About this item
Highlights
- When a tremendous spacecraft took orbit around the Earth's moon and began sending smaller landers down toward the North Pole, the newly arrived visitors quickly set up a permanent spaceport in Siberia.
- About the Author: Larry Niven is the award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces, and fantasy novels including the Magic Goes Away series.
- 384 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Science Fiction
Description
About the Book
"New York Times" bestselling author Niven presents 26 tales and vignettes from this interplanetary gathering place called Draco Tavern, collected for the first time in one volume.Book Synopsis
When a tremendous spacecraft took orbit around the Earth's moon and began sending smaller landers down toward the North Pole, the newly arrived visitors quickly set up a permanent spaceport in Siberia. Their presence attracted many, and a few people grew conspicuously rich from secrets they learned from talking to the aliens. One of these men, Rick Schumann, established a tavern catering to all of the various species of visiting aliens, a place he named the Draco Tavern.
From the mind of #1 "New York Times" bestselling author Larry Niven come twenty-six tales and vignettes from this interplanetary gathering place, collected for the first time in one volume, including:
"The Subject Is Closed": A priest visits the tavern and goes one-on-one with a chirpsithra alien on the subject of God and life after death.
"Table Mannners: A Folk Tale": Rick Schumann is invited to hunt with five folk aliens, but he's not quite sure what their hunt entails, or if he will be the hunted.
"Losing Mars": In this previously unpublished tale, a group of aliens who call Mars and its moon home arrive at the tavern only to find that humans have mostly forgotten about their neighboring planet.
Review Quotes
A must for Nivenites and just plain good reading for everyone else. "Booklist on The Draco Tavern"
There are wise elder races and there are scamsters and folks who raise interesting questions. In some ways, the object-lesson stories remind one of pundits' political columns . Thought provoking. "San Diego Union-Tribune on The Draco Tavern"
Brilliant . . . These stories are best taken a few at a time to savor their inventiveness. "Publishers Weekly on The Draco Tavern"
Reads more like an episodic novel . There's joy and sadness and everything in between in these stories--which seem to have devised as vehicles for Niven to explore a wide variety of ideas and also happen to be about what it means to be human. One of the ways in which we learn about who we are is to see what we are not, and in this book there are many examples of what humans are not. "Romantic Times Bookclub on The Draco Tavern""
"A must for Nivenites and just plain good reading for everyone else."--"Booklist "on "The Draco Tavern" "There are wise elder races and there are scamsters and folks who raise interesting questions. In some ways, the object-lesson stories remind one of pundits' political columns . Thought provoking.--"San Diego Union-Tribune" on "The Draco Tavern"
"Brilliant . . . These stories are best taken a few at a time to savor their inventiveness."--"Publishers Weekly" on "The Draco Tavern"
"Reads more like an episodic novel . There's joy and sadness and everything in between in these stories--which seem to have devised as vehicles for Niven to explore a wide variety of ideas and also happen to be about what it means to be human. One of the ways in which we learn about who we are is to see what we are not, and in this book there are many examples of what humans are not."--"Romantic Times Bookclub" on "The Draco Tavern"
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" A must for Nivenites and just plain good reading for everyone else." -- "Booklist "on "The Draco Tavern" " There are wise elder races and there are scamsters and folks who raise interesting questions. In some ways, the object-lesson stories remind one of pundits' political columns... . Thought provoking.-- "San Diego Union-Tribune" on "The Draco Tavern"
" Brilliant . . . These stories are best taken a few at a time to savor their inventiveness." -- "Publishers Weekly" on "The Draco Tavern"
" Reads more like an episodic novel... . There's joy and sadness and everything in between in these stories-- which seem to have devised as vehicles for Niven to explore a wide variety of ideas and also happen to be about what it means to be human. One of the ways in which we learn about who we are is to see what we are not, and in this book there are many examples of what humans are not." -- "Romantic Times Bookclub" on "The Draco Tavern"
"[A] solid SF collection.... These stories are best taken a few at a time, to savor their inventiveness."
"Poignant.... There's joy and sadness and everything in between in these stories."
"Radiate[s] Niven's wit and technological inventiveness. A must for Nivenites and just plain good reading for everyone else."
About the Author
Larry Niven is the award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces, and fantasy novels including the Magic Goes Away series. His "Beowulf's Children," co-authored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a "New York Times" bestseller. He has received the Nebula Award, five Hugos, four Locus Awards, two Ditmars, the Prometheus, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award, among other honors. He lives in Chatsworth, California.