The Return of the Black Widowers
Table of Contents- Front Cover
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- FOREWORD by HARLAN ELLISON
- The Best of the Black Widowers
- THE ACQUISITIVE CHUCKLE
- PH AS IN PHONY
- EARLY SUNDAY MORNING
- THE OBVIOUS FACTOR
- THE IRON GEM
- TO THE BAREST
- SIXTY MILLION TRILLION COMBINATIONS
- THE REDHEAD
- THE WRONG HOUSE
- TRIPLE DEVIL
- Homage
- THE MEN WHO READ ISAAC ASIMOV by WILLIAM BRITTAIN
- The Uncollected Black Widowers
- NORTHWESTWARD
- YES, BUT WHY?
- LOST IN A SPACE WARP
- POLICE AT THE DOOR
- THE HAUNTED CABIN
- THE GUEST’S GUEST
- One More Just for Harlan
- THE WOMAN IN THE BAR
- Commemoration
- THE LAST STORY by CHARLES ARDAI
- Afterword: Birth of the Black Widowers
- Back Cover
The Return of the
Black Widowers
Isaac Asimov
An Otto Penzler Book
Carroll
&
Graf Publishers New York
The Return of the Black Widowers
Carroll & Graf Publishers
An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group Inc.
245 West 17th Street
11th Floor New York, NY 10011
AVALON
Copyright © 2003 by Winterfall, LLC
First Carroll & Graf edition 2003 First Carroll & Graf trade paperback edition 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN-1 3: 978-0-78671-651 -7 ISBN-10: 0-7867-1651-7
9876543
Interior design by Simon Sullivan Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
Scanned and proofed by eBookMan version 1.0.
For Isaac, with love;
for Janet, Janet, and Otto, with thanks;
and for Michael, because I promised.
"Foreword" by Harlan Ellison®, copyright
©
2003 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation, published by permission of the author. All rights reserved,
"The Acquisitive Chuckle, "copyright
©
1972 by Isaac Asimov, "Ph As In Phony" copyright
©
1972 by Isaac Asimov, "Early Sunday Morning," copyright
© 1
973 by Isaac Asimov, "The Obvious Factor," copyright
©
1973 by Isaac Asimov from TALES OF THE BLACKWIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov.
Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
"The Iron Gem," copyright
©
1974 by Isaac Asimov, from MORE TALES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov.
Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
"To the Barest," copyright
©
1979 by Isaac Asimov. from CASEBOOK OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
"Sixty Million Trillion Combinations," copyright
©
1980 by Isaac Asimov,
"The Woman In the Bar" copyright
© 1
980 by Isaac Asimov, "The Redhead," copyright
© 1
984 by Isaac Asimov, "The Wrong House," copyright
©
1984 by Nightfall, lnc. from BANQUETS OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov.
Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
"Triple Devil" copyright
©
1985 by Isaac Asimov. from PUZZLES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
"The Alien Who Read Isaac Asimov" copyright
©
1978 by William Brittain, reprinted by permission of the author. Originally appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
"Northwestward" by Isaac Asimov is excerpted from THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BATMAN. Published by Bantam Books. Copyright
©
1989 by DC Comics. All rights reserved.
Used with permission.
"Yes, But Why?", copyright
©
1990 by Isaac Asimov, reprinted by permission of the Estate of Isaac Asimov, c/o Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd.
Originally appeared in
The Armchair Detective
.
"Lost In a Space Warp" and "Police At the Door," copyright
©
1990 by Isaac Asimov, “The Haunted Cabin" by Isaac Asimov, copyright
©
1990 by Nightfall, lnc.;"The Guest's Guest" by Isaac Asimov, copyright
©
1991 by Nightfall, Inc.; all reprinted by permission of the Estate of Isaac Asimov, c/o Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd. All originally appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
"The Last Story," copyright
©
2002 by Charles Ardai, reprinted by permission of the author. Originally appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
"Afterword: Birth of the Black Widowers," from I. ASIMOV: A MEMOIR by Isaac Asimov, copyright
© 1
994 by The Estate of Isaac Asimov. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
The Best of the Black Widowers
SIXTY MILLION TRILLION COMBINATIONS
THE MEN WHO READ ISAAC ASIMOV by WILLIAM BRITTAIN
The Uncollected Black Widowers
THE LAST STORY by CHARLES ARDAI
Afterword:
Birth of the Black Widowers
I |
saac died (Janet abominates "passed away") at 2:30
am
on an otherwise undistinguished Monday in April of 1992. It is close on eleven years, as I sit typing this, since my dear old pal went out through that final door.
Isaac died in '92. I called Isaac today.
I'd dialed the 1 and the New York city-code and the first two numerals of his phone number—still imbedded with the unforgettables—my social security number, my Army dogtag code, the date of my wedding anniversary—before I caught myself and hung up. I call Isaac at least a couple of times a month. And I guarantee you, I probably won't get through this Foreword to the last book of Black Widowers stories without crying.
Now let me clarify something. Do not for an instant think that I manifest the hubris, the nerve, the chutzpah to submit myself as one who misses Isaac more than Robyn or Janet or even Jennifer Brehl, who was his editor at Doubleday for years. Nor even more entitled to mourn than was Isaac's brother, Stan, now himself gone. But I knew him for more than forty years, since I was eighteen, and we were thick as thieves; and at least twice a week for many of those years, when I was mired somewhere in the middle of writing a story, and was stuck for a missing piece of information, rather than do the onerous research to find what I needed, I would punk out and call that number I knew as well as my own.