The Illustrated Man

“…you see,’ said the Illustrated Man, “These Illustrations predict the future.’

I said nothing.

‘It’s all right in the sunlight,’ he went on. ‘I could keep a day job, but at night- the pictures move. The pictures change.”

Eighteen illustrations, eighteen tales; each futuristic scene strung together by the shifting pictures and the startling array of arcane images tattooed onto the Illustrated Man’s back. In his collection of stories by the same name, Ray Bradbury tells of the future’s dazzling cityscapes, the outlandish inhabitants of distant worlds, the twisted imagination of humanity, and its horrifying consequences.

The Illustrated Man is largely a collection of short stories, very loosely tied to the opening plot, where our storyteller meets the Illustrated Man- a seemingly ordinary character save for the fact that his arms and back are covered in bizarre images allegedly drawn by a woman of the future. These pictures depict a range of joyous, to unsettling, to downright disturbing subjects with a surreal- yet strangely familiar- tone.

I found this to be an incredibly worthwhile read. The length of each story made them easy to follow and advantageous for my own attention span. While I enjoyed some tales more than others, not a single page was wasted on dull descriptions. Instead, Bradbury plunged straight in to each sub-plot, colorfully and effectively illustrating the setting and characters in under twenty pages. Many stories were laced with what we now consider to be overused clichés, though it’s quite easy to push these aside considering that Bradbury could even be credited with the creation of many of them, being the celebrated writer of science fiction he is. Still, no matter how many martians and spaceships added to the mix, the characters are executed flawlessly to the point that it never even crossed my mind that the themes were so… corny. The end of the book returns to the original setting and takes an unexpected and frightening turn, which ties up the book very neatly and leads the reader with thoughts of bewilderment and a sense of daunting wonder.

This book doesn’t deserve the size of review I’m writing for it. I could walk you through each chapter and marvel at the exotic imagery Bradbury has crafted; but I’d much rather you find someplace to buy this book, and read it.