REVIEW: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

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American literature, book reviews, classic short stories, classics, fiction, Ray Bradbury, science fiction, short stories, The Illustrated Man

It was a warm afternoon in early September when I first met the Illustrated Man. 

“In these eighteen startling visions of humankind’s destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin, living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets.”

I’ve had a copy of The Illustrated Man for practically forever, and as soon as I opened the book I was sorry that I had let it languish for so long on my shelves. Because these stories are good. As the book progressed, they did start to blur together, but perhaps that’s fitting given their medium. And anyway, the vast majority of these stories wowed me. Some of them are quite frightening. 

The book begins with the narrator encountering the Illustrated Man, a man completely covered in tattoos, who tells the story of how he got them (and how he curses them now). When night falls, the beautiful images on his body begin to move, and stories unfold…

The first story, “The Veldt”, is perhaps one of the most disturbing in the whole collection. It tells of a world where even the simplest tasks are accomplished by machines: there’s a toastmaking machine, and a shoetying machine, and a painting pictures machine. And there are nurseries which can be set to different backgrounds, moving wallpapers, if you will. They’re supposed to be just images, and you’re supposed to change them frequently, but one family’s children have an obsession with the African savanna (or veldt). As you might imagine, things do not end well.

There are eighteen stories, and about half of them really stuck with me as being quite good. I’m only going to talk about them. The others were fine too, but just not as compelling. Bradbury really excels at his depictions of nightmarish futuristic worlds, nightmarish because they seem so plausible. Like Neil Gaiman, he’s also a master at turning situations upside down, reversing them from what they normally are. Such is the case in the third story, “The Other Foot”, in which African Americans fled white oppression and built their own colony on Mars. Then one day a rocket with a white man arrives…what follows is a fascinating and wry exploration of whether two wrongs make a right. I’d heard of this story before, and it was quite good.

“The Man” and “The Long Rain” are both about Earthmen’s planetary explorations, although in different ways. “The Man” explores the jaded disbelief of the modern man, who must have facts, facts, and more facts. “The Long Rain” resonated with me given where I live; in it, Venus is a place where it perennially rains, and there’s no escaping it, unless you get to one of the fabled Sun Domes. Otherwise, you’ll die. It was such a chilling story, yet so good.

I also enjoyed “The Rocket Man”, “The Last Night of the World”, and while I didn’t like “The Exiles” very much, there were definitely shades of F-451 in it; the story deals with the burning and banishing of subversive books and authors.

“The Fox and the Forest” was very frightening but masterfully crafted; so was “The Visitor”, which showcased the ugliness of human nature and how in fighting over something precious we ruin it for everyone. “The Concrete Mixer” was also uncanny, as was “Marionettes, Inc.”.”The City” may be one of the scariest in the whole book; it’s about a metropolis with a life of its own and a desire for vengeance. Overall I enjoyed this book; some of the stories I’m sure I’ll treasure, and the overall conceit is a good one.

281 pages.

Rating: ****

REVIEW: Rags & Bones, edited by Melissa Marr & Tim Pratt

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book reviews, fairy tale retellings, fairy tales, Melissa Marr, Neil Gaiman, Rags & Bones, Rags and Bones, retellings, science fiction, short stories, Tim Pratt, YA, YA fantasy, young adult, young adult fantasy

From “That the Machine May Progress Eternally”: It isn’t until he’s nearing the bottom of the ladder that Tavil realizes his sister hasn’t followed him. He stares up the narrow tunnel to the surface expecitng to see her there, but instead he finds nothing except darkness capped by a wash of stars. 

“Literature is filled with sexy, deadly, and downright twisted tales. In this collection, award-winning and bestselling authors reimagine their favorite classic stories, ones that have inspired, awed, and enraged them; ones that have become ingrained in modern culture; and ones that have been too long overlooked. They take these stories and boil them down to their bones, and then reassemble them for a new generation of readers.” 

Going in, I knew that a collection like this had the potential to either be really good or not so great, but as with most short story collections, was most likely to be a mix of the two. That actually wasn’t the case; I loved almost all of the stories included, despite not having read many of the original texts or many of these authors. They each had similar elements but were distinctive, offering their own delights and thrills. 

Almost all of the stories were amazing; they all had a certain chilling element in common, with many of them ending in similar fashions, and each one kept me absorbed until I had finished. Although the first story, Carrie Ryan’s “That the Machine May Progress Eternally” started off oddly, with little development, I was quickly sucked in by its chilling portrayal of an underground world in which the Machine regulates every facet of people’s lives; they basically don’t have to do anything. A boy from aboveground gets trapped in the Machine’s world, and although he initially longs to get back home, eventually he succumbs to the torpor and the easiness of life below-ground; his descent was awful to read, and the story was quite skillfully written. It was inspired by an E.M. Forster story

The second story,  Garth Nix’s “Losing Her Divinity”, was probably the oddest one in the collection, but it was quite hilarious, with a very pedantic, scholarly protagonist narrating both the past and the present (you see, he’s being interrogated by a rather violent intruder who periodically interrupts his very wordy account of events). It ends rather predictably, but was good for a laugh and a chill.

The next story is by Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite contemporary authors. “The Sleeper and the Spindle” is a mix of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, and the traditional sleeping beauty myth is turned on its head. Yes, it is a beauty who sleeps, but not the one you might think. And it is Snow White and several faithful dwarves who journey to the palace behind the rose vines. I have to say that I wasn’t expecting the twist towards the end, and I was awed and shocked by Gaiman’s mastery, and yes, chilled.

“The Cold Corner” is a more contemporary story, although it’s certainly still fantasy. The main character, TJ, returns to his North Carolina hometown after five years for a family reunion. But things become surreal, with the little town warping and twisting, and TJ’s not sure if he’s going mad or not. But then he stumbles into a bar called T.J’s…I enjoyed the Southern jargon here, and while I predicted some elements of the story, not all of them were so obvious.

I’m generally not a fan of vampire-related stories, but Holly Black’s “Millcara” was pretty good, certainly spine-tingling in its own way. It’s intriguingly narrated by the vampire/fiend herself, and while I was disturbed her, I was also sympathetic. Which was of course the point.

“When We Were Gods” is also science fiction, set in an unnerving futuristic society where certain classes of people live forever and can frequently change their bodies (their memories are downloaded onto a card and inserted into the new bodies). There are also those who are not immortal; it’s the story of a love between an immortal and mortal, and like most loves between vastly different kinds of people, it does not end well. I loved this harrowing story too.

“Sirocco” was to me one of the weakest stories in the collection; a modern-day horror story based on The Castle of Otranto. However, I didn’t find it that compelling or entertaining. It was funny at times, and I suppose the ending was sort of shocking, but other than that, it wasn’t impressive at all.

I enjoyed “Awakened”, which deals with selkie lore. The portrayal of Leo, a not totally evil man who controls the selkie chilled me to my very bones; it was uncannily realistic and hit home. I loved the ending; it felt like such a release.

“New Chicago” was another excellent post-apocalyptic story; again, it definitely had that chill factor down pat, with a monkey’s paw that grants wishes – but not in the way you’d want. Not at all. “The Soul Collector” was also set in a seedy, filthy world, and had its points too.

I admit to skipping the next story, based in part on the Faerie Queen. I really don’t have an excuse except that it didn’t interest me. The final story, “Uncaged”, was something of a disappointment. I got what Gene Wolfe was getting it, but I didn’t enjoy reading it very much.

Overall, though, I definitely enjoyed this collection, and there were only a couple of stories that I didn’t love. The idea of the collection was so great, and thankfully it delivered. I love the way the original stories were used, and the new stories weren’t exact modern replicas of them or anything. They really were boiled down to their bare bones and then stitched together with a dash of the author’s own distinctive style and their own personal touches. Many of the contributors talking about using parts of their own heritage and background. Although many of the stories had similar elements, each was compelling in its own way.

349 pages.

Rating: *****

REVIEW: Bobcat and Other Stories by Rebecca Lee

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adult fiction, Bobcat, Bobcat & Other Stories, Bobcat and Other Stories, book reviews, Canadian fiction, Rebecca Lee, short stories, short story

From “Bobcat”: It was the terrine that got to me. I felt queasy enough that I had to sit in the living room and narrate to my husband what was the brutal list of tasks that would result in a terrine: devein, declaw, decimate the sea and other animals, eventually emulsifying them into a paste which could then be riven with whole vegetables. It was like describing to somebody how to paint a Monet, how to turn the beauty of the earth into a blurry, intoxicating swirl, like something seen through the eyes of the dying.

“At turns witty, heartbreaking, and fiercely intelligent, Bobcat and Other Stories establishes Rebecca Lee as one of our most gifted and original short story writers. Using a range of landscapes and countries, Lee creates full worlds, so that each story reads like a short novel. A student plagiarizes a paper and holds fast to her alibi, finding herself complicit in the resurrection of one professor s shadowy past. A dinner party becomes the occasion for the dissolution of more than one marriage. A woman is hired to find a marriage match for the one true soulmate she s ever found. In all, Rebecca Lee traverses the terrain of infidelity, obligation, sacrifice, jealousy, and finally, optimism. She creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled to make sense of their human condition, that it’s impossible not to feel for them when their fragile beliefs of romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fail to provide them with the sort of force field they d hoped for.”

Bobcat was an interesting collection of short stories, with some beautiful language and interesting images. It was certainly different than what I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it. As I was reading, I marked so many passages that were of interest to me that I started having to improvise bookmarks (admittedly, I wasn’t at home). But still, there were so many great and surprising descriptions, especially in the second story in the collection, “The Banks of the Vistula” Here are some of them from that story, which is the one about a student plagiarizing her paper. When the main character walks into the woods, she writes, “I heard about a thousand birds cry, and I craned my neck to see them lighting out from the tips of the elms. They looked like ideas would if suddenly released from the page and given bodies – shocked at how blood actually felt as it ran through the veins, as it sent them wheeling into the west, wings raking, straining against the requirements of such a physical world.” I liked the pun there too (craned). I also liked a description of a certain type of  light as “like the light in fairy tales, rich and creepy.” Rebecca Lee has a thing with light; later in the story a professor gives a lecture as “long autumn rays of sun, embroidered by leaves, covered his face and body.” In the next story, “Slatland”, one of the characters has a name similar to “well-lit” in Romanian, rila. There are lots of other references to light woven throughout many of the stories.

Talking about parties, Rebecca Lee describes a certain type as “deeply cozy, their wildness and noise an affirmation against the formless white midwestern winter surrounding us.”

Really, the magic of these stories is how grounded they are, and how sharply aware the author seems to be of every single line, every single word choice. She writes assuredly, creating piercing portrayals of deeply flawed and human characters and landscapes and settings. I was gripped by each story, a world within a world, and each was interesting in its own way, with different things to ponder, and a different mood and tone to it. 

These stories are so rich, and if not as rich as novels as the jacket claims, almost. I got lost in the world of the characters, in their problems and their weird ways of coping with them (like in “Slatland”). Each story was unique but in a kind of undefinable way seemed to tie back to the preceding stories, as if the characters were all related in some way or other. 

“Min”, the story about a woman hired to find a wife for her “one true soulmate”, wasn’t my favorite story, but as soon as the situation became clear, it got much better. The absurdity and the sadness of the set-up was very affecting. There were also details that were funnily irrelevant; for example, every day the narrator has one cucumber sandwich, a bag of squid chips, and a pomelo for lunch. There are more references to light in this story too; she describes a woman named Rapti who she meets as “living in an apricot light”. There are gleams and rays and shines, and lots of words that are related to light smattered throughout these stories in a clever way, and I thought that was rather interesting, and a good way of loosely tying them all together. 

The design of the book was beautiful too, with paperback flaps, a nice cover image, and a good texture. Somehow the paper quality makes a difference, you know? It’s another element of a book which I can enjoy, and the way the book was structured seemed to really fit it somehow.

I really enjoyed this collection of stories; as in any book of short stories, some were better than others, but they were all pretty good once I got into them. 

209 pages. 

Rating: ****

REVIEW: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

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A Study in Emerald, adult fantasy, adult fiction, book reviews, fantasy, fantasy short stories, fiction, Fragile Things, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, Neil Gaiman, October in the Chair, short stories

From “A Study in Emerald”: It is the immensity, I believe. The hugeness of things below. The darkness of dreams. But I am woolgathering. Forgive me, I am not a literary man.

“A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night . . .Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams–and nightmares . . .In a Hugo Award-winning story, a great detective must solve a most unsettling royal murder in a strangely altered Victorian England . . .These marvelous creations and more showcase the unparalleled invention and storytelling brilliance–and the terrifyingly dark and entertaining wit–of the incomparable Neil Gaiman. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, “Fragile Things” is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most original writers of our time.”

I suppose I must have heard of Fragile Things before in the back of my mind, but I don’t know why I didn’t read it before. After all, it’s Neil Gaiman, an amazing author, and it’s a collection of fantasy short stories, which when done well, can be excellent. That said, I didn’t really enjoy the first story, “A Study in Emerald”, based of course on “A Study in Scarlet”. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read the original story recently enough to get the subtle references to it, but I felt it didn’t do the original justice or display Gaiman’s genius. Some of the other stories were great, though, such as the third one, “October in the Chair”, which is dedicated to Ray Bradbury and is indeed somewhat reminiscent of him. It was a great and entertaining story, with stories within stories. The premise was so great, and as he is wont to do, Gaiman gradually reveals more of it up until the end of the story, which contains more revelations. This happened in “A Study in Emerald”, but less effectively, I think. The descriptions in “October in the Chair” of what the different months are like and of the fall scenery were great too, and I loved the ending so, so much, the way that Gaiman really brought this very good idea to life, although as he says in the introduction, Bradbury might have written it better. Still, he did a really good job. (Hint: Never listen to writers such as Neil Gaiman and John Green when they call a work of theirs bad. It’s usually amazing, and then you feel envious, because if this is their bad stuff, what does their good stuff look like?)

I didn’t like the verse style “stories”, such as “The Fairy Reel” and “The Hidden Chamber”, among a few others. The only poem I liked was “Instructions” (on what to do in a fairy tale); that was pretty funny and cool. I also enjoyed “The Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire.” It exhibited another Gaiman trademark, that of turning the real world upside down, reversing everything. “A Study in Emerald” does this too, but here the stuff of 18th and 19th Gothic horror novels are reality, and the realm of fantasy is that of whole-wheat bread, cars, and computers. It was darkly humorous as well as silly, and though not one of Gaiman’s best, very amusing. More brilliant and strange stories followed, and as in any short story collection, some of the stories were better than others. Overall, though, I loved the book, even though some of the stories were flops. I also really liked the background Gaiman gives about each of the stories in the introduction; it’s worth reading, and there’s a little surprise in it too.

Something else I gleaned from reading Fragile Things is where Erin Morgenstern’s inspiration for the structure and phrasing of her blog and her blurbs comes from. There were many phrases Gaiman used that Morgenstern has borrowed from him, “story-shaped” (she changes it to “novel-shaped”) and “story-stuff” among them. The Night Circus definitely has Gaiman-esque elements to it as well. 

Anyway, I’m very glad I picked Fragile Things up. I’d say that The Ocean at the End of the Lane is still a better Gaiman work since some of these stories weren’t to my liking, but it was an excellent collection full of “short fictions and wonders”, which by the way seems like a phrase Erin Morgenstern might use. Gaiman has another earlier collection of short stories, Smoke and Mirrors, which I’ll probably be checking out. Incidentally, it’s subtitled “short fictions and illusions”, which sounds intriguing.

339 pages.

Rating: ****

From “A Study in Emerald”: It is the immensity, I believe. The hugeness of things below. The darkness of dreams. But I am woolgathering. Forgive me, I am not a literary man.

“A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night . . .Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams–and nightmares . . .In a Hugo Award-winning story, a great detective must solve a most unsettling royal murder in a strangely altered Victorian England . . .These marvelous creations and more showcase the unparalleled invention and storytelling brilliance–and the terrifyingly dark and entertaining wit–of the incomparable Neil Gaiman. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, “Fragile Things” is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most original writers of our time.”

I suppose I must have heard of Fragile Things before in the back of my mind, but I don’t know why I didn’t read it before. After all, it’s Neil Gaiman, an amazing author, and it’s a collection of fantasy short stories, which when done well, can be excellent. That said, I didn’t really enjoy the first story, “A Study in Emerald”, based of course on “A Study in Scarlet”. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read the original story recently enough to get the subtle references to it, but I felt it didn’t do the original justice or display Gaiman’s genius. Some of the other stories were great, though, such as the third one, “October in the Chair”, which is dedicated to Ray Bradbury and is indeed somewhat reminiscent of him. It was a great and entertaining story, with stories within stories. The premise was so great, and as he is wont to do, Gaiman gradually reveals more of it up until the end of the story, which contains more revelations. This happened in “A Study in Emerald”, but less effectively, I think. The descriptions in “October in the Chair” of what the different months are like and of the fall scenery were great too, and I loved the ending so, so much, the way that Gaiman really brought this very good idea to life, although as he says in the introduction, Bradbury might have written it better. Still, he did a really good job. (Hint: Never listen to writers such as Neil Gaiman and John Green when they call a work of theirs bad. It’s usually amazing, and then you feel envious, because if this is their bad stuff, what does their good stuff look like?)

 

I didn’t like the verse style “stories”, such as “The Fairy Reel” and “The Hidden Chamber”, among a few others. The only poem I liked was “Instructions” (on what to do in a fairy tale); that was pretty funny and cool. I also enjoyed “The Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire.” It exhibited another Gaiman trademark, that of turning the real world upside down, reversing everything. “A Study in Emerald” does this too, but here the stuff of 18th and 19th Gothic horror novels are reality, and the realm of fantasy is that of whole-wheat bread, cars, and computers. It was darkly humorous as well as silly, and though not one of Gaiman’s best, very amusing. More brilliant and strange stories followed, and as in any short story collection, some of the stories were better than others. Overall, though, I loved the book, even though some of the stories were flops. I also really liked the background Gaiman gives about each of the stories in the introduction; it’s worth reading, and there’s a little surprise in it too. 

Something else I gleaned from reading Fragile Things is where Erin Morgenstern’s inspiration for the structure and phrasing of her blog and her blurbs comes from. There were many phrases Gaiman used that Morgenstern has borrowed from him, “story-shaped” (she changes it to “novel-shaped”) and “story-stuff” among them. The Night Circus definitely has Gaiman-esque elements to it as well. 

Anyway, I’m very glad I picked Fragile Things up. I’d say that The Ocean at the End of the Lane is still a better Gaiman work since some of these stories weren’t to my liking, but it was an excellent collection full of “short fictions and wonders”, which by the way seems like a phrase Erin Morgenstern might use. Gaiman has another earlier collection of short stories, Smoke and Mirrors, which I’ll probably be checking out. Incidentally, it’s subtitled “short fictions and illusions”, which sounds intriguing.

339 pages. 

Rating: ****