Banquets of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers #4) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Banquets of the Black Widowers
Series: The Black Widowers #4
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 153
Words: 72K
Publish: 1984

Asimov shakes things up, just a little, by having the club members either break rules or do something completely out of the ordinary here. Not for every story, but enough. It would be like if Rex Stout had his character Nero Wolfe actually leave his house (which while Wolfe states that he won’t leave his house, his actions give the lie to that more often than not, sigh). It shook things up as the routine was broken and that was a good thing. The bickering and outright fighting amongst the members is really getting on my nerves. I’ve got one more book of these to read and then I’ll have finished the series.

I think my favorite story this time around was “The Driver” about a bunch of egghead scientists and a SETI convention and some low IQ driver getting killed. Turns out the driver was pretending and he was a Soviet spy and he let slip one bit of info that would have given him away, so his Soviet Masters had him done away with. It might have been a Cold War, but nobody was phutzing around, that was for sure.

Several of the other stories all revolve around human nature, as Asimov perceived it. I don’t see eye to eye with him on that issue all the time so those stories fell really flat for me. They also irritated me because they involved people being really stupid and even when I think that people ARE stupid, doesn’t mean I want to read about it. I mean, you like being healthy right? So do you want to read stories about weeping, suppurating boils and sores, oozing pus? Yeah, me neither.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

"Introduction"

• "Sixty Million Trillion Combinations" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 5 May 1980) – A paranoid mathematician who suspects that his work on Goldbach's conjecture has been stolen. When the authorities demand his cooperation, he sulkily gives a clue to the code which protects his work on a shared computer, suspecting that no one could possibly guess or deduce the code. Fortunately for the agencies who need this information, the Black Widowers are able to come up with the code, purely because one member shares a trait with the mathematician.

• "The Woman in the Bar" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 30 June 1980) – the Black Widowers have as their dinner guest Darius Just, the main character from Asimov's mystery novel Murder at the ABA. Darius finds himself in danger of violent reprisals when he tries to help a frightened woman (he knows she is frightened, but he can have no idea by whom or why). She has given him crucial nonverbal communication clues which the Black Widowers solve. Asimov states that he "thought up" this Black Widowers story just for this character.[4]

• "The Driver" – the Black Widowers consider the mysterious death of a chauffeur at a SETI Institute conference.

• "The Good Samaritan" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 10 September 1980) – in a controversial break with tradition, a woman is invited to attend the men-only club.

• "The Year of the Action" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 1 January 1981) – a historical clue is solved about a comic opera, "The Pirates of Penzance," by Gilbert and Sullivan.

• "Can You Prove It?" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 17 June 1981) – the guest describes his arrest and interrogation behind the Iron Curtain and is unable to explain why he was released.

• "The Phoenician Bauble" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May 1982) – a valuable archaeological artefact has been lost.

• "A Monday in April" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May 1983) – concerns a matter of trivia about ancient Rome. The evenings guest feels that his girlfriend cheated in a competition, but Henry's solution casts doubt on that presumption.

• "Neither Brute Nor Human" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, April 1984) – the story requires solving a riddle about a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.

• "The Redhead" (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, October 1984) – a woman disappears into thin air.

• "The Wrong House" – the guest is unable to determine which of his neighbours has been counterfeiting money after witnessing their operation while drunk.

• "The Intrusion" – an uninvited guest crashes the party and asks the Black Widowers for help in finding the man who took advantage of his developmentally challenged sister.

• All of My Asimov Reviews

Casebook of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers #3) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Casebook of the Black Widowers
Series: The Black Widowers #3
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 161
Words: 75K
Publish: 1980

Another enjoyable set of short stories. The secrets and mysteries involved here were much less “intense” than in previous books, just a step up from cozy in my opinion and I enjoyed the more laid back feeling.

Onward!

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Every month, the Black Widowers convene for sumptuous food, fine wine, and a cosmically baffling mystery. Attended by Henry, the all-knowing waiter, these gentle rogues ponder such imponderables as: * the one-syllable middle name that represents what every schoolboy knows, yet doesn't... * a murder by solar eclipse very far out in space... * a Soviet spy's dying message utilizing a Scrabble set and a newspaper sports page... * a satanic cult leader's Martian connection... * a computer criminal's strange equation of Christmas and Halloween... * an ancient symbol that provides the key to a woman's mysterious disappearance...

Contents:

* The Cross of Lorraine
* The Family Man
* The Sports Page
* Second Best
* The Missing Item
* The Next Day
* Irrelevance!
* None So Blind
* The Backward Look
* What Time Is It?
* Middle Name
* To the Barest

• All of My Asimov Reviews

More Tales of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers #2) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: More Tales of the Black Widowers
Series: The Black Widowers #2
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 197
Words: 77K
Publish: 1976

This was exactly more of the same from Tales of the Black Widowers. I am ok with that. I love short story collections and Asimov was master of that craft. Having him switch from Science Fiction to Mystery hasn’t changed anything in his story telling ability. Thankfully.

I probably would have bumped this up half a star since I enjoyed the stories just as much as before, but once again, the interpersonal interactions between the members of the Black Widowers Club just grated on my nerves. They are jerks to each other, they are jerks to the invited guest and I can only imagine what they must be like out in the world at large. I find it very unpleasant. Reading these Tales is like having some of that sweet and sour sauce and I’m not a fan of the sour.

This cover is very well done, in that it contrasts with the first cover (which was solid white, with one black widow spider). I like little flourishes like that. It doesn’t actually make the stories themselves any better or worse, but it adds to the overall “insert pretentious french phrase about making things better in small ways”. There, now that you haven’t learned anything at Bookstoogiversity, class is dismissed!

ps,
Thanks to Scuffed Granny, I am experimenting with the "Excerpt" part of blogging. You shouldn't notice anything different unless you read my posts in the WP Reader OR get the email for each post. To you email people, let me know what you think. 

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

This book is the second of six that describe mysteries solved by the Black Widowers, based on a literary dining club Asimov belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders. It collects twelve stories by Asimov, nine reprinted from mystery or science fiction magazines and three previously unpublished, together with a general introduction, and an afterword following each story by the author. Each story involves the club members' knowledge of trivia.

Contents

• "Introduction"

• "When No Man Pursueth"

• "Quicker Than the Eye"

• "The Iron Gem"

• "The Three Numbers"

• "Nothing Like Murder"

• "No Smoking"

• "Season's Greetings!"

• "The One and Only East"

• "Earthset and Evening Star"

• "Friday the Thirteenth"

• "The Unabridged"

• "The Ultimate Crime"

• All of My Asimov Review

Tales of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers #1) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Tales of the Black Widowers
Series: The Black Widowers #1
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 179
Words: 69K

This was a collection of short stories (as are all the books in this series) and so I knew that I would enjoy them. Asimov was an absolute master of the short story, and whether it was in SF or Mystery (as in here), he knew how to convey the most info in the shortest amount of words and STILL knock your lights out with a hidden right hook to the jaw.

So you would think this would have had a higher rating. I did too. And it would have, except for one thing, that was consistent across all the stories. The members of the club are petty and argue about the stupidest little thing, and generally made me wonder WHY they were all in the same club. They did not seem to hate each other, but they also didn’t seem to click with each other like friends do. If this was my introduction to friendship, I would want no part of it.

Without that aspect, the stories and mini-mysteries would have gotten an easy 4stars from me. Quick and punchy and never overstaying it’s welcome. Asimov also talks about each story, where it was published and something interesting about it. But! And this is most important, he does it AFTER the story is done. I get to read the story, make up my own mind about it and then he throws his own light on it. I’ve read too many anthologies where the editor thought their words and ideas were the most important and put them before the story, thus ruining the whole thing for me. Asimov was smart enough to know that The Stories the Thing. Because of that, I was able to enjoy what he wrote about them. Most of the stuff he talked about was title changes. The mystery magazine would change the title and he’d talk about why he agreed or didn’t with that decision. It also led to talking about whether he kept the title change for the story in his own book or used the original. It was all done with a very light hand and there wasn’t a note of bitterness or acrimony in it all.

I am looking forward to the rest of the series but am hoping the members become less pigheaded to each other.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

This book is the first of six that describe mysteries solved by the Black Widowers, based on a literary dining club Asimov belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders. It collects twelve stories by Asimov, nine reprinted from mystery magazines and three previously unpublished, together with a general introduction, and an afterword following each story by the author. Each story involves the club members' knowledge of trivia.

• "The Acquisitive Chuckle"

• "Ph as in Phony"

• "Truth to Tell"

• "Go, Little Book!"

• "Early Sunday Morning"

• "The Obvious Factor"

• "The Pointing Finger"

• "Miss What?"

• "The Lullaby of Broadway"

• "Yankee Doodle Went to Town"

• "The Curious Omission"

• "Out of Sight"

• All of My Asimov Reviews