Hello, I don't think this is a review so much as me venting, so consider yourselves warned. I read the first half of the book in a single sitting, saying, ah, a good book, at last... attractive plot, charming characters, wit, passages that make you go, now why didn't I think of that before?... Then I hit the four-way love scene and waded through it for a while. No, it really doesn't have all that much to do with the story line. And it's boring. And it's long. Maybe later it will turn out to be terribly relevant, but I haven't got the patience tonight. Maybe I'll come back to it when I'm in the mood for erotica. Maybe the actual book will pull me back later and I'll skip forward and read on. With thousands of books to choose from, right here in this room, maybe not. This is the first book of its quality that I've stopped reading in the middle, and it's such a shame. Live long and prosper.

The best thing about this book for me is how it twists around. For the first half you see everything strictly from the narrator's point of view, and everything he says seems rational and correct. Then you start to have a few doubts, and just as it occurs to you that in fact he's sort of a jerk, the plot twists, you (both) find out that some things weren't at all what they seemed (and others were exactly), and when the dust settles both you and the narrator are seeing things very differently.

As SF, this is good and solid (if slightly oldfashioned, being from the 80s), with nice treatments of telepathy, time travel, and the future of humanity. In general setting, I liked the whole Canadian Hippie Commune treatment; it's done convincingly, not as the easy stereotype it could have been.

I've seen a couple of people complain about the erotic parts of the book, and I have to admit I don't really understand it; the love scenes aren't particularly pornographic, and they *are* important to the plot. And why would anyone dislike love scenes anyway? But maybe that's just me. *8)

I was extremely disappointed with this book. I have been a Spider Robinson and Callahan fan since the first book. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations. If you have read the "Callahan's" books, you have seen the good parts of the book (if you haven't, you need to get them right away! They are wonderful!). Most of the book is made up of sayings that are supposed to have been written on the wall of Callahan's Place. If this is all that was written, the wall should have been painted over a long time ago. Save your money, and buy the next Spider Robinson book that should be coming out soon.

Off the wall at Callahan's is a collection of all the best sayings that Mike Callahan collected over the years, some of the worst puns, and the nicest songs. There is also a short foreword by Spider explaining how this book came to be, and an section at the end listing the person who appeared over the various books in the Callahan's Saloon series. The book also features several cute interior illustrations by Phil Foglio, and is printed on acid-free paper (according to the jacket). While this book is NOT a collection of stories as are all the other books in this series, it DOES give valuable background and interesting tidbits. It's probably not a good book to get if you've not read any of the rest of the series, but if you have and liked them, it'll probably appeal to your taste. I liked this book very much myself, but could see where it might not appeal to non Robinson fans