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“Icarus Montgolfier Wright”

This is nakedly a poetic parable about Man pushing the boundaries of science, in this case marching toward the invention of the space rocket that Bradbury dreamed so much about. Icarus and Daedalus, of course; Montgolfier I imagine was the inventor of the combustion engine; and the Wright brothers are notoriously American.

“The Trolley”

A short cute story about the last trolley in the city. It’s going to be retired so that buses can take over all the public transportation, schools and otherwise. So the operator takes the kids on a joy ride to a lake where there used to be a sort of wooden fairground, they have a nice reminiscing picnic, and then he takes them all back.

“Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”

This is a Martian story that didn’t fall into The Martian Chronicles. The Bitterings, like the family from “Picnic”, come to earth to escape the war. Mr. Bittering is really attached to ol’ Gaea, and he clings hard to his earth man ways, but—just as with the family in “Picnic”—he becomes part of a new breed of Martians.

“The Smile”

This post-apocalyptic world is the flip side to Bradbury’s stories about the direction of civilization. Life without civilization, or at least a recognizable one as featured in here, is miserable. Really, Bradbury’s illustrated civilization as a scapegoat for the evils of mankind. Destroying art and artifice can’t hope to redeem humanity. It isn’t the source.

“The Screaming Woman”

Margaret Cleary is walking home with ice cream one day when she hears muffled screaming in an abandoned lot. She figures out that a woman has been buried alive and tries to free her but runs into pretty much every obstacle a child can reasonably meet in her quest in a very “adults patronizing children because they’re just kids” sort of FNAF energy.

“The Million-Year Picnic”

The last story of The Martian Chronicles. Dad, Mom, and three boys have gone to Mars in a rocket. As far as the boys are concerned, it’s a picnic, but the oldest knows that something’s up. This is one of the more deeply American Bradbury stories as it taps into the same psyche that Doomsday preppers and survivalists have grown out of, a denial of the virtues of civilization.

“Come Into My Cellar”

This is another “aliens are invading through unusual channels” except this time it’s through a fungus that’s ordered from the back of those magazines that young boys loved to send off from. You know: X-Ray Specs, voodoo dolls, fungi from yuggoth that control your brain after you eat it so that you can foster the invasion, the usual.

“Invisible Boy”

An old lady who wants to be a witch has her nephew-or-other Charlie visiting. To get him to stay around awhile longer, she plays a trick to get him to believe that she has turned invisible. What ensues is pretty much what happened in a Minecraft Milo and Chip video that my girls watched one day, except for the ending.

“Hail and Farewell”

Bradbury writes about the magic of childhood, but this story explores a shadow side to the spell of youth: what if you were 12 years old forever? Willie manages to cope with it in his own way—he figures being a surrogate son is his job—but his own personal growth is just as stifled as his biological. “Are you happy? Are you as fine as you /seem/?”

“The Pedestrian”

This is another prescient dystopian nightmare from Bradbury. A retired writer is arrested by what passes for the future police because he’s out walking at night instead of sitting down in the dark of a house with a television, just as the government intended for him. If you think that Bradbury is being sanctimonious then there’s just no helping you.

“Time in Thy Flight”

A time traveler teacher has three children who he has study the HORRORS of childhood in 1928 Illinois. A circus! Fireworks at the Fourth of July! HALLOWEEN!! Ridiculous. The true horror is that only two of the three kids manage to escape the clinical psychosis of their overseer into a childhood fraught with the loves of Bradbury’s youth. The third… oh, that poor SOB…

“The Man”

Another one that I remember from TIM! A rocket arrives on a planet hoping to wow the natives, only to find out that—though he isn’t explicitly named—Jesus has just visited. The captain initially argues with one of his Crew, Martin, who Believes. It’s just some other rocket man putting on science miracles, right? That’s, like, step two in Asimov’s foundation!

“Zero Hour”

One of the spookiest stories from The Illustrated Man. The kids on earth are playing “invasion” and the girl Mink spells it out for her mom. Mrs. Morris interacts with her daughter but doesn’t really process what’s going on—that aliens are plotting a real invasion, and they’re doing it by directing earth kids, as they can do whatever they want once their parents are dead.

“Pillar of Fire”

Just as there is a Bradbury who believes in how a romance with existence is essential to humanity, there is another that is thrilled by the dark wonder of the macabre. This one takes place in a world where, well, DEATH as a concept has been censored. The last remaining dead man on earth is somehow revived by this unusual state of affairs and embarks on a ghoulish rampage.

“Chrysalis”

A “thriller” where a man named Smith has become a human-shaped Chrysalis. What is he turning into? The doctor, studying him in isolation in his desert sanatorium, thinks he is on the next step of man’s evolution. Hartley thinks he is becoming a monster. McGuire just wants to be done with the whole thing. As it turns out, one of the parties isn’t too far off the mark.

“The Day it Rained Forever”

Three old men at a ghost town hotel in the southwest—the owner and two permanent boarders—wait for the one day that it’s supposed to rain. A storm comes, in some sort of fashion, but it’s a different sort of drought that it quenches. Miss Hillgood’s speech of her “why” is one of those times where Bradbury’s style becomes a bit monotone.

“The Shore Line At Sunset”

Tom and Chico are two beach bums who live by the ocean. Tom is worried about finding a female partner who will stick around and wants to leave. That’s when a young boy runs up to the house, to tell them that a “funny lady” washed ashore. It becomes clear that the kid is talking about a mermaid, and when they go with him, well, that’s what they find.

“The Little Mice”

An American couple of landlords remarks on the Mexican couple that lives next to them. They’re quiet—too quiet. There’s a mystery to their furtiveness and the odd way that they carry themselves in their own house. As it turns out, they work all day and then are quiet, immense alcoholics when they are in the house, with a sort of secret shame signified by their immense bottle collection.

“The Great Collision of Monday Last”

This is another Irish caricature, but without Bradbury’s personal touch. This is about a near-fatal collision involving two bicycles, all in good fun, with a lot of counter-intuitive advice given to the American who will be driving one of the victims to the hospital. Like, drive fast and loud to scare all the night-cyclists and cows off the road.

“The Gift”

This is a rocket story, where Christmas is going to happen while a family is on a rocket trip. They were worried that their little boy would be cheated off the feeling of the season because they couldn’t bring a tree or a gift due to the weight restrictions, but they manage to Seuss out a way of engendering the holiday spirit like good little Whos down in Whoville.

“All Summer In a Day”

In Bradbury’s Venus, it rains. It rains forever. This story is about Earth children on Venus, waiting the two hours out of the seven years that the sun comes out. The story’s emotional tension is not in the delight that the kids have in this island of summer, but the cruelty leveled at Margot, who is bullied for basically not being born on Venus and excluded from the momentary paradise.

“The Time of Going Away”

This story features another squabbling couple. It’s Bradbury, so there may have been something to Willie’s death dream, but his wife has the whole right of it, from ridiculous dreams born of National Geographic magazines to him really just trying to get out of all the work that needs to be done. It’s a fun, cute story about marriage during the twilight years.

“The First Night of Lent”

An autobiographical story from Bradbury about the time he was writing a script in Ireland—probably for Moby Dick—yeah—and his cabbie, Nick. They talk about what Nick is gonna give up for Lent, and he says that it’s gonna be cigarettes, but it turns out to be alcohol. The lovingly racist punchline is that Bradbury finds out that his life all but depends on Nick drinking.

“The Headpiece”

Mr. Lemon has a hairpiece that fits over a bare spot on his scalp. He is crushing on his neighbor, Ms. Naomi Fremwell. Finally, one day, he asks her to marry him. She demurs and he assumes it’s because of the hole, so he tells her the sad story of WHY he has the hole. He doesn’t know why he got hit in the head, but by the end of his tale, Naomi knows EXACTLY why.

“A Scent of Sarsparillar”

William, some 60 years old, has been spending a lot of time in the attic in his memories, and it’s bugging his wife, Cora. In another world Will would be drunk on nostalgia and headed for a bittersweet end. In Bradbury’s, there is a good reason for Will being so happy in the attic, and Cora effectively bars herself from it because she just doesn’t understand.

“The Town Where No One Got Off”

A salesman is convinced that he is going to take the train stop at a dead-looking podunk town and have himself an adventure. And he does, just not the kind that he was expecting. As it turns out, there’s an old man who’s been waiting at the depot for just the right person to get off the train, essential qualities for an essential purpose.

“The Marriage Mender”

Just a little story about a young Italian couple who has been gently quarreling over their inherited bed. The wife is having trouble sleeping and wants a new bed; she compares the sounds that it makes to a calliope. As it turns out, the reason she feels miserable isn’t the bed, but she doesn’t know that until she goes and sees the doctor. It’s a happy surprise.