Title: I have NO idea what Niven is trying to accomplish here . . .
Product review: Niven has been a major sf author for decades and his work is usually of high quality. Unfortunately, very little of that quality appears in this collection of twenty-seven very short stories, all set in a bar on the edge of a Siberian spaceport that hosts a wide array of alien visitors. These aren't shaggy dog stories, though, or whimsical character portraits. In fact, it's hard to tell just what they're supposed to be. Each story introduces one or more aliens in conversation with (usually) the bartender/owner, Rick Schumann. So they schmooze, and the alien tells a story, and that's it. I kept wondering whether the end of each story had been omitted, and that was why they were all so short. Sorry, I don't see the point.
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