A review by megadallion
Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller, Mort Castle

5.0

I'm really torn between 4 and 5 stars on this one. As far as short story collections go, this is pretty much 5 stars (there were only a few stories that I really didn't care for, and I read all but one of them). I think the only one I skipped was "Two of a Kind" by Jacquelyn Mitchard. It just seemed to go on and on forever about how each person was related to other people, just a bunch of ramble about familial ties and I didn't have the patience for it (and that impatience for complicated family trees is one of the main reasons I have been hesitant about starting the A Song of Ice and Fire series, sadly). But other than that and a couple other stories in which I didn't recognize the Bradbury references, this book was stellar. At the end of each story, there's a short blurb from the author about how Ray Bradbury inspired them to be the writers they are today and how magical he was to them as kids when they first discovered him. I thought that was so amazing to read about, how much one of my own favorite authors has affected others (especially such impressive authors like Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman). I also found new authors to research and read because of this book, like Sam Weller, Joe Hill, and Dan Chaon. I was kind of blown away by their stories. I looked forward to each free moment I had to get back to this book. It recreated the spark and imagination that Bradbury has always invoked in me while I read his work. This was an amazing project and I'm so glad Mr. Bradbury got to see this glimpse of how much he meant to so many of us before he passed on. For any fans of Ray Bradbury, I highly recommend this book.

4.5 stars