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A review by ideaoforder
Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller, Mort Castle
2.0
You should always be just a little suspect when the editor(s) of a collection of short stories have work in it. You should be even more suspect when one of the editors' stories is merely okay and the other is quite bad (and seemingly way off topic/style).
Most of this book was mediocre genre pulp, with a few "literary" folks thrown in for good measure. The stories I liked the best (mostly from the "literary" folks) were too short--they often felt like drafts of stories, added in as a favor or afterthought. The stories I didn't care about all seemed to drag on for 20+ pages.
Fans of Bradbury think of him variously as both sci-fi and nostalgic/wistful. The editors both focus on the latter in their own stories, so it's not surprising that most of the stories in the collection are also more steeped in Bradbury-esque nostalgia (a al Dandelion Wine, say) than Bradbury-esque sci-fi (Fahrenheit 451, Martian Chronicles).
While none of the stories were bad, per se, the overall effect was kind of unpleasant. If this book is truly a reflection of Bradbury's style and content, was he a dimestore pulp hack? Have I totally misremembered the experience of reading Bradbury?
I think no, and that this book merely fails to sync up with my own experience of Bradbury. Given its largely positive reviews, it may be that my experience is the outlier. Still, in the spirit of writing reviews, I'd say not only that fans of Bradbury could skip this one, but rather that they should.
Most of this book was mediocre genre pulp, with a few "literary" folks thrown in for good measure. The stories I liked the best (mostly from the "literary" folks) were too short--they often felt like drafts of stories, added in as a favor or afterthought. The stories I didn't care about all seemed to drag on for 20+ pages.
Fans of Bradbury think of him variously as both sci-fi and nostalgic/wistful. The editors both focus on the latter in their own stories, so it's not surprising that most of the stories in the collection are also more steeped in Bradbury-esque nostalgia (a al Dandelion Wine, say) than Bradbury-esque sci-fi (Fahrenheit 451, Martian Chronicles).
While none of the stories were bad, per se, the overall effect was kind of unpleasant. If this book is truly a reflection of Bradbury's style and content, was he a dimestore pulp hack? Have I totally misremembered the experience of reading Bradbury?
I think no, and that this book merely fails to sync up with my own experience of Bradbury. Given its largely positive reviews, it may be that my experience is the outlier. Still, in the spirit of writing reviews, I'd say not only that fans of Bradbury could skip this one, but rather that they should.