Vintage Bradbury

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is one of the greatest writers currently living. He has been writing since the 1940's. He is often considered a science fiction writer, but look closer at his work. Bradbury is an observer of people and writes about them. Some of the backgrounds take place in the future or in science fiction settings, but just as many can happen now or when it was written.

This book is a collection of his own selections of what he considers to be his best work. It is filled with short stories and excerpts from his novel, Dandelion Wine. If you, like me, have read a lot of his work in the past, you will recognize old favorites. I don't remember story names, but often remember the story line. The most memorable of his works for me includes "There Will Come Soft Rains", the last story in this book. As expected, another of my favorites is not included. Oh, well.

This is a wonderful collection of stories. Some I remember. Some I don't remember reading before. There is still so much of Bradbury's work still waiting for me to unwrap it. Vintage Bradbury includes a wide range of story lines. There are the quiet neighbors in "The Little Mice" in a large urban community. There is the white couple abandoned in a out of the way country when the white population has wiped itself out and the other races are now in dominance in "And the Rock Cried Out". Then there is "Ylla", the Martian woman who dreams of the arrival of men from Earth. There are excerpts from the quiet small town in Dandelion Wine.

The other stories in this collection are "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse", "The Veldt" (another of my favorites), "Hail and Farewell", "A Medicine for Melancholy", "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" (a fascinating study of obsession), "The Small Assassin", "The Anthem Sprinters", "Invisible Boy", "Night Meeting", "The Fox and the Forest", "Skeleton" (eerie), "Kaleidoscope", "Sun and Shadow", "The Illustrated Man", "The Fog Horn", "The Dwarf", "Fever Dream", and "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit".

This book is a superb way to sample Bradbury's work. If you haven't read his work yet, this is a great place to start. It's not science fiction. It's an observation of the human spirit and quirks.

You can find more about this book at .

I Sing the Body Electric by Ray Bradbury