Callahan's Lady

Book Description

A HOUSE OF HEALTHY REPUTE...

Welcome to Lady Sally's, the House that is a home -- the internationally (hell, interplanetarily) notorious bordello. At Lady Sally's House, the customer doesn't necessarily come first: even the staff are genuinely enjoying themselves.

Wife of time traveling bartender Mike Callahan, and employer of some of the most unusual and talented performing artists ever to work in the field of hedonic interface, Her Ladyship has designed her House to be an "equal opportunity enjoyer," discreetly, tastefully and joyfully catering to all erotic tastes and fantasies, however unusual. Like her famous husband, Lady Sally doesn't even insist that her customers be human...as long as they have good manners.

Small wonder, then, that she and her staff encounter beings as unique and memorable as the superhuman Colt, whose banner never, ever flags...Diana, the deadly dominatrix who cannot be disobeyed...Tony Donuts, the moronic man-monster even the Mafia doesn't want to mess with...or Charles, the werewolf with a distinct difference...

Customer Reviews:

Without a doubt A MUST READ!!!.......2007-02-13

Ahem.

Whilst reading this book, on page two, the TOP of page two, I laughed outloud so hard I sprayed milk outa my left nostral...which was kinda bad as I was in a Library at the time, but...

No kidding, it is simply THAT good! More than that though... When I read this book I was going through a lot of hard times, in fact, I was considering suicide. After reading it...

No, my problems didn't all disappear and I still needed a lot of help, but I FELT much better from all the laughing I had done and I was pleased that thanks to this author I had managed to Forget about my problems for awhile.

All I can say is if you want to have a read where you feel better after you put the book down and your problems seem to be (a little, anyway) lighter - pick this one up, you can't go wrong.

(Oh, ONE cavete' - There are a few loose ends and you might wish - As I Do - that Spider would write a direct sequel. Other than that, cool!)

Beware of Puns and Lack of Structural Integrity.......2005-03-03

My wife is a huge fan of all of Spider Robinson's books, so I have been reading them to see what all the fuss is about. Robinson is a master of language and a lover of puns and word games. Many of the puns are excruciating, and some take forever to set up. In fact, the entire second half of the book is basically a setup for a Dan Rather pun near the end.

The book suffers structurally from two flaws: the exposition lasts much longer than needed, and the second half of the book bears no relation to the first half. There are essentially two entirely separate stories. Much of Robinson's work first appeared serialized in magazines, so it's possible that these two stories were cobbled together to make a book.

Robinson does have some wonderful insights on human nature, but it takes some effort to sift through everything else.

A Hard-Boiled World Saver.......2004-05-13

Spider has always been known as a writer with a strong taste for slumming (sorry, I meant punning), coupled with outlandish situations and strong, personable characters that are easy to empathize with. For this book, he decided to pay homage to some of the great mystery/detective writers of yesterday, deliberately trying to emulate their styles, mannerisms, and at least for his protagonist, their characters. In doing so, he seemed to lose sight of the idea of telling a cohesive integrated story, as this book very much separates itself in to two separate plot lines that are really only marginally related to each other.

His protagonist is, naturally, a private eye, one who tries hard to imitate the role models defined by Chandler, MacDonald, Spillaine, and others. He is called on to investigate some strange goings on in the most incredible bordello ever devised, Lady Sally's Place, located just across the bridge from the UN. It's a place where the `artists' have `clients', where talking dogs and telepathic twins are considered normal, a place where everyone can satisfy their desires without guilt or fears. Our P.I. quickly accepts the impossibilities of this place, and by making consistent intuitive leaps (which will sometimes leave you gaping at the holes he jumps over), fairly quickly solves the original mystery, falls in love, and is accepted as being good enough to join the crowd at Lady Sally's. Most of this section is quite good, with puns flying, clues properly presented, and the scene well painted, although it will definitely help if you have read several other books in the Callahan series, as many of the characters introduced here are very much cameos, with their background buried in the those other stories. The concept of Lady Sally's place is one that should make you think, and might help give you completely different viewpoint on the `world's oldest profession' - but this item was covered better, with more grittiness and real-world activity, in Callahan's Lady.

But after solving the one mystery, the story takes off in a totally different direction, where the crowd of Lady Sally's is now engaged in a strong bit of world saving. The premise is good - nuclear weapons smuggled into the US and other countries by pacifists as the ultimate hammer to convince the world to abrogate war. Unfortunately, the solutions to finding these weapons and the plotters behind them is very far-fetched, from having Nichola Tesla (one of the early pioneers of electricity) whip up a super-duper circuit to pinpoint the weapon's location to the immediate acceptance by all concerned that this was really happening without any objective basis in known fact. This section is also much more serious than the first half, and the hard-boiled P.I. character that Robinson has so carefully constructed in the first half seems to get lost.

This book should probably have been published as two separate novelettes, given the disparity of plot line between the two halves. As it is, it makes for an enjoyable read, but is certainly not Spider's best, and not even one of the better Callahan series tales.

Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Wow!.......2004-03-19

This added feature to Callahan's Chronicles is truly a memorable and enjoyable read. The entertwining of the characters is only a feat that Robinson can pull off. Once again, Robinson has written a book that ever so slightly hits the political nerve to lighten one's mood- and quickly.

An excellent book.......2003-12-16

I personally enjoyed Robinson's books, but then again, they appeal to my somewhat immature personality. This book seemed, granted, to have been Robinsons attempts to intergrate a more direct line of plot into his story. While odd, it was very entertaining, and shocking, for this was the first "Lady Sally" novel I had read, and I read it 3 years ago, in 7th grade. My dad bought the books because he is a monster book freak. Soon after reading the second Lady Sally book, he dropped his interest in Robinson's work, which is unfortunate for me because there are still easily $100 of books I have to buy, in addition to a replacement for this particular book.

Please buy this book. Robinson wrote a very funny piece of literature. I urge you to buy the other books as well. You won't be sorry.

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Callahan's Lady

Manufacturer: Ace Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HZ73M6

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Callahans Lady
Spider Robinson
Manufacturer: Ace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UIBSHG

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Ladies & escorts
Audrey Callahan Thomas
Manufacturer: Oberon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0887502199

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Mother Angelique Ayres, dreamer and builder of Our Lady of the Lake University
Mary Generosa Callahan
Manufacturer: Jenkins Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Specific Congregations & Orders | Congregations & Orders | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0836301641

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The tilma under infra-red radiation: An infrared and artistic analysis of the image of the Virgin Mary in the Basilica of Guadalupe (Guadalupan studies)
Philip S Callahan
Manufacturer: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006YKDQQ

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Callahan's Lady
Spider Robinson
Manufacturer: Ace Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000GRCNL6

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Callahans Lady

Manufacturer: Ace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H00PQM

Customer Reviews:

Searching for the stoic Indian.......2007-03-29

I compliment the author for the amount of work put into this book and the attempt to represent shamanism. However, it is rather patronizing in its presentation.

Native Americans Live in a Universe.......2003-02-04

Thourough account of shamanism in the Ojibwe society, but applicable to the phenomenon as a whole. A great researcher, Mr. Grim provides perspectives from other areas of the world such as Siberia to exhibit similarities of human experience both in the shamanic realm and in the human psyche.

Excellent synopsis of the shamanic practices of the Ojibwe........1999-04-26

The author wisely places the practices of shamanism within the cultural context. At no point does the author make the mistake of reducing the shamanic practices to deities and such but correctly emphasizes the "forces" and movements of nature of which the shaman is an "expression." Excellent read for anyone generally interested in shamanism or specifically in the Ojibwe practices of the Mide society.

Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality

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Comprehensive Overview
Every woman should read this :)
For all womyn, regardless of religion

Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality
Judith Plaskow
Manufacturer: HarperOne
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0060613831

Book Description

Key writings in feminist spirituality drawing on the great diversity of women's experience.

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive Overview.......2004-05-10

This book, edited by Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ, is an overview of current trends in Feminist Spirituality. This volume attempts to cover many different forms of feminist spirituality including Judaism, Christianity, Pagan, and Native American. It also examines various trends and special areas that are of a concern in feminist theology. Being as comprehensive as it is, I was disappointed that there was no mention of Islam within the book. For me, that was the difference between 4 stars and 5 stars.

Every woman should read this :).......2002-01-25

I read this for class. The professor was um, psycho, but I learned a LOT from this book. It opened my eyes to the Goddess in all of us. I learned much more about our heritages and highly recommend this read.

For all womyn, regardless of religion.......2000-08-22

The absolute best aspect of this book is the fact that it is so broad in its coverage of Feminist Spirituality. Not only does it contain contributions from some of the most widely known feminists of our age: Audre Lorde, Carol Christ, and so on, but Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Goddess Spirituality etc. are fully explored from the feminist perspective. I was raised Catholic and am now Pagan and this is the book that I gave to my mother (who considers herself a feminist) to help her understand where I am at spiritually and how we are not necessarily so far apart in our faiths. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Womyn's Spirituality.

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great book
Brilliant, if rather dated
Eliade's best book, and the best introduction to his work.
Dive In!
catalog of parallels in different mythologies and religions

Patterns in Comparative Religion
Mircea Eliade
Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Comparative Religion | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0803267339

Book Description

In this era of increased knowledge the essence of religious phenomena eludes the psychologists, sociologists, linguists, and other specialists because they do not study it as religious. According to Mircea Eliade, they miss the one irreducible element in religious phenomena—the element of the sacred. Eliade abundantly demonstrates universal religious experience and shows how humanity’s effort to live within a sacred sphere has manifested itself in myriad cultures from ancient to modern times; how certain beliefs, rituals, symbols, and myths have, with interesting variations, persisted.

Customer Reviews:

great book.......2005-09-02

God keeps directing me to powerful knowledge. Nothing is new under the sun and all of it is of worth and value. This author goes the length to be as inclusive as possible.

Brilliant, if rather dated.......2003-10-24

Mircea Eliade's contribution to the study of religion cannot be overestimated; his works quite simply revolutionized the discipline. Unfortunately, he had a tendency, especially in later life, to crank out volumes on every conceivable theme and concept, and many of these later works simply do not work. But he wrote a small number of great books, works without which you simply cannot claim to have read the "classics." Patterns is one of these great books.

The translation is dubious, to the say the least, but even so Eliade comes through. He always does. In Patterns, he walks through a kaleidoscope of images and concepts, demonstrating at once his brilliance and his disturbingly broad reading. He never uses one example where ten will serve, and this becomes part of the whole argumentative structure of the book.

The point, you see, is that these "patterns" he pulls out-out of history, out of context, whatever-appear again and again. The opening chapter, on "Sky Gods," for example, is a little manifesto, a demonstration of everything Eliade is all about. If you really master this chapter, come to understand every bit of how it works, you will truly understand Eliade.

For those who have been introduced to Eliade through The Sacred and the Profane, for example, and are looking for an accessible book, Patterns does have the difficulty of moving rather rapidly through its arguments. Some discussions simply move too fast for the general reader; Eliade is trying to talk primarily to scholars, and as such he assumes that his readers have some familiarity with his examples. But unless you plan to challenge his thought deeply, you simply do not need to read all of the background material.

One failing of Patterns is simply its publication date: this book is from the fifties. And a lot has changed since then, particularly our knowledge of lots of other religions. So sometimes his examples seem simplistic, or downright dubious-and they are! But you just can't begin to make sense of Eliade without Patterns.

If you liked Joseph Campbell, it's time to step up to the plate. Read Patterns, maybe reading Cosmos and History and The Sacred and the Profane first, and you'll see the real thing at work. It's true, he doesn't really address his audience magnetically as Campbell sometimes does, but then his project is primarily to suggest to that reading and studying other people's religions is the only way for moderns. You see, desacralization has made modern humanity incapable of seeing the truly powerful worldview of homo religiosus (religious humanity). But unlike Campbell, Eliade doesn't think that we can solve this by getting in touch with our bliss and our myths; he thinks that only reading books can approximate this world.

Admittedly, from a scholarly perspective Eliade is a crypto-theologian with a huge axe to grind. Sure, some of his examples are extremely problematic-a point that Jonathan Z. Smith has made on more than one occasion. But like Smith, I'd argue that we need to go through, not around: without Eliade, we can never really make sense of how we look at religion now, how everyone looks at it.

The point about Patterns is that it's really a great book. It's wrong-about just about everything, when you get down to it!-but it's one that needs to be read. These days, lots of folks in and out of the Ivory Tower seem to want to get in touch with spirituality. But Eliade was talking about this fifty years ago, and his points still have considerable weight. Why reinvent the wheel? Go to the source, read Eliade at his best, and feel a revolution overtaking you.

Eliade's best book, and the best introduction to his work........2001-08-02

Eliade's place among scholars of religion is unequaled; even his detractors admit this. "Comparative Religion" exists as a scholarly discipline because of Eliade.

Essentially, this is a book about religious symbolism, covering an incredibly wide range of religious traditions. I think if you read this, agree or disagree, you will never look at religions the same way again.

Further, this is Eliade's most accessible and complete book.

I graduated with a religious studies degree from Yale University, and read this book in the first year after I graduated. I learned nearly as much from this book alone as I did from my undergraduate education. That is a strong statement, but I mean it.

Dive In!.......2000-11-18

Amidst the chaotic profusion of symbols, myths, rituals and mystical perspectives of the world's religious traditions, Eliade weaves a mandela-like portrait of humankind's incredibly vital relationship with the divine, spanning several thousand years. Not for the faint of heart, this monumental work provides important insight into the often confusing psychology of the primitive religious experience; an experience characterized by perspectives charged with meaning across broad fields of associative and interdependent symbolic realms.

Eliade bases his discoveries of common patterns in the global-religious-traditions upon a thematic theoretical framework. In this manner, he avoids the pitfalls latent in more common conceptions of religious experience that are defined by psychologically artificial categories created within perspectives that tend to be too narrow. Such commonly expressed and narrowly defined perspectives often stop short of understanding the limits of psychologically artificial, chronological, geographic and even ethnic categories; categories which humanity's important religious archetypes of divine experience have traditionally and absolutely transcended.

In this vein, Eliade's "Patterns in Comparative Religion" also provides important material for the interpretation of dreams. I think it is no mere coincidence that both primitive religious experience and the native realm of the unconscious both display a disturbing and important tendency to buck the rules of normality that our modern conscious minds so often wish to impose upon experience. It is from the creative associative milieu of dream symbolism that humanity's religious traditions have incessantly sprung and to which one must arguably return for the most fertile understanding of the 'primitive' divine experience.

Mircea Eliade's "Patterns in Comparative Religion" surely presented me with a formidable challenge, however, as with any important challenge to understanding that I have experienced, the rewards have far outweighed the difficulties encountered along the way.

catalog of parallels in different mythologies and religions.......1997-10-02

Eliade presents an impressive collection of data from the religions and mythologies of an incredible number of different cultures, organized according to recurring themes: sky gods, agricultural goddesses, cycles of death and rebirth, and so on. It is an interesting resource for the student of comparative religion, but seems to lack a coherent interpretive framework. I'm left with unsatisfied curiosity to know what Eliade believed is to be learned from this collection of parallels. Perhaps his other writings provide more interpretation, but this book (although it contains many interesting "gems") seems incomplete as a stand-alone volume.

Sufism: The Mystical Doctrines and Methods of Islam (Patterns of World Spirituality Series)

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The Best Introduction

Sufism: The Mystical Doctrines and Methods of Islam (Patterns of World Spirituality Series)
William Stoddart
Manufacturer: Paragon House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0913757470

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The Best Introduction.......2004-07-02

When I first encountered this little book I thought that it was some sort of book for children - it was so short, I reasoned, that it couldn't be anything else.

Book Description

Using one item to represent the faith of each religious system, acclaimed theologian William Cantwell Smith explores the nature of religious experience across the world.

$Patterns in comparative religion \ (Meridian books)$
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Patterns in comparative religion \ (Meridian books)
Mircea Eliade
Manufacturer: World
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0007HBAW8

The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns

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The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns
John B. Henderson
Manufacturer: State University of New York Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0791437590

Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions

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Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions
Alan Race
Manufacturer: Orbis Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comparative Religion | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0883441012

The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns (Global Diasporas (London, England).)

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The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns (Global Diasporas (London, England).)
Steven Vertovec
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0415238927

Book Description

In this theoretically innovative analysis Steven Vertovec looks at why Hindu identities have developed in such different ways in different contexts and in so doing questions the assumption that subcontinent Hinduism represents the authentic articulation of Hindu identity.

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