Thursday, August 22, 2024

Recommended reading - The Illustrated Man (1951):


The Illustrated Man (1951).
By Ray Bradbury.

Published by Panther.
1977 edition.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0586043594
ISBN-13: 978-0586043592

Description:

Anthology of 18 science fiction short stories.

Contents:

Prologue: The Illustrated Man; The Veldt; Kaleidoscope; The Other Foot; The Highway; The Man; The Long Rain; The Rocket Man; The Fire Balloons; The Last Night of the World; The Exiles; No Particular Night or Morning; The Fox and the Forest; The Visitor; The Concrete Mixer; Main article: Marionettes, Inc.; The City; Zero Hour; The Rocket; Epilogue.

Sample:

It was a warm afternoon in early September when I first met the Illustrated Man. I didn’t know he was Illustrated then. …
He took his shirt off. He was covered with Illustrations from the blue tattooed ring about his neck to his belt line. He was a riot of rockets and fountains and people. There were yellow meadows and blue rivers and mountains and stars and suns and planets spread in a Milky Way across his chest.
“You see,” said the Illustrated Man, “the Illustrations predict the future. It’s all right in sunlight. But at night the pictures move. The pictures change. Don’t you look at them, I warn you. Turn the other way when you sleep.”
The night was serene. I lay back a few feet from him. He didn’t seem violent, and the pictures were beautiful. I let my eyes fill up on them.
Sixteen illustrations, sixteen tales. I counted them one by one.
Primarily my eyes focused upon a scene, a large house with two people in it. I saw a flight of vultures on a blazing flesh sky, I saw yellow lions, and I heard voices.
The first Illustrations quivered and came to life. …

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