I am way late to the Ray Bradbury party. I’ve been reading old sci-fi since I was young, but other than Fahrenheit 451 in grade 10 I never opened another book of his until a couple of years ago.

Don’t be like me, start today. Start with this one or Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury is the writer that Stephen King most idolizes, and you can see the connection very clearly here.

Bradbury was a rare literary writer in the class of nerds that made up the Golden Age. The range that he had was incredible – much like an author like Ted Chiang today, but even more versatile. He is best read slowly — though it’s a short book, I forced myself to spread it out over a few days rather than devour it, and it was the right choice.

This book contains very little sci-fi. As with The Illustrated Man, It’s a collection of stories that was turned into a cohesive work. Super short chapters act as bridges between the stories, which bring a nice consistency to the thing.

The stories themselves are all over the map from a theme and genre perspective, but it works surprisingly well. Several of the stories are concerned with mortality and age, and these will stick with you. One toward the end is one of the most intensely scary stories I’ve read. A couple are sci-fi. But what unifies all of them, and what stands out the most in my mind a couple days after finishing, is the beauty of the writing. There are sentences and ideas in here that will echo around my head for a long time, and surely bring me back to read it again.