's also an archive of his old podcast.
I'd recommend using something like DownThemAll to grab all of the files, as various podcast feeds around the web are missing the first 16 episodes.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 15:42

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Coco13 posted:

I think a ton of Spider Robinson's humanism is influenced by Theodore Sturgeon, who is one of those "your favorite band's favorite band" types that never reached the popularity of Heinlein or Asimov. Almost everything he wrote had some inspired level of compassion or togetherness - The World Well Lost being an amazing example of dealing with gay rights in the 1950s. He wrote a massive amount of short stories, and some like "Bianca's Hands", "And Now The News", and "Yesterday was Monday" will stick with you for one reason or another.

Yeah, Sturgeon was pretty fantastic too - and he's got a law named for him, so he's at least a little bit famous?

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 16:40

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

I think it's more important that you focus on getting well, instead of feeling like you need to get it out the door - though it's a credit to you that you do.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2023 23:20

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Rocket Baby Dolls posted:

Apologies for the lack of an update lately. I'm currently fighting off tonsilitis and not really feeling up to the task. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon.

No worries!

Get better first, then do more episodes once you're ready for it.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2024 16:56

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

A good Irish coffee is definitely a real treat.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 09:54

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

I think part of the reason why puns are often made synonymous with dad jokes is that there does tend to be a component of requisite knowledge required to understand them.

I don't recall the exact phrases demonstrated in the books, but I'm pretty sure I didn't get most of them when I first read Callahans stories as a kid - whereas a few decades of cultural osmosis make most of them land.

Having said that, I think it's also Spider Robinson who spends some time in one of his other books extemporizing in the best Heinlein-style about how puns should be in-the-moment and off-the-cuff in theme with the on-going conversation, rather than something you've memorized and just pull up randomly as a non-sequitor?
I wish I could remember where, though.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 00:02

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Rocket Baby Dolls posted:

It looks like we're only 2 or 3 videos away from the end of the LP. This is definitely been one of the longer adventure games that I've done and I'm almost sad that we're nearing the end of it.

I have no idea what I'm going to LP after this. I have some more 90s adventures in mind, as well as a few from the early 00s. This has been a very chill LP so far, maybe it's time to dive blind into some insanity.

I do want to read the books but it seems like they're now out of print. I may have to scour soke charity shops where I live but I'm not holding out much hope.

Spider narrates at least some of the audiobooks, if that�s a way you like reading.

Definitely been enjoying the LP so far, keep up the good work!

# ¿ Mar 12, 2024 21:33

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:32

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Thank you for doing this LP.

The game is an underappreciated gem, and I hope it has/will turn someone onto the Callahan novels.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 08:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: It's better than a stick in the eye.