The Illustrated Man

I love this book, but when my copy came here several of the middle pages literally fell out of the book. I was so sad.

I received my good condition copy in an almost like new state, so I was happy with the purchase. I have already read this book and wanted a copy to keep. Bradbury excels at short stories. Different editions have some differences in if certain stories are included or not (described in Wikipedia and other places), so do more research if you want to see certain stories. My Harper Perennial Modern Classics book, for example, doesn't have the story about the priests going on a mission trip to talk to aliens, but I didn't need it because a version of this story is included in the Martian Chronicles.

The edition I bought has a couple errors. For example, in the short story, "No Particular Night or Morning" this edition writes "plants" instead of the correct word "planets." Not huge issues but if you're gonna buy the book, just get another edition. Good book, wood recommend! A little too many short stories on space for my liking though.

Great collection of cosmic short stories!

I have read The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury many times. I will continue to read this wonderful little book. Like most of Bradbury's work, one can never get bored reading his stories. His stories are at times terrible, dark and they are beautiful, fascinating and in many ways a portal to the future. They are also a wonderful escape from the now. The Illustrated Man is more a short story collection woven together by a central theme. The theme is The Illustrated Man. I agree with many other persons that it is important to realize he is illustrated, not tattooed. And how did he get the illustrations? A witch did the illustrations. He has been on the road searching for her ever since she put them on every inch of his flesh. When he finds her, he plans to kill her. Why? The illustrations are magical and move on his body. They are magic. If you look at theme for a period, they will tell you a story. The Illustrated Man moves through 18 stories. "The Veldt" is my favorite story. "The Veldt" is one of the best short stories ever written. I also enjoyed "The Long Rain" (about rain of Venus) and "Marionettes, Inc." (about an artificial intelligence body double being used where a man can go out on the town, but the double ultimately taking the man's place and wife). There are so many great stories ranging from Sci-Fi to mild horror. It is a great book I would recommend for all middle school age and older. Read and Reviewed by Jimmie A. Kepler.

While the cover of the paperback that I read states that Bradbury is "The World's Greatest Living Science Fiction Writer", I respectfully disagree. Science fiction is so broad a field that there is significant overlap with horror and fantasy. I would without question call Bradbury the best author ever in the field of horrific science fiction. For, while his stories are generally based on a scientific theme, the real power is in the horrific aspects of the events. When I was young, my favorite short story was "The Veldt", the first one in this collection of Bradbury's best short stories. A modern house contains what we would now call a holodeck, and instead of the children conjuring up delightful images, they are interested only in a scene of the African veldt, where lions pursue and devour their prey. Complete with the smell, sound and heat of the plains, the parents of the children are concerned that it is unhealthy. The parents try to do something to stop it, but they end up being consumed by the lions conjured up by the room. Most of the other stories deal with the same theme, technology gone wrong. Atomic and biological warfare appears in many of the stories. However, the best part of all the stories is the tension and the unusual endings, often based on the frailties of human psychology. The intertwining of science fiction and horror makes these stories unique and I see a lot of similarities between Bradbury and Stephen King. In this area, he is better than King.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that Ray Bradbury approaches the art of the short story in a very unconventional way. His collections of short stories are often tied together by common sub-themes or settings, although each story could also stand on its own. Such is the case here, though the running theme to the Illustrated Man collection is mostly an abstraction. Apparently the stories here are told by a man's haunted tattoos, but don't worry about that too much. The true theme holding this group of stories together is examinations of human nature and mankind's place in the universe. Bradbury's frequent use of Mars (and occasionally other planets) as a setting, with the obligatory spaceships and technology, is merely his method of creating alternate realities to bring human nature into bold relief. Bradbury's classic examinations of the dark and melancholy side of humanity are well represented here as always, with his trademark poetic writing style and underlying sense of creeping dread. The classic virtual reality tale "The Veldt" is found here, with the typical misuse-of-technology theme presented in an unexpectedly haunting fashion. More evidence that the stock sci-fi themes are merely a thin backdrop can be seen in "The Other Foot," a chilling examination of race relations; or "The Rocket," which deals with the yearning of regular people to reach beyond the confines of Earth. Other winning stories include "Kaleidoscope" and "The Long Rain" which are haunting tales of how human nature can still undermine the greatest achievements of cold technology. So don't concern yourself with the typical sci-fi backdrop, and get in tune with what Ray Bradbury is really talking about.

Conceptually, The Illustrated Man is brilliant from the get-go, including its novel premise of 18 stories as told through the moving tattoos on a man's body; in addition to weaving intricate webs, the Illustrated Man's body art predicts the future. And, oh, what stories are told. As a science fiction writer, it is no surprise that the majority of Bradbury's stories have to do with space and the future (heck, all of space was in the future when these stories were written in the early 50s). Additionally, the majority of the tales are pretty bleak, dealing with dark themes of revenge, futile searches for paradise, and Armageddon. However, save for their near-universal excellence, thought-provocation, and prescience, the similarities end there.Among them: Mars is colonized by black people who have left Earth's prejudices, and await with apprehension the arrival of a white-piloted rocket ship from their former homeland; another planet's soldiers attack Earth and are surprised at the warm welcome they receive, only to learn that they can be conquered by Earth's lousy diet, sedentary ways, and shallow culture as easily as by the planet's military; an assembly of priests travels to Mars to learn about Martian sins, so as to spread God's word and earn converts of the Red plant; an entire city is built with the concept of vengeance in mind, by its citizens who were to perish before being able to exact that revenge themselves; the authors of classic tales of horror, whose works are banned on Earth, are themselves exiled to Mars and only kept alive by the few remaining copies not burned for censorship. There are a couple of lame ducks herein, but even those are salvaged by the beauty of Bradbury's writing. His metaphors and descriptive devices flow from the pages and grant a macabre beauty to even the most desolate of landscapes.

This is one of those "must own" books that you always hear about, in a hundred years this and a handful of other Bradbury books will be considering classics of American literature. Basically a collection of about a guy who has all this illustrations on his body that shows the stories to an unnamed observer. Personally I have no idea why he bothered with the Illustrated Man concept, the stories stand on their own just fine, though it does give him the opportunity to give a great sucker punch ending. And the concept is basically ignored after the second story but hey when the stuff is this good who am I to complain? The stories themselves, like I said are all excellent, some more than others but it's mostly the distinction between "real good" and "really really really good". The highlights are the opening "The Veldt" which is classic Bradbury and some story about some guys on Venus who are going crazy from getting rained on and a few others. Most of his stories are science-fictional, often revolving in one way or another around rockets but Bradbury deals less with actual science and more about fantasy and dreams, leading to some real good touching moments, above all his stories are about people, they just happened to be set in the future on Mars. Some are sentimental, some are creepy, some are funny but all are good. And it's quick reading, so you have no excuse. Get it today