Product Description

The mind of Ray Bradbury is a wonder-filled carnival of delight and terror that stretches from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space. Yet all his work is united by one common thread: a vivid and profound understanding of the vast seet of emotionsthat bring strength and mythic resonance to our frail species. Ray Bradbury characters may find themselves anywhere and anywhen. A horrified mother may give birth to a strange blue pyramid. A man may take Abraham Linkoln out of the grave--and meet another who puts him back. An amazing Electrical Grandmother may come to live with a grieving family. An old parrort may have learned over long evenings to imitate the voice of Ernest Hemingway, and become the last link to the last link to the great man. A priest on Mars may confront his fondest dream: to meet the Messiah. Each of these magnificient creations has something to tell us about our own humanity--and all of their fates await you in this new trade edition of twenty-eight classic Bradbury stories and one luscious poem. Travel on an unpredictable and unforgettable literary journey--safe in the hands of the century's great men of imagination.

The mind of Ray Bradbury is a wonder-filled carnival of delight and terror that stretches from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space. Yet all his work is united by one common thread: a vivid and profound understanding of the vast set of emotions that bring strength and mythic resonance to our frail species. Ray Bradbury characters may find themselves anywhere and anywhen. A horrified mother may give birth to a strange blue pyramid. A man may take Abraham Lincoln out of the grave--and meet another who puts him back. An amazing Electrical Grandmother may come to live with a grieving family. An old parrot may have learned over long evenings to imitate the voice of Ernest Hemingway, and became the last link to the great man. A priest on Mars may confront his fondest dream: to meet the Messiah. Each of these magnificent creations has something to tell us about our humanity--and all of their fates await you in this new trade edition of twenty-eight classic Bradbury stories and one luscious poem. Travel on an unpredictable and unforgettable literary journey--safe in the hands of one the centurys great men of imagination.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1159304 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Library Journal
Besides the title story, this collection includes 28 of the great Bradbury's other stories, including "Heavy Set," "The Parrot Who Met Papa," and "The Lost City of Mars." The selections represent a nice array of Bradbury's work from the 1940s to the 1970s, with some straight sf mixed with more lighthearted fare.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ingram
One of the great authors of short fiction in the 20th century, Bradbury's works are read in classrooms all over the country. This collection features 28 of his stories and one luscious poem, with themes ranging from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space.

About the Author

Ray Bradbury is the author of more than three dozen books, including Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He has written for the theater and cinema, including the screenplay for John Huston's classic adaptation of Moby Dick. He was nominated for an Academy Award, won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree, and adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Customer Reviews

Wonderful!
When I was about 14, I went through a several year phase of reading every science fiction book I could get my hands on. And now, fifteen years later, I decided to go back and try to read a few of the books I remembered. I especially remember enjoying books by Asimov, Bradbury, Dick, Wells and a few others. This was the first one I happened to read, and I was amazed. The first few stories were kind of 'iffy', but I was quickly pulled into each and every story. Ray Bradbury has a writing talent that few today can replicate. His mastery of words and his imagination are amazing.

I've read a few 'modern' sci-fi, and they've all failed to impress me. The true wonder of sci-fi is in books like this. Sure some of the ideas are out-dated, but who cares? It is science-fiction. Stephen King and the others I read didn't seem to capture the wonder that is in books like this.

I know that some prefer modern sci-fi, but for me, the 'oldies' are where the great science-fiction lies.

Not forgetting the Pekingnese dog troupe...
A lovely short story + 1 poem collection, with some Martian and Royal Hibernian cheek by jowl. My review is in alphabetical order rather than presentation order, for ease of reference.

"Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's is a Friend of Mine" - One fine summer's day, a man arrived at the train station in Green Town, Illinois - giving the name Charles Dickens.

"Christus Apollo" - A poem, speculating on how many worlds in the wide universe have seen the birth of a Christ child.

"The Cold Wind and the Warm" - The Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin is having a dull winter, when six male ballet dancers descend out of the blue for a 24 hour stay, looking for an unlikely new place.

"Downwind from Gettysburg" - Phipps says that's where we must stand, the only hearing place. (He's always dreamed of making a movie with a farmer and his son standing at the edge of the crowd listening to Lincoln's address.). Instead, he built a tourist attraction in Illinois with a robot Lincoln - and someone has now 'assassinated' the robot.

"The Haunting of the New" - Another story near Dublin's Royal Hibernian Hotel, but not with the same characters. Nora's family has lived at Grynwood for the last 200 years, each generation wilder than the last. (On Charlie's first visit, two rival ballet mobs, separated by a language barrier (Manhattan vs. Hamburg) were visiting, along with a Duchess. Nora greeted Charlie stark-naked at the front door, only to have the Duchess strip down in response as she came in.) Sometimes Marion brings his Pekingnese dog troupe, which always gets drunker and sicker than he. Now (years later) Nora offers to sell Grynwood to Charlie - and for the first time, the house has no weekend guests. What happened?

"Heavy-Set" - That's one of his nicknames, as well as Sammy (for Samson). He spends all his free time bodybuilding, but there's something not quite right about him.

"Henry the Ninth" - He's the last man in Britain, this December, because everyone else has finally given up, left the island, and relocated south. (Obviously written, I must say, by somebody who never lived through a Florida summer, but I love it anyway.)

"The Inspired Chicken Motel" - The family stayed there while looking for work in the Depression. The motel chicken laid eggs "right out of Revelation".

"I Sing the Body Electric!" - This was turned into an episode on the original Twilight Zone, which was OK, but the source is better. It begins the week the world ended - the day Tim, Tom, Agatha, and Father returned from Mother's funeral. So Father picked up a Fantoccini brochure on buying an Electrical Grandmother...

"The Kilimanjaro Device" - The narrator is one of the loyal readers of an old man who died in the wrong place at the wrong time; they've all chipped in to try to change that. The writer isn't named. If you don't recognize him from the context, look up Ernest Hemingway and start reading.

"The Lost City of Mars" - This really ought to have been in The Martian Chronicles; it explains how the dry canals were reborn. A very rich man, looking for the fabled lost city of Dia-Sao, had the canals refilled so that he could search for it by water (air and land expeditions having failed). Wilder and Parkhill (from the 4th Expedition) are invited to join the canal yacht party. Nobody quite knows why the city was abandoned.

"The Man in the Rorschach Shirt" - The doctor's shirts were an easy talking point with total strangers - designed by Jackson Pollack.

"Night Call, Collect" - When Mars was evacuated at the beginning of the war, Emil Barton was left behind in one of the Martian cities, alone. He recorded messages and set up the computers to call him at random, so he could hear a human voice. But at eighty, messages left by twenty-year-olds can be hard to take.

"The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place" - A gang of Dublin men show up at Lord Kilgotten's place to burn it down (some of them also appear in 'The Cold Wind and the Warm'). But the old lord himself answers the door, invites them in, and offers them a drink (asking them to wipe their feet, which they do). And nothing is ever as easy at you think it will be.

"The Tombling Day" - As the bodies of the old cemetery are moved to the new, Grandma has come to see William Simmons one last time. And the real tragedies of the deaths of the young are explored.

"Tomorrow's Child" - The baby was born healthy, but in the wrong dimension - he looked like a blue pyramid. A terrible problem for his parents, who can't communicate with him, and for him - he doesn't know what the 'normal' world looks like, never having seen it that way.

"The Women" - One of the 'women' is the ocean, luring the husband of the other woman to his doom.

"Yes, We'll Gather at the River" - A line from a hymn, which springs to mind since "the Lord giveth, and the Highway Commissioner taketh away." The new highway is being built 300 yards from the tiny hamlet of Oak Lane. (If you like this, read the opening chapters of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, particularly the definition of a bypass).

Well-written, but maybe dated?
The edition I read had 18 stories, but by the end that felt like plenty to me. Bradbury's certainly a fine writer, but like that other renown master of the short form, Borges, he totally fails to engage me. I guess it's all a matter of taste, but the stories in this collection felt rather dated, and that's probably why I didn't enjoy them that much. Many of the stories raise questions about what it is to be human, and the intersection of humanity and the technology humans create to mimic humanity. And while they're moderately effective (especially the one about the robot grandmother), once you've read Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," everything else tends to pale in comparison. So, not my cup of tea, but that's just me.