When I found out Ray Bradbury died back in June, I was admittedly heartbroken. He was one of my first introductions to sci-fi, and aside from one book, I’ve always enjoyed his work. (Still not a fan of Something Wicked This Way Comes.) But admittedly, I haven’t read very much from Bradbury so I quickly rectified this.

So I picked up this collection, notably containing “The Fog Horn” and “A Sound of Thunder,” to help bolster my collection. And I did like this collection. The both halves of the book contain more introspective slice-of-life tales that do take a darker look at the nostalgic days of childhood that Bradbury really likes (particularly with “I See You Never” and “The Big Black and White Game”) as well as genre-defying tales (STRONG reads for “The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind,” “Embroidery” and “The Exiles.”) And yet, there’s also ones that don’t work for me. (Like the aforementioned “A Sound of Thunder.” I know, classic but…I don’t know. Maybe because I know the twist already.)

That said, I do like this collection, and would give it a fair shot to anyone l think would like a quick handful of short reads.
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overall this was a great book. it's a collection which includes sci-fi, fantasy, and a couple regular fiction stories. a few of the stories were not to my liking so much but some of my favorites were The Fog Horn, The April Witch, The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl, The Murderer, Embroidery, Sun and Shadow, A Sound of Thunder, and The Exiles. ( )

A retrospective of the most well-known of Bradbury's early stories, this collection includes several classics, a few clunkers and a handful of surprising gems. Bradbury switches genres with ease, dabbling in science fiction, horror, fantasy and general fiction with ease.

"A Sound of Thunder" is the most well known story here, a tale of time travel and its possible consequences on the present. Many of the stories, especially those selected from his earlier collection R is for Rocket, center on a quaint notion of space travel. These tend to have not aged well.

My personal favorite was "Frost and Fire", a tale of a group of humans stranded on a Mercury-like planet; due to the intense heat of daytime and the subzero temperatures at night, they can only venture out of their caves at dawn and dusk for an hour each time. Due to the planet's proximity to its star, the radiation has altered their metabolism so that their lifespan lasts 8 days; in those 8 days they experience birth, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, middle age, old age and death. One young man attempts to escape the planet and its 8 day death sentence.

Overall, even the less refined stories deserve a perusal as Bradbury turns a phrase like few other writers. ( )

This is one of two books that introduced me to the short stories of Ray Bradbury. An excellent collection of earlier stories, it's hard not to find something in this book that speaks to you. A few of the stories that stand out immediately are The Fog Horn, in which a lighthouse is visited by a sea monster, attracted by the sound of,well, a fog horn. It evokes such a feeling of loneliness and alienation, it stays with the reader long after closing the book. A Sound of Thunder is another standout, and is often credited with inspiring the term 'the butterfly effect,' in which a small action by a time traveller visiting the past can have enormous repercussions in the present. One of my favorites in the collection is The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl, a darkly humorous story that one could imagine being adapted as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

It would be silly for me to mention every story in the book in this review, but there are thirty-two of the best short stories of the twentieth century contained within those pages. Any fan of Ray Bradbury would be remiss in overlooking this collection. ( )