"Spider Robinson - C2 - Timetravellers Strictly Cash" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

God Is An Iron 72
Rah Rah R.A.H. 95
Have You Heard The One 121
Local Champ 146
The Web of Sanity 155
Mirror/rorriM Off The Wall 161
Serpents' Teeth 184


FORE WORDS


TO NEW READERS:
If you have never heard of Callahan's Place before, a brief word of itroduction should be
read-since four stories in this book take place there.


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Don't worry! You're not late, nothing has started without you, there is no lengthy What-
Has~Gone-Before to digest before you can begin. The Callahan stories have appeared in several
different magaznes, and so I've done my best to make each individual story self-contained. All you
need to know going in is that Callahan's bar has a fireplace, and a chalk line on the floor about
ten meters away, and that patrons who are willing to give up the change from their drink are
welcome to toe that line, propose a toast, and eighty-six their empty glass in that fireplace.
(Callahan gets a bulk discount on glasses.) As a result of this custom, a great many strange
stories end up getting told in Callahan's Place, and you may, (f you wish, skip now directly to
the first one, "Fivesight."

TO FR1ENDS OF CALLAHAN'S PLACE:
All right, I give up.
I tried; God knows I tried: you'd think a professional liar could have pulled it off. But
you people are just too clever for me. My cover is blown; time to face the music and confess.
In the first collection of Callahan's bar stories, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (Ace
paperback), I maintained flatly that there is no such tavern. 'Callahan's Place," l said as that
time, "exists only between (a) my ears. (b) assorted Analog and Vertex covers, and of course (c)
the covers of this book. Lf there is in fact a Callahan's Place out there in the so-called real
world, and you know where it is, I sincerely hope you'll tell me."
In a fit of craftiness, I even went solar as to insert a few subtle contradictions in the
stories themselves. For example, on page 1O I stated that the Place is always crowded on holidays;
on page 162 I said it is usually empty on holidays. By this brilliant ploy I hoped I could
discredit myself, and appear to be an absent~minded fictioneer. Such details get noticed! I have a
hundred letters from readers who spotted that discrepancy, each convinced that they are smarter
than me.
Since it seemed to work so well, I continued the custom. To each of the Callahan yarns
Jake has told me since that first book was closed up I have added a tiny inconsistency with the
rest of the series (and an autographed cigar butt to the first reader who correctly names them
all). By this means I believed I could maintain the hoax forever.
But there are five letters on my desk that say that the jig is up.