Bradbury y su extraordinaria prosa nos deleitan con 18 relatos escritos entre 1947 y 1951. Me queda claro que es un maestro de las short stories.

Me quedo con estas tres como favoritas: "La larga lluvia", "El zorro y el bosque" y "El cohete".

Arte conceptual de "La pradera":



Arte conceptual de "Caleidoscopio":



Arte conceptual de "La carretera":



Arte conceptual de "La larga lluvia":



Arte conceptual de "El hombre del cohete":



Arte conceptual de "El visitante":



Arte conceptual de "La mezcladora de cemento":

Bradbury'nin bilimkurguya yaklaşımında diğer yazarlara göre bir farklılık var. Sadece dünyalı insanların değil başka gezegenlerden insanların ve varlıkların gözüyle de bakabiliyor. Bu kitaptaki hemen her hikayede Alacakaranlık Kuşağı'ndan bir bölüm izlemiş gibi oldum.

10 days and 306 pages after. This is the third (and currently) book in english of the year. Also I read another two while I was reading this.

A compilation of short stories of the great writer Ray Bradbury, I remember that I´ve read a couple of these stories before, like Usher II and The playground, but still amazed me. There are short stories and medium ones.

My favourites ones, were: The highway, The man, Usher II (previously read in spanish), The visitor, Marionettes Inc (I think is the best one).

The thing that impression me is, that Bradbury had dozen of ideas, and some of those ideas are still intact and without desecrate. I love his ideas, and the mixtures he made. He was a formerly writer.

There will be a review.

Ray Bradbury was an absolute master storyteller whose writing was creative and full of moments of pure bitter irony: he was an imaginative genius, nothing more nothing less.

Bradbury picks the bones of society clean; he gnaws at them until he exposes the reality of the marrow beneath. Each story in here has a piece of wisdom to share, a resolution or disaster that could have been easily avoided if man was not so corrupt in his ways. The more I read of his writing the more convinced I become that he was a misanthrope. Time and time again he creates a situation that is pure and good; yet, somehow man destroys it with his self-obsessed stupidity. And this is his point: humanity is a cancer.

n  “Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else.” n

Perhaps that’s why Bradbury looked to the stars. He saw that man was ruining earth, so he looked to give him a fresh start. As with the equally as excellent collection of short storiesThe Martian Chronicles, the planet Mars plays a vital role in the narrative. For Bradbury it represented something new and something clean, a means to rejuvenate and become something more than we are. Within the writing there is a glimpse of hope (an almost extinguished spark) that we can improve and become better; it is faint, though it is there.

“We're all fools," said Clemens, "all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.”

He also built upon his elucidating novel Fahrenheit 451 is the short story ‘Usher II’ creating a tale of revenge in its aftermath. One very disgruntled reader rounds up the government officials, those that passed the book burning laws, and murders them all in a life size re-creation of one of Poe’s most memorable stories. It’s a sharp statement that strikes at the heart of censorship, control and consumerism. It is the words of a man who feared for the future, who feared that one day stories would not be allowed such freedom.

And all this is told through the markings on a man’s skin. I find the idea of the illustrated man, a man who is covered in tattoos that shift and change telling new stories with every dawn, so clever. It allowed Bradbury to enter any story he chose in here; they could be random and it wouldn’t overly matter. This leads me on to my only criticism: he did not really use that freedom as much as he could of. The stories all related to one key theme or idea, and often involved Mars; however, I think he could have done much more and imagined up a selection of more versatile illustrations/stories if he tried.

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Siempre es hermoso y terrible volver a Marte.

“If El Greco had painted miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed with all his sulphurous color, elongation, and anatomy, perhaps he might have used this man's body for his art. The colors burned in three dimensions. They were windows looking in upon fiery reality. Here, gathered on one wall, were all the finest scenes in the universe, the man was a walking treasure gallery. This wasn't the work of a cheap carnival tattoo man with three colors and whiskey on his breath. This was the accomplishment of a living genius, vibrant, clear, and beautiful.”

Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man is a collection of short stories which in general seem to be dealing with the same kind of emotions, while not really being related to one another in terms of narrative. These stories transmit a kind of nostalgic sadness associated with them, a feeling I had already felt when I read Bradbury’s short story There Will Come Soft Rains.

While The Illustrated Man remains a collection of science fiction stories, its main theme isn’t science at all, but its human characters. Bradbury explores a wide range of themes which end up giving a sort of hidden narrative to most of these stories. As usual, his writing is excellent and a pleasure to read, which is something you would come to expect from him.

In the end, this is a great collection of short stories from one of the genre’s most well regarded writers. Bradbury’s writing, his creativity and the various themes involved throughout the collection all combine and end up making The Illustrated Man a very good and well worth reading experience.

n  War is a bad thing, but peace can be a living horrorn

Stories set in the future. Stories set in realities distant or not so distant from ours. Stories that linger on the doorway to... The Twiligh..... wow wow wow! I got carried away there! Although, I have to say, each of these stories could (and should) have been an episode of The Twilight Zone. A few of them could also be episodes of Black Mirror. There's no need to rate each separately. The Illustrated Man deserves all the stars I can give. Although some are better than the others, all of them flirt with perfection. Bradbury gets his hands on matters that back then were possible in the distant future and today are certain in the near. It's not so much about techonology and its consequences as one may think. It's more about ethical matters adapted to the racing advancement of mankind. But the principal theme in all of the stories is the human psyche.

This book was one of the rare cases of books that make me lose track of time while reading. It kept me up all night without me even noticing how fast minutes flew by. Favorites: The Veldt, Kaleidoskope, The Other Foot, Marionettes Inc., The Last Night of The World, Zero Hour.

The Illustrated Man is everything you’d expect (and more!) from an assemblage of vintage science fiction short stories. It has interplanetary colonization and alien invasions and human transport through vacuum tubes (see also The Jetsons) and hostile civilizations on Mars and hostile civilizations on Venus and everybody gets from point A to point B in a “rocket.”

The format is such that the tale of The Illustrated Man is both the first story and the last story of the collection. I see this done fairly often now, especially in cinema (The Asylum, Creepshow, etc.), but I suspect that this was highly innovative and unusual for 1969.

As expected, some of the speculative science of this collection is dated and laughable (the outpost on Jupiter comes to mind), but there are also imaginative concepts that foretold the coming of Levin’s The Stepford Wives (1972) and Star Trek TNG’s malfunctioning holodeck (1987-1994).

Bradbury (so far) has never disappointed me.

Another great collection from a master short story teller... not to say that his novels are not also great.

I wish I would have read this right after finishing The Martian Chronicles. It's a great accent to Bradbury's famous sci-fi masterpiece. Interestingly enough, though the stories ring of The Martian Chronicles, the collection begins with a tattooed (illustrated) man who has worked as an act in carnival freak shows. His story, which opens and closes the collection, brings to mind Something Wicked This Way Comes and overlays these sci-fi tales with a shade of horror. No one but Bradbury could have accomplished a work of art like this. Like staring at the inked illustrations on the mans body, Bradbury's skill at description and prose pulls the reader into the vivid world he inks on paper.

As much as I would love to give this 5 stars, there were a couple of stories that just didn't wow me, and my rating is for the collection overall.

Ray Bradbury’s unique style and voice shines through in The Illustrated Man. This collection is comprised of a series of short stories that are tied together on the back (literally) of the Illustrated Man, an enigmatic figure who is covered in tattoos. Look closely, and the inked images spin into tales of even stranger inklings.

Building on the lore and intrigue of The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury further adds to the cannon storyline of his peculiar multiverse. My favorite entries, including: “The Veldt,” “The Fox and Forest,” as well as “Marionettes, Inc.” all truly felt like stories etched onto the body of a mysterious vagrant. It is also this type of elevated, vivid, visually-driven horror that I could easily see being adapted into a Twilight Zone or Black Mirror esque creation.

Departing from the horror, tales like “The Other Foot” and “The Rocket” that play with tension but are ultimately hopeful and sweet, are also worth mentioning. Perhaps they are indicative of the Illustrated Man’s softer inclinations? That’s hard to say. After all is said and done, I was still left a bit frustrated at not really knowing who the Illustrated Man really was at heart (or gaping blackhole where a heart should be located). Thematically diverse, these stories ultimately do not add up to a greater sum as eloquently as The Martian Chronicles, though nitpicking aside are still quite entertaining.

Ultimately, The Illustrated Man is a good collection and has my recommendation. Bradbury wrote wholesome horror just as well as Agatha Christie wrote wholesome (murder) mystery, which is a tonally challenging milieu to pin down. Good stuff.

Rating: 3.5 stars

“They don’t like it when violent things happen in my Illustrations.”

An entertaining and topically diverse set of science-fiction short stories, which are delivered through magical, shifting illustrations on an illustrated (tattooed) man’s body. The stories explore many of Ray Bradbury’s preoccupations, including, most notably, the dangers of technology, science, and censorship. Ratings for each story are below, in order of preference (best to worst), along with short summaries and illustrative quotes.

n  Marionettes, Inc.n (Five Stars)

An ingenious, illegal, and technologically advanced solution to marital problems comes into use.

“She won’t know I’m gone. I’ll be ack in a month and no one the wiser, except you.”

n  The Veldtn (Five Stars)

In the future, a technologically advanced house with telepathic features has become a dominant force in children’s lives, with disastrous and gruesome consequences:

“You’ve let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children’s affections. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents.”

n  The Rocketn (Five Stars)

A poor, junk-yard worker strives against generational poverty to send at least one of his family members to space on a rocket trip.

”Do we fly rockets? No! We live in shacks like our ancestors before us.”

n  Zero Hourn (Five Stars)

Aliens intending to attack Earth find the perfect weapon.

“Until, one day … they thought of children! … And they thought of how grownups are so busy they never look under rosebushes or on lawns!”

n  The Rocket Mann (Five Stars)

A father goes off into space for months at a time, leaving his family to grapple with his absence.

“Don’t ever be a Rocket Man … Because when you’re out there you want to be here, and when you’re here you want to be out there.”

n  The Fire Balloonsn (Five Stars)

This story is also in The Martian Chronicles. It is about priests sent as missionaries to Mars who discover a new life form and end up receiving more knowledge than they dispense.

“Somehow, they saved us. That proves they have souls.”

n  Kaleidoscopen (Four Stars)

Men left drifting in different directions in space after a rocket explodes talk to each other via radio, recalling their lives and things they have done.

“And now instead of men there were only voices—all kinds of voices, disembodied and impassioned, in varying degrees of terror and resignation … they were meteors, senseless, each going to a separate and irrevocable fate.”

n  The Visitorn (Four Stars)

People sick with the contagious disease “blood rust” are sent to Mars to die. They are visited by someone with a special power that can improve their lives. But how will they handle this visitor?

“Don’t you realize what’ll happen once they discover your talent? They’ll fight over you.”

n  The Other Footn (Four Stars)

Two decades after Black Americans left Earth for Mars, WWIII demolishes Earth and the White survivors come to Mars looking for help. How will Black Martians respond?

“You ain’t going to lynch him?”

n  The Mann (Four Stars)

Spacemen visit a world right after someone similar to Jesus did and they come to conflicting conclusions about what it means and what to do about it.

“Take your filth somewhere else and foul up other nests with your doubt and your—scientific method.”

n  The Cityn (Four Stars)

An alien city waits patiently for invaders, setting traps.

“It was on a summer afternoon in the middle of the twenty thousandth year that the city ceased waiting.”

n  The Exilesn (Four Stars)

When books are banned on earth, their authors are summoned out of death to live on another planet. They then use magic to try to stop humans from discovering/invading it.

“Bats, needles, dreams, men dying for no reason. I’d call it witchcraft in another day.”
“The names of Poe, Bierce, Hawthorne, Blackwood—blasphemy to their clean lips.”

n  The Long Rainn (Three Stars)

During a war, military personnel on Venus suffer psychologically while looking for a Sun Dome that may provide shelter from the nonstop rain.

“In the flashes of powdery illumination they could see armies of raindrops, suspended as in a vast motionless amber, for an instant, hesitating as if shocked by the explosion, fifteen billion droplets, fifteen billion tears, fifteen billion ornaments, jewels standing out against a white velvet viewing board.”

n  No Particular Night or Morningn (Three Stars)

There are men on a spaceship far away from Earth, and one is having a mental breakdown.

“I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or hear or touch. I can’t see Earth, so why should I believe in it?”

n  The Fox and the Forestn (Three Stars)

People who traveled back in time to avoid a large war going on in the future are being hunted.

“We were born in the year 2155 A.D. And we lived in a world that was evil.”

n  The Last Night of the Worldn (Three Stars)

A whole bunch of people had the same dream about the end of the world.

“What would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?”

n  The Concrete Mixern (Three Stars)

This is about a war with Earth and a reluctant alien soldier who struggles with what he finds on the planet he invades.

“He looked at the haunted faces of the Earthmen drifting violently along in their mechanical death boxes.”

n  The Highwayn (Three Stars)

A farmer interacts with people driving by after the civilized world ends due to atom bombs.

“Over the years there had not been an hour when a car had not pulled up, someone shouting, ‘Hey there, can we take your picture?’”

I love short stories. To be able to pack such a punch in just a handful of pages, each word has to be meaningful, each metaphor perfect, each phrase exquisitely crafted and The Illustrated Man is chock-full of stories with staying power.

As Bradbury mentions in his introduction, these stories are possible answers to "What if?" questions. Some are humorous, some downright frightening, some thought-provoking. He starts out with a bang: the short story "The Veldt." Those two children are straight out of a horror flick, as is the little girl in "Zero Hour." Yikes. Makes me want to pay more attention to what my children are doing when they are supposedly playing happily by themselves...

The quiet resignation in "The Last Night of the World;" the sheer terror followed by grudging acceptance of the unthinkable in "Kaleidoscope;" the irresistible pull of the stars in "The Rocket Man;" the slow descent into insanity in "No Particular Night or Morning;" the father's love in "The Rocket." All beautifully done.

It's hard to pick any one that sticks with me most, but I'll definitely be pondering the meaning of "The Man" for a long time to come. And the implicit message of equality and forgiveness and grace in "The Other Foot" was revolutionary for the time when it was written and published (1951, folks, more than a decade before the Civil Right Act).

Good stuff...

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