The illustrated man

275 pages

English language

Published 1997

ISBN:: 978-0-380-97384-2

(1 review)

He was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such intricate detail and color that you could bear the voiced murmuring, small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body.

The Illustrated ManRay Bradbury brings wonders alive. A peerless American storyteller, his oeuvre has been celebrated for decades--from The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 to Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

The Illustrated Man is classic Bradbury --a collection of tales that breathe and move, animated by sharp, intaken breath and flexing muscle. Here are eighteen startling visions of humankind's destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin--visions as keen as the tattooist's needle and as colorful as the inks that indelibly stain the body.

The images, ideas, sounds and scents that abound in this phantasmagoric sideshow are provocative and powerful: the mournful cries of celestial travelers cast out cruelly into a vast, empty space …

He was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such intricate detail and color that you could bear the voiced murmuring, small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body.

The Illustrated ManRay Bradbury brings wonders alive. A peerless American storyteller, his oeuvre has been celebrated for decades--from The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 to Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

The Illustrated Man is classic Bradbury --a collection of tales that breathe and move, animated by sharp, intaken breath and flexing muscle. Here are eighteen startling visions of humankind's destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin--visions as keen as the tattooist's needle and as colorful as the inks that indelibly stain the body.

The images, ideas, sounds and scents that abound in this phantasmagoric sideshow are provocative and powerful: the mournful cries of celestial travelers cast out cruelly into a vast, empty space of stars and blackness ... the sight of gray dust settling over a forgotten outpost on a road that leads nowhere ... the pungent odor of Jupiter on a returning father's clothing. Here living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, Martian invasions are foiled by the good life and the glad hand, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets.

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man is a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination, and truth, widely believed to be one of the Grandmaster's premier accomplishments: as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain, and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world.

70 editions

LemmiSchmoeker reviewed The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

A mixture of great, good and mediocre stories by a master storyteller

4 stars

Typically for a Bradbury short story collection, this is a mixture of great, good and mediocre stories. All have in common that they are expertly written, managing to build up tension from the very beginning. The "illustrated man" framing device is a little disappointing as there is no real plot to it, just another mini story that fits into the collection as much as any of the stories can be said to fit into it.

Some of the stories (The Long Rain, in particular, but also lesser ones like The Rocket) are transformative; others (The Other Foot, The Fire Balloons) have a message, and yet others (The Highway, The Rocket Man) are typical New Age fare – but even the most bland show a master storyteller at work who always has something to say, even if it is just a moral …

Typically for a Bradbury short story collection, this is a mixture of great, good and mediocre stories. All have in common that they are expertly written, managing to build up tension from the very beginning. The "illustrated man" framing device is a little disappointing as there is no real plot to it, just another mini story that fits into the collection as much as any of the stories can be said to fit into it.

Some of the stories (The Long Rain, in particular, but also lesser ones like The Rocket) are transformative; others (The Other Foot, The Fire Balloons) have a message, and yet others (The Highway, The Rocket Man) are typical New Age fare – but even the most bland show a master storyteller at work who always has something to say, even if it is just a moral commentary.