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The Draco Tavern
by Larry Niven

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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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 at Mount Forel 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 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.

“Wisdom of Demons”: The age-old question of wisdom vs. knowledge is asked when Rick is confronted by a human who has been granted the wisdom of an individual gligstith(click)optok alien.

“Losing Mars” in this unpublished tale, a group of aliens who call Mars and its moon home, arrive at the Tavern only to find that humans have mostly forgotten about their neighboring planet.

Join Rick Schummann and his staff as they explore the alien passersby and attempt to chronicle the seemingly infinite alien species that spend a few moments pondering life and all its questions within the Draco Tavern.

Review:

"The cantina scene in Star Wars, as Niven (Ringworld) points out in his introduction, partakes of 'a hoary old tradition,' as do the 27 Draco Tavern stories in this solid SF collection. Most of the tales, set in the 2030s, are short-shorts, often reading like brilliant, half-whimsical notebook jottings. The inverted city carved out of the ice by ocean-dwelling creatures on Europa in 'Playground Earth' could be the basis for a novel. Niven tosses it off in a sentence. Many of the best moments are similar hints: an overheard conversation about how an alien species casually denied humans immortality because the perception of death flavors human poetry ('Limits'). The most startling perspective of all comes from 'The Green Marauder,' in which a two-billion-year-old creature explains how the Earth was 'ruined' by 'pollution' long ago. These stories are best taken a few at a time, to savor their inventiveness without noticing the undeveloped characters or that, even for bar stories, there's sometimes too much chatter and not enough action." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:

From the mind of "New York Times" bestselling author Niven, come 26 tales and vignettes from this interplanetary gathering place called Draco Tavern, collected for the first time in one volume.
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About the Author

Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf's Children, co-authored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
ericgant, June 26, 2007 (view all comments by ericgant)
The Draco Tavern is Larry Nivens exploration of aliens outside of his known space series. A multiracial alien culture has set up a base for contact with earth. Rick Schumann owns a multispecies tavern serving this facility.
Set within this venue Niven spins twenty six stories involving contact with some truly alien cultures. Niven uses this vehicle to explore his ideas on everything from the search for immortality to the existence of dangerous questions.
This is a truly delightful mental playground done by one of our best science fiction writers. I would recommend it without hesitation.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780765308634
Author:
Niven, Larry
Publisher:
Tor Books
Subject:
Science fiction, american
Subject:
Human-alien encounters
Subject:
Science Fiction - Short Stories
Subject:
Science / General
Copyright:
2006
Publication Date:
20060110
Binding:
HC
Language:
English
Pages:
304
Dimensions:
9.52x6.40x1.03 in. 1.21 lbs.
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