Rating: 
Summary: An unexpectedly sweet and moving story.
Review: An unexpectedly sweet and moving examination of folk-music, young love, life on the road, and the Meaning of Life inside a standard, rather pro-forma sci-fi time-travel adventure. I liked it quite a bit. FENG is a pleasant and entertaining way to pass a few hours. "B+"Note that the very cool cover (by James Gurney) is a bit misleading as to the actual *contents* (revealing why would be a spoiler), but it did induce me to pick up the book, and it's really neat art, so Gurney (& Tor) get points for doing their jobs right. Whoever is the art director there gets a vote of thanks from me, as even minor Tor authors usually get tasteful, attractive, relevant covers. Not to mention clean and attractive interior layouts. Bravo! Brust's comment on FENG: "Not one of my better efforts, I think, but there are bits of it I like. It started out to be funny, developed a serious side, and I was never able to get the elements to blend the way I wanted them to. Grumble grumble. It's always pleasent to run into someone who liked this book; it means that I can still do all right when I'm not on my game." --from dreamcafe.com Happy reading!
Pete Tillman
Rating: 
Summary: wild satirical futuristic space adventure
Review: Billy and the rest of the band were within a mile of Jerrysport, Mars when someone turned the town into ashes with a nuclear strike. Billy was knocked unconscious, but besides a headache was fortunate to be alive as he was just beyond the ground zero meltdown range. Galaxy society is in trouble as nuclear strikes like that which recently shook Mars is becoming the norm even with the Trekkies a thing of the past and the Enterprise a thing of the future. Perhaps the last bastion of sanctuary (not the butt of all those Venus to Jupiter jokes) remains Cowboy Feng's establishment where someone can get a gourmet meal consisting of matzoth ball soup and tamales and hear Irish musicians play mostly not so Irish music. Can the galaxy survive if Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille is destroyed? Probably not, but in the time-space continuum, Feng's place seems to be one large step for mankind ahead of those nuking this sector, but can the regulars take the small steps to keep man safe? COWBOY FENG'S SPACE BAR AND GRILLE is a wild satirical futuristic space adventure that is for readers who appreciate the zany wrapped inside a witty tale or perhaps a witty tale wrapped outside the zany. Billy and the band and the mysterious Cowboy Feng seem like the last choices for the magnificent heroes trying to stop a murderous conspiracy. This amusing story contains enough action to keep the Trekkies contended, but mostly rips the skin off those who use weapons of mass destruction to cleanse those who possess weapons of mass destruction. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: wild satirical futuristic space adventure
Review: Billy and the rest of the band were within a mile of Jerrysport, Mars when someone turned the town into ashes with a nuclear strike. Billy was knocked unconscious, but besides a headache was fortunate to be alive as he was just beyond the ground zero meltdown range. Galaxy society is in trouble as nuclear strikes like that which recently shook Mars is becoming the norm even with the Trekkies a thing of the past and the Enterprise a thing of the future. Perhaps the last bastion of sanctuary (not the butt of all those Venus to Jupiter jokes) remains Cowboy Feng's establishment where someone can get a gourmet meal consisting of matzoth ball soup and tamales and hear Irish musicians play mostly not so Irish music. Can the galaxy survive if Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille is destroyed? Probably not, but in the time-space continuum, Feng's place seems to be one large step for mankind ahead of those nuking this sector, but can the regulars take the small steps to keep man safe? COWBOY FENG'S SPACE BAR AND GRILLE is a wild satirical futuristic space adventure that is for readers who appreciate the zany wrapped inside a witty tale or perhaps a witty tale wrapped outside the zany. Billy and the band and the mysterious Cowboy Feng seem like the last choices for the magnificent heroes trying to stop a murderous conspiracy. This amusing story contains enough action to keep the Trekkies contended, but mostly rips the skin off those who use weapons of mass destruction to cleanse those who possess weapons of mass destruction. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Not so hot.
Review: Brust is a master fantasist. In that realm, he is without compare. His work often evokes the sense of awe and whimsy that the best of Zelazny's work does without any overlap in style. Brust is truly a great author. But it doesn't seem that his talents extend to science fiction. I'm really not sure why, but it's true. Every SF short story of his that I've read has fallen on its face and this novel... oh my, this novel... is simply not very good. I wanted to like it, and I tried to like it, but to no avail. Whatever it is within Brust's talents that allow him to give so much life to his fantasies seems to be completely lacking from this work. The only reason I can think of for wanting this book would be if you simply *had* to have a complete collection of Brust's works. Otherwise, I'd recommend passing on it. It's Brust, but it ain't that great.
Rating: 
Summary: Jammin' Down the Space-Time Continuum
Review: Brust is justly known for his Vlad Taltos fantasy series, and he has written several other books outside of that series that are well worth reading. This book is somewhat of a departure for him, being more science fiction oriented than fantasy. The main building block of this book is a rather unique restaurant that moves itself through space and time whenever a nuclear weapon is exploded in its near vicinity. Inside the restaurant is an Irish folk-song band that accidentally was caught up during the restaurant's first move. As the plot develops and the restaurant makes several moves through time and to other planets, the band begins to realize that they are part of an attempt to change future history by opposing a group that keeps going around starting nuclear wars. Not a bad concept, but it does lead to somewhat episodic patches, rather than being a linear whole. Much of the characterization comes through as individual flash-backs to defining events in their lives; present time dialogue and interaction with others is somewhat flimsy, but overall there is certainly enough 'reality' to these characters to carry the story. Of course, as a band, their music intrudes in several places, which certainly provides some atmosphere, but I found Brust's description of some of this quite a bit over my head, not being a musician myself. I've run into this same problem with Emma Bull (who was a member of the same band as Brust) and Spider Robinson - it is simply very difficult to describe in written language what is almost totally an aural experience, but I'll give him good marks for a decent stab at trying. While the final resolution of the story made sense and was satisfying, I found that the basic motivation/rationale behind the war starting group just did not seem adequate justification for their actions. As this is central to the basic story, this is a fairly major flaw. Still, it's an enjoyable read, though not up to the standards he set in the Taltos set. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Rating:
Summary: A planet-hopping pleasure
Review: Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill is the place to be. It's not just the food and the music (two things Brust is very much into), it's the fact that the place jumps through space and time just moments ahead of whatever it is that destroys the world where it last rested. It's up to the denizens of Cowboy Feng's -- the staff and the house band -- to find out who's behind the planetary annihilation and put an end to it. In other hands, this would be a suspenseful thriller aboud a deadly plague and a vast conspiracy, but this book enjoys the same cocky tone as Brust's Vlad Taltos series, only in a very different setting, so it's exciting *and* fun.
Rating:
Summary: Clever, but Hollow
Review: Five-hundred odd years from now, SOMEONE has succeeded in wiping out most of the human race and has turned its attention to the inhabitants of the inoffensive Cicero cluster. In order to identify and (ideally) stop the someone from succeeding, the Ciceronians build a time travel unit in the shape of a bar and grille. Its mission: to hop between certain nexus points in time in the hopes of finding the relevant information. Armed with a staff of four and a four-piece Irish band that it happened to pick up along the way, can Cowboy Feng's save humanity? I've read and enjoyed nearly everything else Steven Brust has written and I'd heard a lot of good things about this book from other musicians on the Irish circuit (all of whom, strangely enough, seem to be fantasy enthusiasts). So when I saw that _Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille_ had been reprinted, I bought it immediately. AS I read, however, I had the increasingly uncomfortable sensation that I was missing something. I kept paging back and re-reading previous bits, thinking that I had somehow missed a bit of the plot, but I never found it. Finally, a day after finishing the book, I realised what it was that was missing. This book has no characters. It has a bunch of mannerisms with names. Rose drinks whiskey. Jaime sleeps around. Tom makes puns. You get the idea. Even the between-chapter vignettes, each of which details an incident in a character's life, don't do a to make them real; all they do is show you that each and every one of these people has had a screwed up experience somewhere along the line. So as the book progresses and things happen, you don't really care. Some of the plotting is clever, but it's hardly original; I had the big surprise ending pegged from about page ten. And I have to say that the endless detailed descriptions of how the band played their arrangements of trad music really lost me. As a musician myself, I found one or two of these mildly entertaining, but after a while I thought Brust would have done better to include a CD of suggested material and inserted the play instructions wherever he felt inclined to put a description. I can't imagine how boring this might be to anyone not in the scene. Lots of Brust's other work is both original and chock full of varied and engaging characters. Read those instead.
Rating:
Summary: Clever, but Hollow
Review: Five-hundred odd years from now, SOMEONE has succeeded in wiping out most of the human race and has turned its attention to the inhabitants of the inoffensive Cicero cluster. In order to identify and (ideally) stop the someone from succeeding, the Ciceronians build a time travel unit in the shape of a bar and grille. Its mission: to hop between certain nexus points in time in the hopes of finding the relevant information. Armed with a staff of four and a four-piece Irish band that it happened to pick up along the way, can Cowboy Feng's save humanity? I've read and enjoyed nearly everything else Steven Brust has written and I'd heard a lot of good things about this book from other musicians on the Irish circuit (all of whom, strangely enough, seem to be fantasy enthusiasts). So when I saw that _Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille_ had been reprinted, I bought it immediately. AS I read, however, I had the increasingly uncomfortable sensation that I was missing something. I kept paging back and re-reading previous bits, thinking that I had somehow missed a bit of the plot, but I never found it. Finally, a day after finishing the book, I realised what it was that was missing. This book has no characters. It has a bunch of mannerisms with names. Rose drinks whiskey. Jaime sleeps around. Tom makes puns. You get the idea. Even the between-chapter vignettes, each of which details an incident in a character's life, don't do a to make them real; all they do is show you that each and every one of these people has had a screwed up experience somewhere along the line. So as the book progresses and things happen, you don't really care. Some of the plotting is clever, but it's hardly original; I had the big surprise ending pegged from about page ten. And I have to say that the endless detailed descriptions of how the band played their arrangements of trad music really lost me. As a musician myself, I found one or two of these mildly entertaining, but after a while I thought Brust would have done better to include a CD of suggested material and inserted the play instructions wherever he felt inclined to put a description. I can't imagine how boring this might be to anyone not in the scene. Lots of Brust's other work is both original and chock full of varied and engaging characters. Read those instead.
Rating:
Summary: Not to miss for fans of Brust's works
Review: I can't say enough about this cleverly written story. As a musician, traveller, and occasional cook myself I found the author's depiction of the main character to be as Big As Life Itself, with all the joys, hardships, love/hate, failures, emotions thrown in... no punches held back! This is one of the few books I re-read often.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I don't read much science fiction, anymore, but this is one of the best of that genre that I've read in a long while. It's completely original, unlike so much sci-fi these days that seems copied from everything else. This is one book that doesn't go to the used-book sellers!
| 
