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9780007303632

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'Let us now praise Ray Bradbury, the uncrowned poet laureate of science fiction.' The Times 'It is impossible not to admire the vigour of his prose, similes and metaphors constantly cascading from his imagination' Spectator 'Bradbury has a remarkable range of intensity and vision' Sunday Times 'Bradbury is an authentic original' Time Magazine 'No other writer uses language with greater originality and zest. he seems to be a American Dylan Thomas -- with discipline' Sunday Telegraph

Never-before-published stories from the prolific - and increasingly nostalgic - author of classics such as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.In the introduction to this collection, Bradbury (Now and Forever, 2007, etc.) advises the reader to enjoy the stories rather than think about them too much. Just try to love them as I love them, and these are indeed stories for enjoyment rather than for existential agony. We find here the usual range: some stories are sci-fi right out of the 1950s, some are eerily edgy, and some are a bit dewy-eyed. In Fly Away Home, Bradbury revisits familiar territory, the colonization of Mars. After a six-month, 60-million-mile voyage on the First Rocket, the pioneers almost immediately feel alienated and alone on the harsh Red planet, but the team psychiatrist had anticipated this estrangement and arranged for a Second Rocket to arrive, one containing all the accoutrements of Main Street and its sentimental attachments to the home planet - the crew is even able to get pineapple malts at the Martian drugstore. In Arrival and Departure, one of Bradbury's most poignant flights of fancy, an old couple finally escapes their dreary indoor life and exultingly drinks in the glories of spring only to discover by the end of the day that they're much more comfortable in the circumscribed and lonely life they've been living in their house. In the amusing A Literary Encounter, Charlie takes on the persona of whatever literary work he happens to be reading at the moment. His wife Marie is not too pleased when Charlie's reading the expansive Thomas Wolfe or the ultraformal Samuel Johnson, so she persuades him to get reacquainted with the ten romantic books he was absorbed in when he was courting her.Nothing too surprising, but the stories are pleasant and evocative. (Kirkus Reviews)

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One of the greatest writers of science fiction and fantasy in the world today, Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1934. To this day Ray Bradbury still lives in Los Angeles. So far he has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was just twenty years old. Among his many famous works are Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles.

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