The Illustrated Man (Flamingo Modern Classics)

What is there to say when you finally catch up on a bona fide classic after so many years? It's not as though I'm entirely new to reading Ray Bradbury; like any serious reader and/or science-fiction fan, I've enjoyed much of Bradbury's work over the years, from Something Wicked This Way Comes to Fahrenheit 451 to The Martian Chronicles and beyond. And, of course, I've read (and taught) several of his short stories. But somehow, I had never sat and read The Illustrated Man cover-to-cover...and now that I have, I find that it's every bit as good as its reputation would have you believe and then some. To be sure, Bradbury's writing is more serviceable than literate; he was a man concerned with story and plotting, and showy or elaborate prose would get in his way. (It's a common trait among classic science-fiction authors, and in some ways, I think it's prejudiced the genre against richer prose...but that's a discussion for another time.) Even so, the stories themselves are so good, so rich that it's hard, if not impossible, not to get swept up into them. From a racial role reversal on Mars to a city laying in wait for a special visitor, from the dangerous appeal of Earth culture to the story of astronauts adrift in space, Bradbury's imagination is a thing of beauty, and each story is good enough that it could anchor a whole novel. Even so, Bradbury never lets his stories feel rushed or cluttered; indeed, they're all completely distinct and unique, a feat that sometimes eludes short story writers. Add to that the way each story grapples with unique themes and explorations of humanity, while never letting the story fall to the side, and you have a master class in storytelling. It's also a nicely dark collection; there's a lot more fangs lurking beneath the surface than you might expect, and they have a way of pouncing when you least expect it. In short, it's a masterful collection from a legend of short story writing, and it's every bit as good as you would hope for. If you've read it, you know this already; if not, you owe it to yourself to check it out as soon as you can.

A sad, decorated wandering man stumbles into the life of another drifter.

The tattooed wandering man is a terrifying canvas of brillant skin art and darkened dreams. A hated circus performer "condemmed to be free" as a morbid living gallery- each tatoo moves and glows animately; this anthology treats us to the best of the pulp Bradbury of the fifties. As Rod Serling told us in his TWILIGHT ZONE introduction we are transported from the depth of our fears to the heights of our imagination. Rocketing from the past to the future to the subconscious we are invited to a world where...

A holographic Africa is so consuming that it...well... consumes.

Time travellers from the totalitarian future must travel to 1938 for vacation only to find that they can never escape the future.

An explosion rocks a spaceship... disgorging astronauts- making its crew satellites left to face their personal angst and collective end.

An artifical sun provides respite from the grey rain world of Venus, but only if the spacewreck survivors are willing to pay a price finding it.

A used rocket never travels to space but reveals the heart of a poor kind father,not the solar system,to his long suffering wife.

A man heals and performs miracles in world after world, yet can only be met through faith not a rocket trip.

A playground becomes a portal to the hell of childhood.

A couple go to sleep on the last night of the world and forget to set the alarm clock.

A man's robot duplicate has ideas of his own on where to vacation next.

Poe gets revenge against future thought police from a die hard fan who manages to make others die.

Long oppressed blacks find out that their former oppressors have nothing left to oppress.

A psycho find respite in the void of space...and meaning as well in a sci-fi replay of Sartre.

A city lives beyong the lives of its former inhabitants to exact revenge.

A highway in Mexico becomes a river of life at the death of the civilization to its north.

Are childhood imaginary friends always imagined? The earth finds a new nemesis in a suburban front yard.

This book is a rocket simmering in the red martian sun. A rocket that darts wildly between the height of man's imagination and the depths of his fears as we were warned by Rod Serling in his TWILIGHT ZONE monologue. A rocket which darts with zen efficiency between the inner life of the soul and the outer space of the future.

In the end the tattoo canvas moves...

I didn't realize when I was young that I was as into Bradbury stories as I am. Something wicked this way comes was an exciting film and had super natural suspense. 40 some years later I decide to start with the first book in the Green Town series and have really enjoyed them. These short stories really show the art of Bradbury's style and how he developed as a writer. Would recommend them to anyone but especially people who like the way Bradbury tells his colorful stories.