General Books

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 208 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A masterpiece of modern Gothic literature, Something Wicked This Way Comes is the memorable story of two boys, James Nightshade and William Halloway, and the evil that grips their small Midwestern town with the arrival of a "dark carnival" one Autumn midnight. How these two innocents, both age 13, save the souls of the town (as well as their own), makes for compelling reading on timeless themes. What would you do if your secret wishes could be granted by the mysterious ringmaster Mr. Dark? Bradbury excels in revealing the dark side that exists in us all, teaching us ultimately to celebrate the shadows rather than fear them. In many ways, this is a companion piece to his joyful, nostalgia-drenched Dandelion Wine, in which Bradbury presented us with one perfect summer as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old. In Something Wicked This Way Comes, he deftly explores the fearsome delights of one perfectly terrifying, unforgettable autumn. --Stanley Wiater

Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 262 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Summer School Book Talk 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I taught summer school this year, and I use this to "break the ice." We listened to the chapter about buying new shoes as a summer tradition and how "new shoes would make [him] run faster."

Dandelion Wine is more memoire, although it has some elements of fantasy in it. It's a feel-good book about being a kid, enjoying summer, and recognizing that life is passing but that what's in the here and now is as precious as the "Dandelion Wine" that the old people make and drink while you (as a kid) hang out under the porch listening to their stories. It's a coming of age book, while at the same time, being a snapshot of childhood.

This story, because it's set in the early 1900's, is timeless. It's a chance to think about endless summer. I paired it with the Beach Boys (which for my sophomores are equally old and classic!!!) and it was a hit.

Editorial Review:

World-renowned fantasist Ray Bradbury has on several occasions stepped outside the arenas of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. An unabashed romantic, his first novel in 1957 was basically a love letter to his childhood. (For those who want to undertake an even more evocative look at the dark side of youth, five years later the author would write the chilling classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.)

Dandelion Wine takes us into the summer of 1928, and to all the wondrous and magical events in the life of a 12-year-old Midwestern boy named Douglas Spaulding. This tender, openly affectionate story of a young man's voyage of discovery is certainly more mainstream than exotic. No walking dead or spaceships to Mars here. Yet those who wish to experience the unique magic of early Bradbury as a prose stylist should find Dandelion Wine most refreshing. --Stanley Wiater

Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not Free SF Reader 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 12 people found this review helpful.

A large collection of quite short stories, published first in all sorts of places, some of them of the mundane variety, which I have taken out. A lot of these in past I have found dated and a bit twee, and it hasn't changed too much now. (3.34 average overall for around 70 of 'em, so not too bad).


Bradbury Stories : The Whole Town's Sleeping - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Rocket ["Outcast of the Stars"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Season of Disbelief - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : And the Rock Cried Out ["The Millionth Murder"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Drummer Boy of Shiloh - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge ["The Beggar on Dublin Bridge"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Flying Machine - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Heavy-Set - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The First Night of Lent - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Lafayette Farewell - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Remember Sascha? - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Junior - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : That Woman on the Lawn - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : February 1999: Ylla ["I'll Not Look for Wine"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Banshee - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : One for His Lordship, and One for the Road! - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Unterderseaboat Doktor ["Unterseeboot Doktor"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Another Fine Mess - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Dwarf - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : A Wild Night in Galway - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Wind - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : No News or What Killed the Dog? - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : A Little Journey - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's Is a Friend of Mine ["The Best of Times"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Garbage Collector - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Visitor - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Man - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Henry the Ninth ["A Final Sceptre, a Lasting Crown"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Messiah - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Bang! You're Dead! [Johnny Choir] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Darling Adolf - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Beautiful Shave - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Colonel Stonesteel's Genuine Home-Made Truly Egyptian Mummy - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : I See You Never - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Exiles ["The Mad Wizards of Mars"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : At Midnight, In the Month of June - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Witch Door - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Watchers - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : 2004-05: The Naming of Names - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Hopscotch - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Dead Man - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : June 2001: And the Moon Be Still as Bright - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Burning Man - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : G.B.S.-Mark V - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : A Blade of Grass - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Sound of Summer Running ["Summer in the Air"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : And the Sailor Home from the Sea ["Forever Voyage"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Lonely Ones - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Finnegan - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : On the Orient, North - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Smiling People - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl ["Touch and Go"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Bug - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Downwind from Gettysburg - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Time in Thy Flight - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Changeling - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Dragon - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Let's Play "Poison" - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Cold Wind and the Warm - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Meadow - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Kilimanjaro Device ["The Kilimanjaro Machine"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Man in the Rorschach Shirt - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Bless Me Father for I Have Sinned - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Pedestrian - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Trapdoor - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Swan - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Sea Shell - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Once More, Legato - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : June 2003: Way in the Middle of the Air - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : By the Numbers! - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : April 2005: Usher II ["Carnival of Madness"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Square Pegs - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Trolley - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Smile - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Miracles of Jamie - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : A Far-Away Guitar ["Miss Bidwell"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Cistern - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Machineries of Joy - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Bright Phoenix - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Wish - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Life Work of Juan Diaz - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Time Intervening ["Interim"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Almost the End of the World - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Great Collision of Monday Last - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Poems - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The April 2006: Long Years - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Icarus Montgolfier Wright - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Death and the Maiden - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Zero Hour - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Toynbee Convector - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Forever and the Earth - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Handler - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Getting Through Sunday Somehow ["Tread Lightly to the Music"] - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Pumpernickel - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : Last Rites - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse - Ray Bradbury
Bradbury Stories : All on a Summer's Night - Ray Bradbury


Killer surprise.

3.5 out of 5


Nifty ride for the kids.

3 out of 5


Resigned to their new world.

3 out of 5


Grass ghost girl.

3.5 out of 5


Noisy dead woman waits for the obnoxious.

4 out of 5


Kaleidoscope periscope.

2.5 out of 5


Ghost return.

2.5 out of 5


Scary little dude.

3.5 out of 5


Unexpected airy visitor.

3.5 out of 5


Losing a dog in the science fiction age.

4 out of 5


Old women spaced.

2.5 out of 5


Nuke 'em, the garbos will clean it up.

3 out of 5


Hypnotist victim of Martian isolated projectile overenthusiasm.

3.5 out of 5


Locals not too impressed by space travellers.

3.5 out of 5


No longer have any use for that royalty rubbish or the country.

3.5 out of 5


Conversion of Martians a tall order.

3 out of 5


Midwestern Egypt.

3 out of 5


Old horror men on the red planet.

3.5 out of 5


Suspect woman.

3.5 out of 5


Insect phobia.

4 out of 5


Martian boot hill.

3 out of 5


Fat man's scary tattoos.

3.5 out of 5


Alive, maybe not, but definitely smelly.

3 out of 5


Chicken pox, and murder.

3 out of 5


Robot play dude.

3 out of 5


Organic life a no-no.

3.5 out of 5


Two hard up guys on Mars, smell woman, start shooting.

3 out of 5


Big spider, it seems.

3.5 out of 5


Ghost on train prefers English tastes.

4 out of 5


Cutthroat dinner.

3.5 out of 5


Dead art and little spiders.

3 out of 5


Dead president possibilities.

3.5 out of 5


Time kids.

2.5 out of 5


Replacement people.

3 out of 5


Iron monster.

3.5 out of 5


Defenestrating death kids.

3.5 out of 5


Complaining about the weather is for the sidhe.

3 out of 5


Time travel timing.

3.5 out of 5


Sensory stunning.

3.5 out of 5


2053 is pretty crime free.

3.5 out of 5


Vertical luggage overload, or really, really big rodents.

4 out of 5


Life tour with deadline.

3.5 out of 5


Sick kid's swimming disappearance.

3 out of 5


Beautiful bird noises.

4 out of 5


Mars trip not popular with all.

2.5 out of 5


Retirement, with a bullet.

3.5 out of 5


Book and ball people.

3.5 out of 5


Ship off the crazy people.

3.5 out of 5


Healing and leading can get you down.

3 out of 5


Well dead.

3.5 out of 5


Priests in space.

3.5 out of 5


Wanted: undead dad.

3.5 out of 5


Unexpected exhumation.

3.5 out of 5


Bad colors.

3 out of 5


Dead cyclist sightings.

3 out of 5


Good writing can be bad for reality.

3 out of 5


Electric people simulation.

4 out of 5


Get lost, Reaper.

3 out of 5


Martian kid games.

3.5 out of 5


Time traveler paradox interview fib pep talk function.

4 out of 5


Futurist writing is tricky.

4 out of 5


Undertaking revenge.

3.5 out of 5


Harping.

3 out of 5


Time travel benediction.

3 out of 5

Editorial Review:

For more than sixty years, the imagination of Ray Bradbury has opened doors into remarkable places, ushering us across unexplored territories of the heart and mind while leading us inexorably toward a profound understanding of ourselves and the universe we inhabit. In this landmark volume, America's preeminent storyteller offers us one hundred treasures from a lifetime of words and ideas. The stories within these pages were chosen by Bradbury himself, and span a career that blossomed in the pulp magazines of the early 1940s and continues to flourish in the new millennium. Here are representatives of the legendary author's finest works of short fiction, including many that have not been republished for decades, all forever fresh and vital, evocative and immensely entertaining.

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 315 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From "Rocket Summer" to "The Million-Year Picnic," Ray Bradbury's stories of the colonization of Mars form an eerie mesh of past and future. Written in the 1940s, the chronicles drip with nostalgic atmosphere--shady porches with tinkling pitchers of lemonade, grandfather clocks, chintz-covered sofas. But longing for this comfortable past proves dangerous in every way to Bradbury's characters--the golden-eyed Martians as well as the humans. Starting in the far-flung future of 1999, expedition after expedition leaves Earth to investigate Mars. The Martians guard their mysteries well, but they are decimated by the diseases that arrive with the rockets. Colonists appear, most with ideas no more lofty than starting a hot-dog stand, and with no respect for the culture they've displaced.

Bradbury's quiet exploration of a future that looks so much like the past is sprinkled with lighter material. In "The Silent Towns," the last man on Mars hears the phone ring and ends up on a comical blind date. But in most of these stories, Bradbury holds up a mirror to humanity that reflects a shameful treatment of "the other," yielding, time after time, a harvest of loneliness and isolation. Yet the collection ends with hope for renewal, as a colonist family turns away from the demise of the Earth towards a new future on Mars. Bradbury is a master fantasist and The Martian Chronicles are an unforgettable work of art. --Blaise Selby

The Illustrated Man

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 208 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

That The Illustrated Man has remained in print since being published in 1951 is fair testimony to the universal appeal of Ray Bradbury's work. Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley Wiater

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1270 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

True Fiction 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

True Fiction
Though this book [Faremhieght 451] is a piece science fiction, it relates in its own little ways to the way the world is today. I, for one, can see this world of ours turning into a world with the same basis and same ideals that make up this book Farenhieght 451; a world which trys to keep everyone happy and careless about everything to the point of making people seemingly mindless, and in the process of doing so they destroy everything that brings people feeling and a individual way of thinking. Farenhieght 451 is a must read for anyone who likes a good philosophical novel.

Editorial Review:

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. The classic novel of a post-literate future, 'Fahrenheit 451' stands alongside Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' as a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Written in the basement of the UCLA library 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I do not want to tell much of the story, as the unfolding is part of the intrigue. However now that houses are fire proof the purpose of firemen is performing a service by burning books to maintain the happy social order.

Naturally one fireman goes awry after several emotional incidences from someone burning up with the books to a young neighbor with strange ways, which run counter to his carrier. This leads to all kinds of deviant things like reading. What are you doing now?

One big rift between the book and the movie [Fahrenheit 451 (1966) -- Oscar Werner, Julie Christie] is that in the movie the "written word" was completely removed (even from the credits); where as in the book the state was against was literature and not technical writing.

Books are just symbols of ideas that could have been on the screen also. There is deference between training and education. Among other reasons the book was a symbol of one mans superiority over another in a world of equals.

Editorial Review:

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires, and he enjoys his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames. He never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid and a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.

The October Country

Ray Bradbury, Joe Mugnaini

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

read and reread 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

A gem. Thematically, the stories are not all that close, but they have great suspense, drama, interesting characters. Memorable.

some gems with some clunkers 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I found the first story to be mildly interesting, if a little predictable, and from there it seemed to slow down a bit. However, I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did, as this collection contains some excellent stories that really build up the suspense until endings that send a shiver through you and leave you feeling (contentedly) disquieted. My favorites were: Skeleton, The Jar, The Small Assassin, and The Scythe. (Maybe add The Wind to this list, on the basis of its ending.)

However, unfortunately, there are a few stories that I felt were a real let-down, and might be better skipped on first reading. Often these stories had some potential building up, but closed on a note that seemed out of nowhere and didn't satisfactorily resolve the strangeness and supernatural aspects of the story. The most egregious was the Jack-in-the-Box, which I would definitely skip, The Emissary and The Cistern were also a little disappointing.

If you enjoy Twilight-Zone/Alfred Hitchcock Presents - type of dark stories, often with a strong obsessive/psychological component, then I would definitely recommend this collection, on the strength of the stories I mentioned in the beginning.

Editorial Review:

Ray Bradbury's first short story collection is back in print, its chilling encounters with funhouse mirrors, parasitic accident-watchers, and strange poker chips intact. Both sides of Bradbury's vaunted childhood nostalgia are also on display, in the celebratory "Uncle Einar," and haunting "The Lake," the latter a fine elegy to childhood loss. This edition features a new introduction by Bradbury, an invaluable essay on writing, wherein the author tells of his "Theater of Morning Voices," and, by inference, encourages you to listen to the same murmurings in yourself. And has any writer anywhere ever made such good use of exclamation marks!?

The Dark Descent

Clive Barker, Ray Bradbury, John Collier, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Multitudinous tome for the horror and preternatural aficionado 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This publication rivals most of the horror/ mystery compilations printed elsewhere. Some of the most consequential and prolific ink slingers of the creepy and the dreary are featured here, and they don't disappoint.

Here, in this volume, you will find it all. The works of King, Bradbury, Jackson, Lovecraft, Poe and many others are at your reading pleasure. Some of my personal favorites: The Beach (King); The Call of the Cthulhu (Lovecraft); Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (Bloch)...I could go on for ever.

Editorial Review:

If you could have only one anthology of dark stories, this would be the one to have. Having observed that "fans of horror fiction most often restrict their reading to books and stories given a horror category label, thus missing some of the finest pleasures in that fictional mode," David G. Hartwell assembles here 56 important tales within an insightful critical framework; his purpose is to "clear the air and broaden future considerations of horror." Several well-known classics are included, but there are also dozens of lesser-known horror tales, including many by science fiction and literary writers. Get one copy for yourself. Get another for that friend or relative who doesn't understand why you like to read horror.