Asimov's Mysteries

Asimov's Mysteries

Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author	Isaac Asimov
Cover artist	James McMullan
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Mystery short stories
Publisher	Doubldeay
Publication date	1968
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	xii + 240
ISBN	0-385-09063-3

Asimov's Mysteries, published in 1968, is a collection of 14 short stories by Isaac Asimov, almost all of them science fiction mysteries (although, as Asimov admits in the introduction, some are only borderline). The stories were all originally published in magazines between 1954 and 1967, except for Marooned off Vesta, Asimov's first published story, which first appeared in 1939.

Four stories in the collection feature the character of Wendell Urth, who is a leading extra-terrologist (an expert on alien worlds and life originating on them). Urth is eccentric in that he has a phobia of all mechanical forms of transport (an exaggeration of Asimov's own aversion to flying). Physically Urth resembles Norbert Wiener.

He appears in the stories when he is consulted by an agent of the Terrestrial Bureau of Investigation, H. Seton Davenport, in cases which have him baffled – a parallel with the way in which Inspector Lestrade consults Sherlock Holmes. In a fifth story in the collection, The Dust of Death, Asimov shows Davenport a generosity that Conan Doyle never extended to Lestrade in demonstrating the former's ability to solve a case for himself without outside assistance.

Contents

1. "The Singing Bell" (1954, a Wendell Urth story)
2. "The Talking Stone" (1955, a Wendell Urth story)
3. "What's in a Name?" (1956)
4. "The Dying Night" (1956, a Wendell Urth story)
5. "Pâté de Foie Gras" (1956)
6. "The Dust of Death" (1957)
7. "A Loint of Paw" (1957)
8. "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" (1957; a bowdlerized version of this story appeared in the collection Nine Tomorrows)
9. "Marooned off Vesta" (1939)
10. "Anniversary" (1959, a Multivac story and a sequel to "Marooned off Vesta")
11. "Obituary" (1959)
12. "Star Light" (1962)
13. "The Key" (1966, a Wendell Urth story)
14. "The Billiard Ball" (1967)