I Sing the Body Electric

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is one of the acclaimed masters of the speculative fiction genre.  This collection of short stories are some of his early work that helped him gain that acclaim. There are some fun stories, some that make you think.  Some are definitely science fiction.  Others are vintages of life in a skewed perspective.

The author Charles Dickens visits a small town in the American plain states in the summer of 1929. A psychologist wanders around California is brightly color splashed shirts. A group of rich sightseers travel the canals of Mars looking for a lost city.

I was excited to find the original of one of my favorite stories I've seen done in television specials. It is the short story from which the book derives its name, "I Sing the Body Electric."  This is a story of three children and their father after their mother dies.  They need someone to care for them, so the father takes them to a wonderful factory.  There the children pick out an electric grandmother.  This fantastic robot moves in to care for them.  The boys immediately take to her, but the girl is more cautious.  I first saw this as "The Electric Grandmother" with Maureen Stapleton.  It has also been done on the original Twilight Zone series.

Classic Ray Bradbury. This collection is well worth reading.  Some of the stories did not appeal to me, others caught right at my imagination.  There's something here for almost any reader.

Tales From the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke