Author: Ray Bradbury
Narrator: Campbell Scott
Publisher: HarperAudio
Edition: Unabridged
Duration: 6 hours, 49 minutes
Summary: (taken from Goodreads)
This collection from America's greatest storyteller contains 18 never-before-published stories and seven previously, but never collected, stories of the fantastic, the melancholy, and the macabre.
Overall Rating: 2.5/5
As with most short story collections, some are better than others. However, I thought that there were few good ones in this particular collection. I thought a few were quite good, but most just left me going, "eh."
The mood of these stories definitely falls on the depressing side, so if you're looking for something uplifting, don't pick this book up. I did like that it was more character-driven than anything else. Most of these stories are about people trying to find something worthwhile and fantastic in their life, but finding themselves stuck in mediocrity. There are some science fiction stories in here, but most are set in the real world.
For the audiobook, the sound quality wasn't as crisp as I like it to be. I'm not sure if it was the narrator or the sound itself, but it was sometimes hard to understand because it seemed like the narrator was mumbling at times. There are also inconvenient cut-offs. Some stories cut off at the end of a disc and continue at the beginning. Since these are short stories, I thought the cut-off could have been a little sooner so that each disc started with a new story.
Overall, I don't think that this is one of Bradbury's best. If you're going to read it, either pick up the book or listen to a different version. I do think that print would be better, though.
