Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Bantam Doubleday Dell (1978)
Description
This is a collection of short stories from the pen of Ray Bradbury.
User reviews
LibraryThing member blake.rosser
Back when I first read both of them in high school, I used to think of Bradbury in the same breath as Asimov. Only now do I see the vast gulf that separates the two. Bradbury is actually a writer, whereas Asimov was mostly an idea man.
In reading this short story collection, I'm struck by two
My favorite stories in this collection are "A Sound of Thunder," "The Long Rain," the famous "Here There Be Tygers," and the lengthy "Frost and Fire." I was surprised particularly at the last one since it seems like a fairly juvenile, middle-schooly premise ("What if humans only lived for eight days?"), yet he makes it work by sheer force of passion.
He begins the book with the weakest stories, IMO, mostly because they're marred by his stalwart faith in technology and the human pursuit of immortality. Only later in the collection does it become apparent that he is questioning this mindset, and he ends with two very earthy, non-scifi stories that deal only in pleasant feelings of childhood.
After not reading Bradbury in a long time, I think I'm going to have to go revisit more of his stuff. I encourage you to do the same!
In reading this short story collection, I'm struck by two
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things: a) the poetry of his words, and b) the sheer breadth of the subjects he broaches and tones he portrays. I never realized how versatile he was. A lot of his stuff is just bizarre (I'm talking about you, "Uncle Einar"), but it all deals with very real sentiments and very real human emotions of sadness, hope and nostalgia. I guess above all I would describe Bradbury as a nostalgic writer, which is ironic since he spent so much of his time writing about the future.My favorite stories in this collection are "A Sound of Thunder," "The Long Rain," the famous "Here There Be Tygers," and the lengthy "Frost and Fire." I was surprised particularly at the last one since it seems like a fairly juvenile, middle-schooly premise ("What if humans only lived for eight days?"), yet he makes it work by sheer force of passion.
He begins the book with the weakest stories, IMO, mostly because they're marred by his stalwart faith in technology and the human pursuit of immortality. Only later in the collection does it become apparent that he is questioning this mindset, and he ends with two very earthy, non-scifi stories that deal only in pleasant feelings of childhood.
After not reading Bradbury in a long time, I think I'm going to have to go revisit more of his stuff. I encourage you to do the same!
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LibraryThing member HippieLunatic
Bradbury's grasp on human connections and how we relate to one another, both in our every day lives and in the fantastic environments we might someday hope to encounter is perfect in my opinion. Stories dealing with fatherhood made me cry. Stories dealing with censorship made me angry at a world
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that may someday lose such brilliance as Bradbury himself. Show Less
LibraryThing member RBeffa
'R is for Rocket' is a collection of collections, primarily science fiction as one would expect by the title. Most of Bradbury's writing I would not call science fiction, but with this it is. All but two of the stories had previously appeared in other collections when they were brought together
Bradbury was rarely an idea man like perhaps Arthur C Clarke. He's a stylist. A fabulist. Many other things. He really can't be pigeonholed as a "type." Every story here isn't fabulous. The truth is that the science fiction feels very dated. Every story was written before there was a single satellite in space. There is even one in the middle ("The Exiles") I quite dislike. The collection begins a little weak frankly, but once it gets going, it goes. "The Rocket" is a sad but sweet tale that I had completely forgotten about and really enjoyed it. "The Fog Horn" is perhaps an even sadder story than I remembered. As a bit of trivia, the story, or a version of it, was first published in The Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1951. The title then (and the subsequent very loose movie interpretation) was ... "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms."
The story that really knocked me out the first time I read this collection was "Frost and Fire." Re-reading this story I remembered a few of the essential elements but had forgotten most of the story. Honestly it doesn't carry quite the impact that it had long ago, but the central idea of it and how the story was done is still amazing. A 70 year old tale that still kicks butt.
I read "Here There Be Tygers" last year in an old anthology. It is a great story. Here's what I wrote then: "Bradbury's opening story is kind of neat. It is an allegorical piece, an ecological tale, of a sentient planet like Eden. Remind yourself this was written in 1951. If you're like me a Star Trek episode from the 60's will probably come to mind. "
The last two stories in the collection are extracts from Dandelion Wine.
In sum, reading this again was a bit of a disappointment. Something of an exercise in nostalgia. It didn't keep me from enjoying this a lot.
The included stories are:
1 • R Is for Rocket • (1943)
16 • The End of the Beginning • (1956)
21 • The Fog Horn • (1951)
29 • The Rocket • (1950)
39 • The Rocket Man • (1951)
50 • The Golden Apples of the Sun • (1953)
57 • A Sound of Thunder • (1952)
69 • The Long Rain • (1950)
83 • The Exiles • (1949)
97 • Here There Be Tygers • (1951)
110 • The Strawberry Window • (1955)
118 • The Dragon • (1955)
121 • The Gift • (1952)
124 • Frost and Fire • (1946) • novella
164 • Uncle Einar • (1947)
172 • The Time Machine • Dandelion Wine • (1955)
179 • The Sound of Summer Running • Dandelion Wine • (1956)
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here in 1962. Think of this as Mr B's greatest hits for boys. and some girls. and who cares what your age is. When I first read this in 1976 I was already familiar with several of the stories from other collections, but reading what amounted to a collection of hits in one place put this one high on my favorites list. Re-reading it all these years later I am still amazed by some of these stories. They take me back just a little to that magic "sense of wonder" feeling one has as a youth. Bradbury was rarely an idea man like perhaps Arthur C Clarke. He's a stylist. A fabulist. Many other things. He really can't be pigeonholed as a "type." Every story here isn't fabulous. The truth is that the science fiction feels very dated. Every story was written before there was a single satellite in space. There is even one in the middle ("The Exiles") I quite dislike. The collection begins a little weak frankly, but once it gets going, it goes. "The Rocket" is a sad but sweet tale that I had completely forgotten about and really enjoyed it. "The Fog Horn" is perhaps an even sadder story than I remembered. As a bit of trivia, the story, or a version of it, was first published in The Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1951. The title then (and the subsequent very loose movie interpretation) was ... "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms."
The story that really knocked me out the first time I read this collection was "Frost and Fire." Re-reading this story I remembered a few of the essential elements but had forgotten most of the story. Honestly it doesn't carry quite the impact that it had long ago, but the central idea of it and how the story was done is still amazing. A 70 year old tale that still kicks butt.
I read "Here There Be Tygers" last year in an old anthology. It is a great story. Here's what I wrote then: "Bradbury's opening story is kind of neat. It is an allegorical piece, an ecological tale, of a sentient planet like Eden. Remind yourself this was written in 1951. If you're like me a Star Trek episode from the 60's will probably come to mind. "
The last two stories in the collection are extracts from Dandelion Wine.
In sum, reading this again was a bit of a disappointment. Something of an exercise in nostalgia. It didn't keep me from enjoying this a lot.
The included stories are:
1 • R Is for Rocket • (1943)
16 • The End of the Beginning • (1956)
21 • The Fog Horn • (1951)
29 • The Rocket • (1950)
39 • The Rocket Man • (1951)
50 • The Golden Apples of the Sun • (1953)
57 • A Sound of Thunder • (1952)
69 • The Long Rain • (1950)
83 • The Exiles • (1949)
97 • Here There Be Tygers • (1951)
110 • The Strawberry Window • (1955)
118 • The Dragon • (1955)
121 • The Gift • (1952)
124 • Frost and Fire • (1946) • novella
164 • Uncle Einar • (1947)
172 • The Time Machine • Dandelion Wine • (1955)
179 • The Sound of Summer Running • Dandelion Wine • (1956)
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LibraryThing member ahooper04
Great collection of sci-fi stories that will be remembered throughout life.
LibraryThing member andyray
This is one of the most imaginative and consistently qualatative coollections I've come across. At least two of thesed stories were adpated for television shows andc a few others have earned the ehphemism "classic. " "The :Long Rain" was renamed "Thed Sun Dome" and shown as an episode of "Twilight
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Zone" back when it was black and white. For bibliohiles, especially those who tend toward works of the macabre, mysterious, or mystical, "The Exiles" shall surely entertain you. With the novelette "Frost and Fire," the mature Bradbury brings out the violent nature of man, his need for war, and the acts that propel him, finally, above that animalsim. Show Less
LibraryThing member Smokler
Uneven. When it's great, its Bradbury's best. When it's not, it reads like "rockets, rockets, rockets, childhood wonder" and never breaks the pattern. Spotty great rather than sustainably good.
LibraryThing member CitizenMarc
Just reading the story titles - drawn as they almost all are from different previously published works of varying quality (from 'good' to 'masterpiece for all time') - sends shivers of delight down my spine. This may well be because it was one of my first discoveries - for and by myself - of a
My discovery of 'R is for Rocket' and (to me at the time) the less pleasing 'S is for Space' occurred when browsing the entire contents, book by book, of the innovative children's library section of the town library - my shelter and refuge after school from the age of eleven (the ideal age to start sipping Bradbury's Dandelion Wine and ordering from mysterious catalogues that only existed for me in RB's writing, or visiting travelling circuses that were entirely 'verboten' in my juvenile life...) That library must have had between 1,000 and perhaps twice or even three times as many books, but I'd soon scanned (at least), speed read, or borrowed every single volume suitabke for my own actual age and beyond (entire series of Biggles, Bunter, Famous Five Go..., Secret Seven, Hardy Boys, Swallows and Amazons, Just William.. [still a favourite] and a single book that changed my life, Gwyn Jones' translation / adaptation from the mediaeval Welsh of 'Tales of the Mabinogion', because it inspired me to surmount great difficulties and become a fluent Welsh speaker and the stories themselves provided me with perpetual inspiration.
But as my own (tested) reading age at ten years old was already 18+, I was soon into browsing the adult and reference libraries - for everything Bradbury, then Asimov, then Clarke, then PK Dick, then JG Ballard, then... I was away... into History, Astronomy, Physics, Egyptology, Arthurology, pre-history and ethnology, dictionaries, encyclopedias, until there was less and less time for fiction... for a while at least, until I discovered poetry and politics! I certainly didn't understand or properly appreciate most of what I read at the time but Bradbury had given me ever expanding (universal!) horizons.
Bradbury remains an author who I think deserves abiding respect, not just for thinking of young adults as he wrote and published, but for all his other forays into writing (plays, essays, radio lectures..) and his under-appreciated foresight into the damaging impact of American culture on others (and he appreciated and loved the finest nuances of cultures he visited, like a wise and amused uncle - Mexico and Ireland in particular).
'Uncle' Ray, you gave this lonely kid a good reading start in life - the very best in fact.
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favourite author who has remained so, even though I now baulk at some of his writing's typical characteristics (whimsy, romanticisation, a tendency to rococco indulgence at times - perhaps an intimation of American Gothic?). My discovery of 'R is for Rocket' and (to me at the time) the less pleasing 'S is for Space' occurred when browsing the entire contents, book by book, of the innovative children's library section of the town library - my shelter and refuge after school from the age of eleven (the ideal age to start sipping Bradbury's Dandelion Wine and ordering from mysterious catalogues that only existed for me in RB's writing, or visiting travelling circuses that were entirely 'verboten' in my juvenile life...) That library must have had between 1,000 and perhaps twice or even three times as many books, but I'd soon scanned (at least), speed read, or borrowed every single volume suitabke for my own actual age and beyond (entire series of Biggles, Bunter, Famous Five Go..., Secret Seven, Hardy Boys, Swallows and Amazons, Just William.. [still a favourite] and a single book that changed my life, Gwyn Jones' translation / adaptation from the mediaeval Welsh of 'Tales of the Mabinogion', because it inspired me to surmount great difficulties and become a fluent Welsh speaker and the stories themselves provided me with perpetual inspiration.
But as my own (tested) reading age at ten years old was already 18+, I was soon into browsing the adult and reference libraries - for everything Bradbury, then Asimov, then Clarke, then PK Dick, then JG Ballard, then... I was away... into History, Astronomy, Physics, Egyptology, Arthurology, pre-history and ethnology, dictionaries, encyclopedias, until there was less and less time for fiction... for a while at least, until I discovered poetry and politics! I certainly didn't understand or properly appreciate most of what I read at the time but Bradbury had given me ever expanding (universal!) horizons.
Bradbury remains an author who I think deserves abiding respect, not just for thinking of young adults as he wrote and published, but for all his other forays into writing (plays, essays, radio lectures..) and his under-appreciated foresight into the damaging impact of American culture on others (and he appreciated and loved the finest nuances of cultures he visited, like a wise and amused uncle - Mexico and Ireland in particular).
'Uncle' Ray, you gave this lonely kid a good reading start in life - the very best in fact.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kevn57
Another reread that contains some of Bradbury's best short fiction. My three favorites are FROST AND FIRE, A SOUND OF THUNDER and THE SOUND OF SUMMER RUNNING.
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1962
Physical description
8.3 inches
ISBN
0553119311 / 9780553119312