The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

 

 

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

Based on fond memories of Fahrenheit 451 and the Martian Chronicles, which I must have both read over 30 years ago, I grabbed this collection of short stories. Rarely, I think, I have a suffered this long to go through a book this short. When reading 40s / 50s SciFi, I always wonder how well it will have aged, and in the case of this collection of stories, I can only say that it really hasn't. It's not so much the technology (though the stories are riddled with Tintin style rockets) but rather the societal outlook that struck me as beyond quaint. Even when reading Asimov, not the most progressive of Sci Fi writers by a long stretch, I didn't feel the pervading ossified social structure omnipresent here that is so 1950s America. There is one short story in the collection that I would put aside, called The Other Foot. Written around 1950 it deals with race relations in a way that must have been truly groundbreaking (and controversial) for the time. Apart from that though, I never really got into this collection. I am now wondering if I should reread Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 or stay with my fond memories...