Isaac Asimov, einer , hat auch Acht

Die „Schwarzen Witwer" sind keine Bösewichte, sondern ehrbare Herren, die sich einmal im Monat zu einem gemütlichen Beisammensein zusammenfinden. Dieses Treffen zeichnet sich durch zwei Besonderheiten aus. Erstens darf - und das ist eigentlich der Sinn dieser Veranstaltung - keine Frau an diesem Essen teilnehmen. Zweitens wird bei dieser Zusammenkunft jedesmal eine geheimnisvolle Angelegenheit aufgeklärt, beispielsweise die Geschichfe des Mannes, der immer die Wahrheit sagte, oder warum ein Faulpelz seine Frau ermordete. Obwohl die Schwarzen Witwer mit der größten Begeisterung versuchen, jeden Fall zu losen, sind sie jedoch immer wieder auf die Hilfe ihres Kellners Henry angewiesen, der wie ein zweiter Sherfock Holmes oder Hercule Poirot jedes noch so tiefsinnige Geheimnis entschleiert.

Titel der amerikanischen Originalausgabe TALES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS

Deutsche Übersetzung von Willi Thaler

"Sleep. And when you awake everything you know about the 20th-century will be gone from your mind. Tonight is January 21, 1882. There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television. 'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary. You have never heard the name Richard Nixon."

Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his 20th-century apartment one night — right into the winter of 1882? The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed — or did it?

Jack Finney is the author of more than a dozen novels. He lives in Mill Valley, California.

MESS-MEND jeb jenkiji Petrogradā Marieta Šaginjana alias Džims Dolārs LATVIJAS VALSTS IZDEVNIECĪBA RĪGA 1958 Tulkojusi Skaidrīte Cielava Mākslinieks G. Ķirke

FEAR THE DAY In the near future, patches of the northern hemisphere have been shrouded in years of darkness from a nuclear winter, and the water level has risen in the North Atlantic. The island of Manhattan has lost its outer edges to flooding and is now ringed by a large seawall. The darkness and isolation have allowed crime and sin to thrive in the never-ending shadows of the once great city, and when the sun finally begins to reappear, everything gets worse. A serial killer cuts a bloody swath across the city during the initial periods of daylight, and a violent panic sweeps through crowds on the streets. The Manhattan police, riddled with corruption and apathy, are at a loss. That’s when the Mayor recruits Jon Phillips, a small-town Pennsylvania cop who had just single-handedly stopped a high-profile serial killer in his own area, and flies him into the insanity of this new New York City. The young detective is partnered with a shady older cop and begins to investigate the crimes amidst the vagaries of a twenty-four hour nightlife he has never experienced before. Soon realizing that he was chosen for reasons other than what he was told, Jon is left with no one to trust and forced to go on the run in the dark streets, and below them in the maze of the underground. Against all odds he still hopes that he can save his own life, the woman of his dreams, and maybe even the whole city before the arrival of the mysterious and dreaded event that has come to be known as…. DAYFALL. At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

At the dawn of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alfred Bester--who as a comic book writer created the original Green Lantern

Oath and such supervillains as Solomon Grundy--wrote two of the seminal works of the genre and then pretty much retired from

the scene.  His first, The Demolished Man, won the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953.

These classic overtones helped to give added intellectual heft to what might have been merely one more entry in an essentially

pulp fiction medium.  Some of it is a little clunky now--the Freudian motivations ring especially hollow--but it's easy to see

why it would have been so important to the field of Science Fiction when it was written.  Borrowing from the classics, Bester

himself created a Classic.

THEIR ORIGINS ARE A MYSTERY.

THEIR FUTURE IS AT HAND.

For thousands of years the Meq have existed side by side with humanity — appearing as twelve-year-old children, unsusceptible to wounds and disease, dying only by extraordinary means. They have survived through the rise and fall of empires and emperors, through explorations, expansions, and war. Five sacred stones give a few of them mystical powers, but not the power to understand a long-destined event called the Remembering.

In the aftermath of the nuclear bombing of Japan in 1945, Zianno Zezen finds himself alone, while the fate of the other Meq and his beloved Opari, carrier of the Stone of Blood, is unknown. But Z’s archenemy, the Fleur-du-Mal, survives. In the next half century Z will reunite with far-flung friends both Meq and human, as American and Soviet spies vie to steal and harness the powers and mysteries of the timeless children. With the day of the Remembering rapidly approaching, Z must interpret the strange writing on an ancient etched stone sphere. In those markings, Z will discover messages within messages and begin a journey to the truth about his people and himself.