This is a series of short stories, most of which have very little to do with the sci-fi the author is best known for. I read it a long time ago and had a vaguely fond memory of it, but my renewed acquaintance from listening to the audio version very recently left me really disappointed. I don't know if it's because I've changed significantly (I probably have) or if I just liked one or two stories from my original reading, and kept a favorable impression of those few while forgetting all the other very forgettable ones. That latter, I think, is the most likely explanation, but my current take is that I did not like this overall, and cannot commend it.
Part of the problem was the reader, MacLeod Andrews, which is about as Scots a name as you can get for someone born in Kentucky. I had the erroneous impression from his voice that he was a lot older than he seems to be, but what bothered me is that his voice is overly dramatic, and he's not up to doing female voices at all. Why they even chose a male reader given that so many stories in this collection center around a female character, I cannot for the life of me figure, but there it is. I didn't like his reading. Even had that been perfect though, there were still far too many dislikes in the stories for this to get a favorable rating from me.
The stories are these:
- The Fog Horn This was too much and Bradbury evidently has no idea of evolution, the age of the Earth or of species resilience! Even casting all that aside the story was a bit flat and made little sense.
- The Pedestrian About a guy who walks at night alone since everyone else is home glued to the TV. He's arrested because the dumb cops can't figure out what a writer can possibly write about. They don't seem to get that the TV shows require writers. Dumb.
- The April Witch About Cecy, a witch who can possess humans and influence their choices, and who tries to get a girl named Ann to become involved with a guy, Tom, who the witch actually likes for herself. It felt like Cecy was a bit of a trouble-maker trying to fulfil her own wishes instead of seeking to help Ann or Tom.
- The Wilderness was a whiny, rambling, boring story about a couple embarking on a flight to Mars.
- The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl was a story I liked, about a criminal so obsessed with cleaning every last possible trace of his presence from a murder scene that he's still there cleaning when the police arrive the next morning.
- Invisible Boy I do not remember this story at all!
- The Flying Machine about a paranoid Chinese emperor who is determined not to upset the apple cart when a citizen creates wings he can fly with, and who orders the man and all witnesses to be executed.
- The Murderer I liked this one and can even identify with it since it's more à propos now than ever. A man is so sick of his life being taken over and controlled by machines that he starts sabotaging - in effect, murdering - the machines and is arrested.
- The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind about a war between two Asian villages in the philosophy of city wall building. Not great but not awful.
- I See You Never about illegal immigration. Not very good.
- Embroidery about a woman who unpicks her entire embroidered work because of one small error. Tedious.
- The Big Black and White Game A story of a black team playing baseball with a white team in the annual village game. The way Bradbury fawns and salivates over the black players is downright racist.
- A Sound of Thunder A decent and enjoyable, if dated, story about one panicked dinosaur hunter making a tiny but significant change in the distant past and how it reflected itself into his present when he returns. Nothing like the eponymous movie that was made from this same story.
- The Great Wide World Over There I do not remember this story!
- Powerhouse I think this was about a woman who I couldn't tell if she was old or dying or what because it was so badly told, but who rides to a power generating facility with her husband and inside she gets regenerated by the power. It was ridiculous and made no sense.
- En la Noche don't recall this one at all!
- Sun and Shadow This was a tedious story about a dick named Ricardo who objects to a photographer taking pictures of fashion models not only outside his house, but anywhere in his village. Dumb. I don't know what it is with Bradbury and Mexicans or Bradbury and Chinese, but Ricardo needed a swift kick in the nuts.
- The Meadow Don't recall this one, it may be one of several I skipped.
- The Garbage Collector Don't recall.
- The Great Fire Don't recall.
- Hail and Farewell Don't recall.
- The Golden Apples of the SunI know for a fact this is one of several I skipped.
- R Is for Rocket Don't recall.
- The End of the Beginning Don't recall.
- The Rocket Man dishonestly builds a fake rocket and misleads his kids into thinking they went into space. DNF'd it.
- The Rocket Man Silly story about a dick who abandons his family to fly rockets and hypocritically makes his son promise never to do it. Rip-off of Icarus. He earns a well-deserved fate when his rocket gets sucked into the sun.
- The Long Rain Chinese water torture in which people land on Venus only to find it rains constantly and the rain drives them mad. Barf! Bradbury knew shit about Venus.
- The Exiles tedious story about death.
- Here There Be Tygers A planet with a personality likes to keep people happy, but all of these assholes save one, leave and lie about it. Yawn.
- The Strawberry Window Skipped this one.
- The Dragon idiotic story about two knights aiming to take on a dragon which turns out to be a steam engine, Dumb.
- Frost and Fire Utterly dumb story about people who live for only eight days.
- Uncle Einar So tired of these stories that I skipped this one
- The Time Machine and this one.
- The Sound of Summer Running and this.
This was a waste of my time and money. I don't commend it - I condemn it. It's tedious, and way out of date now.
