The Return of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers #6) 3Stars

 

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Title: The Return of the Black Widowers
Series: The Black Widowers #6
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 270
Words: 108K
Publish: 2003

This is the final, posthumous volume of the Black Widowers stories. When I started, I was under the impression it was all reprints with a new intro and some blathering by other authors. I was quite glad to find several new stories AND a new Black Widower inspired story by another author.

The intro by Harlan Ellison was a complete failure in my opinion. I’ve never read Ellison and after this intro, I never plan to. I don’t like the man’s humor, his writing style nor how he manages his words. He was supposed to be praising Asimov and maybe in his own way, he was. But I disliked it from the start. The afterwards, from Asimov’s autobiography was a bit better, but that might just be because of my aversion to the Introduction.

What really surprised me, in a good way, was the two guest stories that were excellently done. I was expecting some hackneyed writing that was riding on the coat tails. Instead, I got two stories that I thought were worthy of inclusion with the rest of the Black Widower tales. That’s a good way to end.

It has also inspired me to go read Asimov’s memoirs. I hope I have better luck with that than some of the memoirs I’ve read in the past ;-)

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

• "Introduction" (Harlan Ellison)

• "The Acquisitive Chuckle" (from Tales of the Black Widowers)

• "Ph As in Phony" (from Tales of the Black Widowers)

• "Early Sunday Morning" (from Tales of the Black Widowers)

• "The Obvious Factor" (from Tales of the Black Widowers)

• "The Iron Gem" (from More Tales of the Black Widowers)

• "To the Barest" (from Casebook of the Black Widowers)

• "Sixty Million Trillion Combinations" (from Banquets of the Black Widowers)

• "The Wrong House" (from Banquets of the Black Widowers)

• "The Redhead" (from Banquets of the Black Widowers)

• "Triple Devil" (from Puzzles of the Black Widowers)

• "The Men Who Read Isaac Asimov" (William Brittain)

• "Northwestward" (from Magic)

• "Yes, but Why?"

• "Lost in a Space Warp"

• "Police at the Door"

• "The Haunted Cabin"

• "The Guest's Guest"

• "The Woman in the Bar" (from Banquets of the Black Widowers)

• "The Last Story" (Charles Ardai)

• "Afterword" (from I. Asimov)

• All of My Asimov Reviews