The Draco Tavern

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The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven is an anthology of fictional short stories concerning the activities of Rick Schumann, the bartender of the Draco Tavern. The Draco tavern is located in Siberia, near the Mt. Forrel spaceport.

The tavern was created after a race of sentient aliens called Chirpsithra landed on earth. They stand 11 feet tall with salmon pink exoskeletons. All of them appear to be female. Their equivalent of alcohol's effect on humans is a mild electrical current. They originated on tidally locked planets around red dwarf suns. Eventually, they had control over every single red dwarf sun in the galaxy, or so they claim. They enjoy the company of other sentient beings, and are extremely intelligent. Units of currency used for Chirp-Human commerce are the 'svith' and trade markers, mentioned in the story "Cruel and Unusual".

When they first put their mile-wide bubbleships into orbit around the Moon and landed in Siberia, they brought a host of aliens with a desire to eat, drink and socialize, thus the Draco Tavern was designed to cater to their individual, very diverse, and often conflicting interests. ^[1]

[edit] Short stories included

The Subject is Closed
Grammar Lesson
Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing
The Schumann Computer
The Green Marauder
The Real Thing
War Movie
Limits
Table Manners
One Night at the Draco Tavern
The Heights
The Wisdom of Dreams
Smut Talk
Ssoroghods People
The Missing Mass
The Convergence of the Old Mind
Chrysalis
The Death Addict
Storm Front
The Slow Ones
Cruel and Unusual
The Ones Who Stay Home
Breeding Maze
Playhouse
Lost
Losing Mars
Playground Earth