Bradbury shines in his ability to resurrect the mysteries and enchantments of childhood, where however mundane, everything feels like it's science fiction or at least has the potential to be science fiction.

He brings this perspective to all of his work, but I will say, his best material is that which truly centers around science fiction. Interestingly, his characters are not a bold, futuristic, high-techy lot per se, but rather, are incredibly normal humans with normal human follies, feelings, and imperfections. which are made all the more ridiculous in the lonely theater of space.

His satire isn't sharp or cutting - it's soft and sentimental, and it's VERY comforting to read. While some of these stories are pretty hit or miss (wasn't a fan of most of the Ireland stories in general), overall, this is a great collection.

I did it! I read all 100 short stories, even though it took numerous rentals from the library. To call him a great sci-fi writer does not really cover it. His stories, including the celebrated Martian Chronicles (although not in any particular order), run from futuristic, bizarre, thought provoking, and heartbreaking. He was a visionary and master at setting the stage. I enjoyed my journey of sharing the twisted and extraordinary world of Bradbury.

Brilliant author.

Science fiction and fantasy fans are familiar with seeing oodles of anthologies and collections of short stories from the Grandmaster on bookshelves. Bradbury was a great writer and while Fahrenheit 451 is his masterpiece, I submit here that his other great contribution to our literature was his prolific short story writing.

This is exceptional in that it collects stories from across his fifty plus years of putting ink on paper, from the 1950s to just before he died in 2012. We also see the spectrum of his great range – from the fantastic Martian stories, to horror, to the mundane. Some of these are tied in with his other world building like Green Town and other are mere sketches, describing a scene of some note.

Bradbury’s uncommon charm and enormous talent shines throughout.

This collection includes:

The Whole Town’s Sleeping

The Rocket

The Flying Machine

The Dwarf

The Wind

The Kilimanjaro Device

I especially enjoyed that many of these were published later in life, and / or were more obscure than others so I was able to read many for the first time. And of course I was also able to reread some of my favorites.

It seems that Ray Bradbury and I disagree as to what his best short stories are. Some of these stories I had never read before, and were pretty interesting to read, but many of them were quite forgettable (at least in my opinion), even if they were beautifully written. I love Bradbury's writing style.

I'm also doing some spring cleaning, and had to make some pretty tough decisions as to which books I'm keeping, and which ones are going to new homes. This book ended up in my "To Loving New Home" pile.

I think that next time, I'll just check out one of his more famous anthologies, like The Illustrated Man or The October Country.

I am no where near being done, BUT I love it too much not to start raving about Ray Bradbury and his magical writing. My current favorites are "Banshee", "Midnight In the Month of June", and "The Whole Town is Sleeping." His stories are full of rich-sensory images, and an almost child-like wonder towards things that go bump in the night.

This was one of my favorite books to carry around. I love everything about it, even if it is large to be toting to the coffee shop, swim practice, and park. He writes so vividly and with a great imagination. I often go back and reread my favorites or explore them in greater depth.

Things I learned from this collection:

1. Mars would be a crappy place to live.
2. Lots of things happen at Heber Finn's pub.
3. Don't trust anyone you know; they might be a robot doppelganger.

It’s nothing against RB because he was a wonderful writer and story teller. I just need longer stories and there were two people waiting for the book, and it’s just now for me. Now I need to figure out how to remove from this years count.

Bradbury is a pleasure to read, but this has been a tough few months overall, and has made completing these 100 stories a bit of a slog.

Of critical note were the award winning, or award recommended, "The Dragon" (1956 Hugo short story nomination) and “The Poems” (1971 Seiun Award foreign short story winner).

Which is a shame -- there is so much of Bradbury that captures the the magic and wonder of human beings. Of personal note, then, were "And the Rock Cried Out" (1953), "The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair" (1987), "Colonel Stonesteel's Genuine Home-Made Truly Egyptian Mummy" (1981), "The Exiles" (1949), "The Kilimanjaro Device" (1965), and "Way in the Middle of the Air [The Martian Chronicles] (1950).

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From the final story, Doug Spaulding of Green Town: "In winter, he trudged home through icelands of magic, in summer through bakery winds of sorcery...".

Which is why one does not simply read Bradbury.

The original short story "The Illustrated Man" is in this collection. Eighteen of Bradbury's short stories were later published in 1951 as the book titled "The Illustrated Man." Each of the 18 sci-fi stories describes one of the animated tattoos on the illustrated man.

I would love to have enjoyed this collection, I really would.

But the only thing keeping this from a hard "1 star" is that Ray Bradbury was such a pioneer.
So much of this was the prolific writing of a man who loved his craft and would crank out dozens of pages a day in his study, writing about whatever inspired him. And that's great.

The downside is that a lot of it shouldn't have made the cut, but times were simpler and so his stories could run free without an editor shooting down too many. Or they just seemed so novel at the time, and broke new ground as cutting edge sci-fi that he was forgiven the maudlin, nostalgic Americana.

In any case, his top works are legends. This collection? not so much.