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The Illustrated Man (Flamingo Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Ray Bradbury
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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Book Description

4 Aug 2008 Flamingo Modern Classics

A classic collection of stories – all told on the skin of a man – from the author of Fahrenheit 451.

If El Greco had painted miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed, with his sulphurous colour and exquisite human anatomy, perhaps he might have used this man’s body for his art…

Yet the Illustrated Man has tried to burn the illustrations off. He’s tried sandpaper, acid, and a knife. Because, as the sun sets, the pictures glow like charcoals, like scattered gems. They quiver and come to life. Tiny pink hands gesture, tiny mouths flicker as the figures enact their stories – voices rise, small and muted, predicting the future.

Here are sixteen tales: sixteen illustrations… the seventeenth is your own future told on the skin of the Illustrated Man.


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The Illustrated Man (Flamingo Modern Classics) + Something Wicked This Way Comes + The Martian Chronicles (Flamingo Modern Classic)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Voyager; New Ed edition (4 Aug 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0006479227
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006479222
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 34,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

‘Ray Bradbury has a powerful and mysterious imagination which would undoubtedly earn the respect of Edgar Allan Poe’ Guardian

‘It is impossible not to admire the vigour of his prose, similes and metaphors constantly cascading from his imagination’ Spectator

‘The sheer velocity of his words is an apocalyptic torrent which sweeps the reader on’ Independent

‘As a science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury has long been streets ahead of anyone else’ Daily Telegraph

‘Readers unfamiliar with what Bradbury at his best can do should look to The Illustrated Man.’ Washington Post

‘No other writer uses language with greater originality and zest. he seems to be a American Dylan Thomas – with dsicipline’ Sunday Telegraph

From the Back Cover

"As a science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury has long been streets ahead of anyone else."
'Daily Telegraph'

If El Greco had painted miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed, with his sulphurous colour and exquisite human anatomy, perhaps he might have used this man's body for his art … Yet the Illustrated Man has tried to burn the illustrations off. He's tried sandpaper, acid, a knife. Because, as the sun sets, the pictures glow like charcoals, like scattered gems. They quiver and come to life. Tiny pink hands gesture, tiny mouths flicker as the figures enact their stories – voices rise, small and muted, predicting the future. Here are sixteen tales: sixteen illustrations … the seventeenth is your own future told on the skin of the Illustrated Man.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Ray Bradbury's timeless classic 11 April 2005
Format:Paperback
This is one of the best collections of Ray Bradbury short stories to be found. The Illustrated Man of the title is a fairground worker who is covered in tattoos, or 'illustrations'. While he sleeps the illustrations move and each one tells a different story to anyone who may see them. Although the descriptions of rockets and technology may seem a little dated now, these are still excellent stories for any true fan of sci-fi. Particularly good are 'The Veldt' a story of two children and their virtual reality nursery and 'The Long Rain', a tale of astronauts who crash land on Venus. This is certainly a Classic of modern literature and I would highly recommend it for any bookshelf.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent depiction of 1950s science fiction 27 Mar 2003
Format:Paperback
What is most interesting about this book is the reflection of science fiction in the 1950s and 60s. While we have the technology and the visual effects nowadays, people during that time only had their imaginations and a fuzzy television set. Bradbury's intensity in his stories are full of the depth of character, philosophy, life, and mind. During the "Long Rain," he brings in the idea of how far a man will go in such a relentless environment of pouring rain on another planet. He also is quite subtle in his vision of what the world would be like when we get to the end of the world and how would we actually react to this adversity. In essence, do not read this book to find some "Matrix-style" action and science fiction, but the reactions of people in different situations in the future and the way some things could be. If you are intrigued by thinking of books and films long after you've finished with them, then I think you will really like this book.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Alan Burridge TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Ray Bradbury was an amazing and futuristic writer, and he used the 'illustrated man' concept as an ingenious way of linking 18 short stories. A man is on a walking holiday in Wisconsin, it's a hot day and he meets a guy who has his clothing buttoned up tight as if it is winter, and he is sweating, of course. They camp down for the night, and the guy takes off his thick shirt. His body is covered in illustrations, (not tattoos), and they are beautiful, they move, and have tiny voices. He tells how he met an old witch who looked a thousand years old one minute, and twenty one the next, and after she illustrated his entire body with her magic needles, she disappeared. Believing her to be a time-traveller, the man has spent his life trying to hunt her down. The series of short stories are linked by the other man seeing the actions take place within the illustrations. A brilliant concept, amazing stories considering when they were written, and I book I have treasured for many years.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection of short stories 6 Aug 2010
Format:Paperback
This is another collection of short stories connected by a tenuous theme - they're the stories told by someone's tattoos - but this time it's intended to be a bunch of shorts, and most of them are good, a few are outstanding, only a couple are bad, and none are awful. And three are utterly brilliant. Originally published a couple of zears before Fahrenheit 451, the connections are obvious in two of the stories - two of the best stories at that.

The theme of the man of the title's tattoos provides a nice lead-in to the first story, and the epilogue provides a satisfactory end, but in all honesty those two sections could have been dropped entirely. I'd not be at all surprised to find that the individual stories have also been published independently of them.

The stories are a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, almost all of them character-based, most concentrating on human weaknesses and relationships. The successful ones, however, do have at least some action in them too: it's only the two stinkers in which nothing happens except blathering.

Note that the UK and US editions differ: I read the UK edition, which omits four stories from the US version and adds two others. As it happens, I feel that the two added are amongst the best in the book.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As the line in the film went which showed three of the stories from the anthology. And it is this line which best exemplifies the difference between common all garden short stories and the true work of art. Anyone with a needle and ink can make a tattoo that makes a statement from a mermaid or heart that says mother. But it takes an artist to create a skin illustration that goes beyond a statement and tells a story an art that Bradbury demonstrates in each tale. Not only does he tell a story but he also leaves you at the end of each one with questions gnawing away in your consciousness. Questions such as "What if that could really happen?" or "What if it was me?"

Like all great works art after your first encounter, it leaves an indelible impression on your soul very much like a tattoo, or should that be skin illustration?
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite book 11 Jun 2010
Format:Paperback
This is a fantastic collection of science-fiction/horror stories from the boundless imagination of Ray Bradbury.

The books begins with a chance meeting between two wanderers, one of whom is extensively tattooed all over his body (or 'Illustrated' as Bradbury beautifully puts it) the tattooed stranger explains that he is searching for the woman who gave him his tattoos to kill her. He states the tattoos are cursed and come to life every night. The enthralled stranger then watches as the ink comes to life each one telling a different story.

The premise of stories within a story is brilliant and using tattoos as a medium to tell them is both extraordinary but also wonderfully creative.

Although the short stories are all science fiction based there is a good variety of stories. The reason I also termed them 'horror' is that there is a good deal of death and violence in the stories although not excessively so. The stories really get under your skin and will stay with you forever (ironically not unlike the illustrations themselves)

Well worth a read and (in my opinion) Bradbury's best book to date.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful collection of short stories.
I bought this book as I am a huge fan of Something Wicked This Way Comes and hadn't read any Ray Bradbury for a while. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. C. J. Jarvis
5.0 out of 5 stars the illistrated man
this is a book with a diffrence a series of short storys about a man with full body tatoos that come alive after dark , and draw peaple into their picture, one of ray bradburys... Read more
Published 2 months ago by tizwas
5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime
How anyone could rate this as less than 5 star is beyond me it is a brilliant classic.
Stories that are brilliantly written, full of tension and that make you think. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr L A B Cleverley
4.0 out of 5 stars wonderful short story collection, bound together by a metaphor
This is a very good selection of short stories that between themselves are unrelated. Bradbury came up with the theme of linking them through the Illustrated Man idea, which is... Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2011 by rob crawford
4.0 out of 5 stars The Illustrated Man
The frame is interesting but not compelling, and as though knowing this Bradbury breezes through it in a few pages and quickly keeps any interludes, between unconnected stories, to... Read more
Published on 24 May 2011 by David Brookes
4.0 out of 5 stars Good but dated
An interesting read, and you can see themes in the stories drawn from other works, such as Fahrenheit 451, etc. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2011 by K. Royle
5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic for all ages
This is a wonderful book. Recommended to me as a child, it's been read several times both then and now. I've just bought it for my own daughter. Highly recommended.
Published on 20 Jan 2011 by R. E. Cameron-dick
5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection of short stories!
I love this book. It's a great collection of Ray Bradbury short stories rolled into one big, fantastic tale. I highly recommend it!
Published on 16 Jan 2011 by T. Corsico Piccolino
5.0 out of 5 stars "Skin illustrations, the sign of an artist"
"Eighteen illustrations, eighteen tales." "The illustrations came to life..."

A man is encountered who has skin Illustrations all over his body. Read more
Published on 31 May 2010 by bernie
5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of short stories
Brilliant short stories, collected.

If you like macabre Science Fiction, get this.

"The City" leads, but the rest are good at worst, and most of them are much... Read more
Published on 27 April 2010 by R. Court
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