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.

Coco13: Jun 6, 2004; My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

Another big fan of the Callahan series that found this thread through the announcement. I got insanely lucky that my mom checked out two books for me to read while at a weekend at my grandparents. The one with a big space battle on front sucked, but the one with a bunch of drunks at the bar was necessary and entirely inappropriate for someone in middle school.

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

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.

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.

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Coco13: Jun 6, 2004; My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

anilEhilated posted:

Most people who are aware of the law would be hard-pressed to name a single story of his, though.

Probably 90% of people if the law holds true.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2023 01:25

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