Ray Bradbury - Illustrated Man, etc.

[Craig Herbertson]

Dec 1, 2011 6:29:33 GMT dem bones said:

Ray Bradbury - Machineries Of Joy (Corgi, 1972)

The Machineries Of Joy
The One Who Waits
Tyrannosaurus Rex
The Vacation
The Drummer Boy Of Shiloh
Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms In Your Cellar!
Almost The End Of The World
Perhaps We Are Going Away
And The Sailor, Home From The Sea
El Dia De Muerte
The Illustrated Woman
Some Live Like Lazarus
A Miracle Of Rare Device
And So Died Riabouchinska
The Beggar On O'Connell Bridge
Death And The Maiden
A Flight Of Ravens
The Best Of All Possible Worlds
The Lifework Of Juan Diaz
To The Chicago Abyss
The Anthem Sprinters

Blurb
A Hollywood monster-maker whose tyrannosaurus rex suddenly becomes alarmingly lifelike ... .A boy who raises giant mushrooms in his cellar — until the mushrooms begin to raise him .... A circus fat lady whose midget husband has tattooed every inch of her mammoth body with fantastically intricate designs ... The weird and the beautiful . . . the macabre .. the bizarre... all are created in Ray Bradbury's collection of tales — MACHINERIES OF JOY

Somebody around these parts is sure ditching their Ray Bradbury paperbacks in a hurry. That's at least seven have turned up on friend back-of-the-van-man's stall over recent weeks. Victoria commented briefly about this one on Vault Mk 1
. Not sure if there's much by way of horror content, although Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms In Your Cellar! is a firm 'when fungi attack favourite: "Hugh. Mushrooms, even big ones, can't think, can't move, don't have arms and legs. How could they run a mail order service and "take over" the world?". Well may you ask, Mrs. Fortnum, but your husband and his buddy Roger are onto something. The invasion of earth has been a long-term, extremely covert operation, but they are here and no mistake. Rog knew this and he's been well and truly body-snatched. And if Hugh goes to inspect little Tommy's terrible toadstool crop ...

Tyrannosaurus Rex shapes up like it's going to be a 'film-crew in peril!' treat, but don't get your hopes up, it's merely a gentle fantasy in which put-upon stop-motion animator Terwilliger subconsciously grafts the face of his despised producer onto the dinosaur lead in Prehistoric Monster. It all ends amicably, God damn it. For reasons best known to himself, Peter Haining revived this one as The Prehistoric Producer in
The Hollywood Nightmare.

These were my first Bradbury paperbacks and I always loved the distinctive silver covers. I recall being pretty disappointed with this collection as it seemed to have scatterings of Bradbury's (only?) trip to Ireland and his Mexican adventure which was slightly better.