Review: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man

by Ray Bradbury

Summary: The Illustrated Man, a seminal work in Ray Bradbury’s career, whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time’s passage, is available from Simon & Schuster for the first time.A peerless American storyteller, Ray Bradbury brings wonders alive. In these eighteen startling visions of humankind’s destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin, living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets. Provocative and powerful, The Illustrated Man is a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination, and truth—as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain, and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world.

Review:

5 star

I’m not much of a short story reader, but I love Bradbury’s work. This book/collection of short stories is amazing. This is one of those books I find hard to review because it is so good, I’m at a loss for words. Bradbury is inventive, imaginative, descriptive, and creative. I don’t know which of the short stories is my favorite. Perhaps Kaleidoscope. I think I liked this even more than The Martian Chronicles. Possibly more than Fahrenheit 451. I love the space aspect of a lot of the stories, but I still wouldn’t classify him as science fiction. I also like the philosophical aspects of the stories.

Overall, a brilliant book and one I’d definitely recommend to people, even they don’t normally read a lot of short stories.

Labels: