| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The first Black Widowers collection,
By Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tales of the Black Widowers (Mass Market Paperback)
The Black Widowers meet once a month at the Milano Restaurant, taking the task of host in rotation. Each month the host brings a guest for grilling, traditionally beginning with 'How do you justify your existence?' and ending with ferreting out some mystery. After the six regular members have cleared the ground, the seventh - Henry, the waiter - always solves the problem.Most of Asimov's Black Widowers stories first saw the light of day in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM), except those written to round out collections. EQMM retitled half of them; Asimov has reverted all but one title change. The club is based on the real-life Trap Door Spiders, a stag club created so that the members could meet without involving one friend's disagreeable wife. Asimov, as a member, has based some of the Widowers on fellow club-members. I find the by-play between the Black Widowers entertaining in itself. Drake is the original reason for the no-women rule. Halstead, high school mathematics teacher, has an ongoing hobby of writing limericks for each chapter of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Trumbull works for an unspecified agency as a code-breaker; when he's not host, he's usually chief griller, and is the most apt to shout down the other members when they stray off-topic. Avalon is dignified, pedantic - good for the odd spot of in-character exposition. At the other extreme, Gonzalo, the youngest, is usually eager for each puzzle to appear. As a professional artist, he caricatures each guest, and enjoys trading insults with Rubin (mystery writer and deputy chief griller). Rubin also finds reason, at least once per book, to libel another writer of his acquaintance: one Isaac Asimov. :) "The Acquisitive Chuckle" - Host: Avalon. Hanley Bartram believes that, as a private investigator, his clients find his existence justified - when he's successful. He asked Avalon for an invitation because he thought the Widowers might help him settle an old case. Anderson, a grasping character, was sure that his fanatically honest ex-business partner had scored off him by taking *something* from his house - but he couldn't figure out *what*. "Ph As in Phony" - (EQMM = 'The Phony Ph.D.' to avoid confusion with the Graftonesque titles of another author.) Host: Trumbull, whose guest is a Ph.D. in chemistry at Berry, where Drake did his graduate work. Drake is reminded of a fellow student - mediocre in every way - who somehow scored a 96% from the fire-breathing Professor St. George. How did he manage to cheat? "Truth to Tell" - (EQMM = 'The Man Who Never Told a Lie') Host: Gonzalo, whose guest (the title character) is chief suspect in a theft from his uncle's firm. His uncle knows he wouldn't lie, but without a plausible scenario of what *did* happen, Sands' career is at a dead end. "Go, Little Book!" - (EQMM = 'The Matchbook Collector') Host: Rubin, whose guest had lunch with the title character the previous day - someone Trumbull's been after for months, who has an unbroken system of passing coded messages. (Obviously predates ultra-strong encryption.) "Early Sunday Morning" - (EQMM = 'The Biological Clock') Host: Halstead, who complains that the mysteries of the last 4 sessions have been penny-ante, and tries to drum a murder story out of the other Widowers (he hasn't invited a guest). Gonzalo, as it turns out, blames himself for his twin sister's murder - because his biological clock wakes him at eight every morning. "The Obvious Factor" - Host: Trumbull. Eldridge, a parapsychological investigator, takes on the Widowers' challenge that *nothing* could convince them of parapsychological phenomena. "The Pointing Finger" - Host: Avalon. Caroline Levy's grandpa kept his savings in negotiable bonds for safety; living with her and her husband Simon, he hid them in the house (insurance that he'd be looked after). But his fatal stroke deprived him of speech to indicate where he'd left them last... "Miss What?" - (EQMM = 'A Warning to Miss Earth') Host: Gonzalo, whose guest is a plainclothes detective (it's implied that they met during the murder investigation of 'Early Sunday Morning'). A death threat couched in Biblical phrasing was delivered to the Miss Earth contest - but which girl is the target? "The Lullaby of Broadway" - Host: Rubin, who as absolute monarch has decreed that this month's meeting will be held in his apartment - including Henry, in his role as club member rather than waiter. Rubin throughout his rather harried serving of the meal dribbles out bits and pieces of a story of being disturbed by random hammering at odd hours - until Henry finally calls him on it and asks to grill *him*. :) "Yankee Doodle Went to Town" - Host: Avalon, bringing an old army buddy as a guest. Davenheim is trying to crack a ring of 'soldiers' who're stealing - he'd have more respect for outright traitors. But it galls him that one of the suspects keeps humming the same tune during interrogation, and it means *something*, but what? "The Curious Omission" - Host: Halstead. Jeremy Atwood's late friend Lyon was a board game fiend who wanted to play one last time. Lyon left him $10000 in a safety deposit box - if Jeremy can decipher the accompanying clue to the bank's whereabouts within one year: 'The curious omission in Alice.' (I congratulate Asimov on a believable dying clue/missing legacy scenario). "Out of Sight" - Host: Trumbull. At the last moment, Waldemar Long had to cancel his lecture during a scientific conference/cruise, since the material was still classified. Somebody, however, got at his lecture notes between his notification at the dinner table and his return to his cabin - and Long's career is over unless he can show how anyone could have had opportunity.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Puzzling trivia,
By Archibald Stephen Ignatius Nicholson (Københavns Universitet er Copenhagen) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tales of the Black Widowers (Mass Market Paperback)
Isaac Asimov's novels and short stories are among my favourite. The first three FOUNDATION books are better than most contemporary works of science fiction, and I, ROBOT is, in my opinion, the best collection of robot stories ever. Even his stories in THE EARLY ASIMOV are a lot of fun.It is because Asimov has been so good that this collection of puzzle stories was surprising. Asimov clearly has a passion for puzzles but his ability to incorporate that element into a good story is not demonstrated by this book. As one reviewer mentioned, you'll find out all sorts of interesting trivia by reading these stories but you shouldn't expect to arrive at the solutions to the puzzles through deduction. Simply put, if you want to play along (and who doesn't when reading a mystery?), you'll need to know a lot of throw-away information. Another quibble I had with the Black Widower stories was that the cast consists of Mastermind champions. No piece of information is too obscure or esoteric for the regulars. The alleged 'dumb one' in the group (Mario Gonzalo) is surely one of the brightest dimwits ever to appear in print. In today's world of dumbed-down entertainment, this is refreshing but it also puts the characters on a different playing field than many of the readers. I, for one, can only dream of knowing as much as Gonzalo does. I can only recommend the Black Widower stories to die-hard Asimov fans. If you're just a casual fan looking for good Asimov mysteries, try the first three robot novels: THE CAVES OF STEEL, THE NAKED SUN, and ROBOTS OF DAWN. Happy reading!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
For trivia buffs only,
By Anthony Sin (Toronto, ON) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tales of the Black Widowers (Mass Market Paperback)
Isaac Asimov is unquestionably one of the greatest science fiction writers of the 20th century. Unfortunately, his attempts at writing mysteries did not produce the same quality of work as his efforts in SF. TALES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS demonstrates this with puzzle after puzzle that requires knowledge of trivia (the references are sometimes painfully obscure) rather than logical deduction to solve. Trivial Pursuit players might enjoy these stories but fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie should pass on them.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
|
