The October Country: Stories

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The Small Assassin" - My favorite story in this book, give me the collywobbles! I'm not saying anything about the plot! Another story focusing on the mystery family, this time dealing with a member who doesn't have any special powers. As you can imagine, this young boy feels quite an outcast, but his sister Cecy will teach him an important lesson. For one, I'm familiar enough with so many movies and tv shows and even music to exclaim... "Hey! They took that from Bradbury!" or "Hey! Someone really ran with a Bradbury idea and made it deadly!" or "This is superior to Bradbury!"

The first story in the collection that is about the FAMILY. I loved reading about Cecy, a girl who spends her days in bed, but has great powers of mind. I enjoyed all the stories about the family, but it was only in the last one that I figured out who they really were.The Jar: A chilling story that combines love, death . . . and a matter of identity in a bottle of fear.

Along the way you discover you are alive—age twelve. Discover you can die—age fourteen. Plus the funerals of your grandfather and sister and a few friends, waking you up midnight. Martin knew it was Autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees…Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood…No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!” The Next in Line recites my terror of being trapped in Mexico, in a corridor of mummies I hope never to see again.Eschewing any connection to science fiction, this group of purely fantasy tales resounds with Bradbury’s fascination with and brilliant creativity in the realms of the occult, macabre and the dark. A sad, lonely, little man with a Big dream, a cruel, dull-witted carney, and his warm-hearted girl — a nasty joke leads to retribution in the distorted maze of mirrors. Touched With Fire is more difficult to pin down. Two mysterious strangers try to prevent a woman from getting murdered. Are they prescient or simply better observers of human nature than usual? I would class the story as fear of predestination, of the loss of free will, but a more accurate message may be that we cannot force people to act against their nature. Finally, on the threshold of puberty, Mr. Electrico, the carnival magician, summoned me away from graveyards and funerals, touched me with the St. Elmo’s fire sword and shouted sound advice: Live forever!

A man believes he is pursued by the Wind for discovering its secrets in the Himalayas. His phone conversations with a friend relate his fear, and his epic struggle with an intelligent element. Uncanny and spooky. There's a great mixture of Bradbury's recollection of his youth mixed with his interest in weirdness in Uncle Einar and Homecoming, both of which share characters. Uncle Einar was inspired by Bradbury's favorite uncle, and you can see his love in this weird tale of a man with wings who longs to return to the skies but has to live among people who don't have them. The resolution is heartwarming and memorable. Homecoming is the exact reverse of Uncle Einar - Timothy, its young narrator, is a mortal child living among supernatural beings. Left on their doorstep as an infant, he longs to be like them but at the same time understands that this will never be possible. Unlike Uncle Einar, Homecoming is a sad story of a boy who wishes to belong but will always be an outsider, even with the complete support of his adoptive family.We're in our cocoons, all of us. See how ugly I am? But one day I'll break out, spread wings as fine and handsome as you. The October Country consists of nineteen stories, fourteen of them reworked versions of stories originally collected in Dark Carnival (1947). The remaining five are collected here for the first time in book form. These haunting stories explore none of the themes that dominate Ray Bradbury’s later work. They are weird tales of ghosts, vampires, and everyday people caught in impossible situations or saddled with dark obsessions. The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone: A most remarkable case of murder—the deceased was delighted . . . Probably not Bradbury's best collection but Bradbury is always well worth reading. The best Ray Bradbury anthology is - IMO - The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles is great but it is more of a fix-up novel. La tía Tildy, recién muerta se va a la morgue a reclamar su propio cadáver, armando un lío fenomenal en el desopilante cuento "Había una vez una vieja". Qué cuento tan original...