The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven
Tor, 2006, $24.95

The Draco Tavern is a hangout for interplanetary travelers – a sort of Mos Eisley Cantina but without all the droids and blasters. Which is not to say it doesn’t have it’s fair share of drama—It’s got just as much as Mos Eisley, but it’s of a much more intellectual variety. Rick Schumann established the Tavern near the Mount Forel in Siberia, after the Chirpsithtra—humanity’s first alien visitors—set up a spaceport there.

Schumann is the first-person narrator of these tales, which all take place in or around the Tavern, and whose topics run the gamut from religion to interspecies commerce, from the nature of predators and prey to the possibilities of immortality.

Each of the stories is very short—most would be considered vignettes—and as such there is not much room for character development that goes much beyond the surface. Despite that, however, there is much to like about these tales; they are thought-provoking and mostly do exactly what speculative fiction sets out to do—evoke a sense of wonder while making the reader think. The stories are uniformly well-crafted, and though none stands out they work together taken as a whole; the only questionable inclusion is "One Night at the Draco Tavern," which is not a story, but is instead a transcribed skit that was put on an SF convention.

That one minor flaw aside, the book is full of strong, idea-driven SF that’s sure to satisfy Niven’s fans and readers who like their SF hard.

Originally appeared in Shimmer Magazine