You walk into a spaceport bar, a thousand light years from home, and meet four friends. The lights are low. Cutthroats and bounty hunters lurk in the shadows. The bar serves drinks from a hundred different worlds. You can buy almost anything here. You order a round of beers and look around the table at your friends. You’re glad they’re here with you.

But who are they?

Here’s the game: select four science fictional characters that you’d like to have a drink with, and place them around the same table. It’s a variation of the old “fantasy dinner party” game, only set in a tavern at Mos Eisley.

Here’s my answers:

1. Halo Jones – Alan Moore’s reluctant interstellar heroine paced the galaxy for two decades, looking for a way out. In her time, she was a stewardess, a soldier, a renegade, and a drunk – so I figure she’ll have some pretty good stories to tell, as long as we keep the catsblood flowing.

2. John Truck – The amoral loser and archetypal spacer from M. John Harrison’s Centauri Device is a man born to frequent such establishments. He’s been all over the sky. He’s a spaceship captain because he hasn’t got the energy to be anything else. He’s too lazy to avoid getting himself into trouble, and too stubborn to back out once he’s in it.

3. Slippery Jim Di Griz – Interstellar criminal mastermind, card sharp, con man, gourmet, and connoisseur of fine wines and spirits. Life would never be dull with the Stainless Steel Rat at your table. Listen to his stories and get involved in his schemes. Just don’t play cards with him.

4. Louis Wu – The protagonist of Larry Niven’s Ringworld novels is a two hundred year old man from Earth. Every couple of decades, he tires of company and launches himself into the unknown on a “sabbatical”, all alone in a one-man starship. He’s a man of culture and sophistication, yet he’s also been a wirehead, an explorer, a hyper-intelligent “protector”, ambassador to a savage alien race, and a god. Wu would be the voice of reason at the table. He’d be able to think his way out of any situation we found ourselves in, and having explored the Ringworld, he’d also have some pretty entertaining stories to tell.

That’s my selection. Who would you choose, and why?

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