Okay, well I haven't read the whole thing. It's a collection of short stories, I haven't even read half of them. But what I have read is pretty good. I enjoy Bradbury's short stories more than I liked Farenheit 451. His stories range from his typical sci-fi morality stories, to more comical fare, my favorite being the story of an old man and a young boy in a sleepy town in Illinois who make a mummy and put it in a corn field. The whole town gets really excited when the farmer discovers this "genuine Egyptian mummy," which they assume must be from a time when Egyptians came over to North America. I recommend this book to anyone who likes short stories.

I bought this collection expecting 900 pages of the innovative speculative fiction we get in Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, and it was disappointing to discover that the bulk of these stories are just plain old realistic fiction. There is a reason Bradbury is only known for his sci-fi... his realistic fiction reads like he slapped together a couple entries from his private diary, and that's not a good thing. There are essentially 3 realistic fiction stories Bradbury knows how to write:

1. Writers having writer angst.
2. A lonely woman's God-given life purpose is fulfilled when a young man finally arrives and makes her feel desired.
3. Ireland.

One gets the impression reading this volume that Bradbury's writing process revolves around sifting through his memories for any image or sensation that can evoke NOSTALGIA capital N, waxing poetic on it for a couple hours, then shoving some character names in and hoping the result passes for a story. I say character names because there are no actual characters to be found, just talking heads that spit out one cliche after the next. The number of stories about old women who are depressed because they missed out on true love really makes you start to wonder about Bradbury's personal life.

When he doesn't rely on his own experience, Bradbury turns to his favorite writers and tries to make them do the heavy lifting. He references Edgar Allen Poe and H. G. Wells with such frequency, the volume starts to feel like some kind of literary fan fiction. This is ok in stories like April 2005: Usher II, where fantasy has been banned and a disgruntled book lover builds a kind of Gothic murder mansion on Mars to pay homage to his favorite works. Here, other works are a springboard for an original and intriguing plot. Everywhere else, though, he simply name drops his favorite writers, fan girls for a couple pages, and expects this to produce some powerful impression on the reader.

Okay, I think the rant part of this review is mostly done.

If you got rid of all the dead weight and just kept the sci-fi/fantasy and horror, this would be a 5-star volume. There are some true gems in here that reminded me why I bought the collection to begin with. When Bradbury takes the reader into his imagination rather than dragging them down Memory Lane, he soars. His finest work will leave you stunned, thinking about the plot for hours. You might just feel compelled to brute force your way through the hundreds of pages of nauseating sap-fest stories purely out of respect. At the very least, the contrast between his masterpieces and his bore-you-to-tears pseudo-stories holds a lot of lessons for aspiring writers about how NOT to write a story.

Everything a short story should be: succinct, unique, and perfectly written. Plus, Bradbury does it 100 times! Easily one of the best writers of the last century.

So many good stories in this one

Note two things about this volume without yet considering content. First, this is "100 of his most celebrated" stories, meaning that there's a legitimate et al waiting in the wings, again leaving aside the novels, some of which are pretty good and even important. Second, this book is about 900 pages long, which means that each of the hundred stories is roughly nine pages long. Are nine page stories, generally, complex? Interesting? Good?
As to the content: I've never been less sure of whether writing is as a whole good or bad than Bradbury. Or rather, I have been pretty regularly, but that's with complex writing: either intensely technical or intensely experimental. Bradbury writes so simply it's almost offensive. He 'makes a fetish of simplicity,' as Faulkner said of Sherwood Anderson. But the sheer emotional vitality, and the unembarassed desire to write every story, even ones that he or someone else had written already, make many of the stories not just work but work well.
Space stories! Ghost stories! Irish stories! Green Town, Illinois stories! You want em, they're here by the literal volume.

4.5⭐
Вълшебен изказ има Рей Бредбъри и доста богато въображение - сред тези страници могат да се намерят разкази, звучащи като прототип или вдъхновение за някои от най-известните съвременни сериали и игри като Westworld и The last of us. Разказите за живота на Венера, Меркурий и Марс също са безкрайно интересни, но аз бях впечатлена и от няколкото хорър истории - например, "Скелет" и "Площадката".

It may very well have been a novel by Ray Bradbury, though it could have been one by Zenna Henderson, Isaac Asimov, or any one of a dozen other authors, that I was holding that summer, long ago, when I heard my father mutter as he stomped out the door with the hoe in his hand, "You read too much!" Suffice it to say that I am no stranger to Ray Bradbury's longer works, but this was my first exposure to a collection of his short stories, and I was not disappointed.

When we describe this collection as one of short stories, we do mean short. Most of the stories here run from two to six pages in length, and it is to Bradbury's credit that he packs almost every one with significance and meaning far beyond the scope of the story itself. Here, the reader will find profound observations on the human condition, on the thin veneer of civilization that can be easily ripped asunder, on the human need for approbation, on the human need for love, on the human need for belief and spirituality, and on every other characteristic that makes one human. Do not misconstrue my comments: this not a book of essays preaching and pontificating on any of these profound things; this is a book filled with fascinating characters and wondrous interactions. Bradbury never beats his reader over the head with profundity; it is the reader himself who adds that to Bradbury's intriguing tales.

Tales-that's the word I've been searching for. This is a book of tales. Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" is a short story. Ray Bradbury's "The Man in the Rorschach Shirt" is a tale. In fact, let us use the French word "conte" as we would to describe the little slices of the world that we see in the contes of Guy de Maupassant. Bradbury is the English de Maupassant as de Maupassant is the French Bradbury.

I used to picture Bradbury as purely a writer of science fiction, but I was wrong to limit him to a specific genre. This collection of one hundred tales is proof irrefutable of Bradbury's broad range and scope. The book should take one quite a while to read, by the way. True, one could blast through it with all those remarkable speed reading techniques, but what a shame to do so. These tales need to be read one at a time and then pondered and mulled over as one would savor the taste of fine food and good wine. To gulp them down in a feeding frenzy is to forgo the pleasure of remembering them and of adding their implicit lessons to one's own repertoire of knowledge. In fact, the three months I spent on this book was too brief a period. I shall keep it at hand and reread these tales, perhaps one a week for the next one hundred weeks. This feast is incredible, and I would not have it fade from memory too quickly. Please join me at the table and dine on Bradbury's joyously creative wit and wisdom.

"There Will Be Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury is a futuristic story about the actions of an automated house after its inhabitants were destroyed, probably with a nuclear weapon.

Dishes are prepared but not eaten. Bridge games are installed, but no one is playing them. Martinis are made, but not drunk. Poems are read, but there is no one to listen to. An automatic voice recounting times and dates, which has no sense without a human presence.

Instead of describing the moment of the explosion, Bradbury shows readers a charred black wall, except when the paint remains intact in the form of a woman picking flowers, a man moving on a lawn, and two children throwing a ball. These four people were a family who lived in the house.

"There Will Be Soft Rains" is a part of the series“ The Martian Chronicles ” and one of the most famous stories in the world of fiction: touching, fatal, shocking.

This is the link to the text of the story:
https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_T...

This is my revised review of Ray Bradbury Stories, by the one and only, Ray Bradbury. This Book is an 900 page book of short stories, and they are very fun and exciting. My favorite story in it is probably “The Dragon” because of it’s very vagueness and how it does not use the characters’ names. My favorite part is the plot twist at the end. If you do not want it to be spoiled I suggest you stop reading now. There are two people, assumed to be knights. Person #2 starts talking about a mighty dragon, “they say his eyes are fire. His breath is white gas; you can see him burn across the dark lands.” After a lot more talking, the two men start to see something, what you would assume is the dragon. Then the scene changes to the two men shoveling coal into a steam train, with the steam rising above it and they start to stoke the flame inside the train. I really like how this is written, the way Ray Bradbury makes the atmosphere seem like it is the past, and then suddenly twisting it into the future. I would rate 11/10.

This was a pretty terrible collection. Tons of stories felt recycled--Douglas Spaulding was in like 85 of them, as was Heber Finn's pub, with two different spellings. The Mars stories felt moralistic and mostly gross. His depiction of female characters is absolutely appalling. There were a few good stories, but it was hardly worth wading through the muck.

"Тази вечер, помисли си той. Дори да се провалим с първия, ще пуснем втори и трети кораб и ще достигнем всички планети, а след това и звездите. Просто ще продължаваме напред, докато големите думи като „безсмъртие“ и „вечност“ не придобият смисъл. Големи думи, да, точно това искаме. Непрекъснатост. Откакто са се обърнали езиците ни и са се раздвижили устните ни, ние все питаме — какъв е смисълът на всичко това? Всички други въпроси са глупави, щом смъртта диша в тила ни. Но нека само се заселим на десет хиляди светове, въртящи се около десет хиляди непознати слънца, и въпросът ще заглъхне. Човекът ще бъде вечен и безкраен, също като космоса. Ще продължи завинаги напред, както продължава космосът. Отделните индивиди ще умират както винаги, но историята ни ще продължи безкрайно надалеч в бъдещето и знанието, че ще оцелеем завинаги, ще ни даде чувство за сигурност — а именно тя е отговорът на онзи въпрос. Щом сме дарени с живот, най-малкото, което можем да направим, е да запазим и предаваме този дар до безкрая. И целта си заслужава усилията. "

Прочетох я на мобилния телефон, затова ми отне толкова време. Странни, поетични, изненадващи разкази и развръзки. Понякога имах чувството, че са писани от различни хора - толкова различно настроение и звучене имат.