Wally and Moira, major science fiction fans, find themselves in a dream situation - helping a traveler from the future avoid creating a paradox. Unfortunately for them, they discover that he is not a time traveler at all - after they have given them most of their money and money from the funds of the sci-fi convention they run.

Of course, just because Paul (their con-man) isn't a time traveler doesn't mean that there aren't any time travelers among them...

First Published: Apr 1997

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The first story in this omnibus, "The Guy With The Eyes," was Spider's very first professional sale, to Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction magazine in 1972.

First Published: Apr 1997

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The first involves wireheading - ecstasy as a means of mind control - and its effects on an amnesiac burglar and a suicidal hooker.

The second book, distantly but distinctly related to its predecessor, features two hippie science fiction readers who encounter a genuine time traveler in the woods of Nova Scotia in the early 1970s, and give her shelter. But has she really come in peace?

(A third novel in the series, Lifehouse (1997), is also available separately in Baen paperback.)

First Published: May 1996

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The original bar is gone. Mike Callahan is gone, too, but his spirit lives on in the new bar, named Mary's Place for his daughter.

On this particular day, nothing seems to be going right for Jake Stonebender, proprietor of Mary's Place. First a huge storm rips the roof off the barand moments later, drops another, better roof on it.

Then, Mary Callahan and her husband show up, unconscious, literally out of nowhere, and they bring bad news to the barfolk: a nasty three-eyed, three-toed, three-everythinged purple monster is going to descend upon them within mere hours.

Through laughter and tears, with puns powerful enough to melt Formica, the most famous bar in all spacetime is going to rock this night. But will the Earth survive?

First Published: Apr 1996

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In 2064 Rand Porter has been offered the job of a lifetime: Shaper of visual effects for the world's best zero gee dance troupe, in High Orbit. But those who go to space for long must remain forever, as their bodies adapt irrevocably to the absence of gravity... and Rand's beloved wife Rhea Paixao has her roots sunk deep into Cape Cod.

Meanwhile, bizarre things, small miracles, are beginning to occur everywhere throughout the Solar System. All too soon the human race, and its evolutionary successors the Stardancers, find themselves approaching the terrifying cusp of their shared destiny: an appointment made for them a million years ago.

Mankind has met its greatest challenge: a make or break point beyond which nothing anywhere can every be the same again.

Robinson says "After 30 books this one is my own personal favorite. Jeanne's too. We're terribly proud of it, and very glad Jim Baen is finally restoring it to print."

First Published: Jun 1995

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After the original Callahan's Place was destroyed, all of these gems were painstakingly deciphered from blown-up old photos of the wall behind the bar, where Callahan let his customers scrawl graffiti in place of the usual mirror.

So technically, every word is "off the wall."

Further ennobled by numerous interior B&W illustrations by Phil Foglio, there are even capsule bios at the end for every person (real or imaginary) quoted in the graffiti section.

First Published: Feb 1994

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Like Robinson's other Callahan stories, this tale unfolds at a leisurely pace that contrasts delightfully with the strangeness of the events chronicled. A good choice for sf collections and for series fans.

First Published: Oct 1993

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Fortunately the unflappable Lady Sally and her jinxed-genius champion, private dick Joe Quigley, have the assistance of Mike Callahan, Nikola Tesla, Ralph von Wau Wau the sentient German shepherd, and the mysterious and lovely Arethusah, who's twice the woman she appears to be.

First Published: Nov 1992

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If she joined with a symbiotic lifeform that would let her live without artificial protection in the vacuum of space, she would take a quantum leap in human evolution.

First Published: Oct 1991

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