This book, in many ways, is a departure from the traditional New Mathematical Library (NML) offering. While most NML volumes are aimed at readers interested in exploring particular mathematical topics, this volume is likely to appeal also to puzzle solvers, science fiction fans, and, of course, to the many admirers of Martin Gardner's charming exposition.

We, the editors, have been intrigued with some of the mathematics contained in these riddles; we are most grateful to the author for having permitted and actively contributed to elaborations and extensions of a number of mathematical gems encapsuled in his riddles. We hope that science fiction fans who are not yet hooked on mathematics will become interested and will find mathematics stranger than fiction, even science fiction.