Tales from Gavagan's Bar

Rating:
Summary: Tales From Gavagan's Bar
Review: After about four of these stories I had had about enough. Because this book contains nothing but the same basic short-story premise done over twenty times, and who needs that?

This is what goes on in every short story involving Gavagan's Bar:

A few regulars sit at the bar (these regulars are ciphers, completely interchangeable, a few with cutesy names like Professor Thott), and discuss some topic that leads to a couple...jokes, and another round of drinks. Then, some stranger, usually a young fellow looking worried or haggard, pipes up in agreement with whatever the barhounds have been discussing, and then launches into a strange little story that relates to the theme of the evening. The stories always involve some supernatural element--often a mythical beast has put a cryptic curse on the storyteller, or some magical object has been found by a friend of the storyteller, and has turned the victim's life upside-down. The stories endlessly put forward the idea of "be careful what you wish for...", and also repeatedly hammer home the idea that, even if a supernatural being grants a gift, not a curse, the wording of the fine print should be checked thoroughly, or suffer supernatural humiliation.

There are dryads, dragons, leprechauns, lycanthropes, magic glasses, and even a few madcap mechanical contrivances; but the sheer repetitiveness of the stories just obliterates all humour right out of them. This is, essentially, the same story told almost thirty times--with only a few blessed exceptions. I mean, the best story is probably the first one, Elephas Frumenti, if only because it doesn't feature the exhausting story-within-a-story pattern, but simply features somnething that actually happens right in the bar. But even then, said story is just a needless expansion of an old joke that starts with "How do you know when an elephant has been in your refrigerator...?". And who needs an old, two-line joke stretched out to eight or ten pages? No one. Just like no one needs one story retold as close to thirty stories.

Sorry, can't recommend this collection.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the later imitators and no KEYS needed!
Review: Far superior to that one trick pony "Spider" Robinson.. no rabbits out of hats, no SUPER group unable to deal with one little old lady next door, no whining, for gohds sake!,... NO WHINING!

Get it, love it, it's a bit dated but at least THIS book is SUPPOSED to be.. [and probably knows it unlike the losers at Callahans who long ago lost their cachet...].

Rating:
Summary: Mmmm....ham
Review: Ham tastes wonderful.
This book is wonderful.
Mmmm....Gavagan's Bar

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic short stories in a strange time, the 50's.
Review: Incredible collection of short stories that bend our ear as it bends reality. The perfect combination of "Cheers" and "Twighlight Zone". Light enough reading to be taken anywhere.