A review by jamiedarlin
Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, by Sam Weller, Mort Castle
4.0
The very idea of this collection makes me terribly, terribly happy––an ode to a writer I hold near and dear to my literary heart? Yes please. I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore display of Halloween stories, and snatched it up quickly, eager to consume what lay inside.
The collection contains a varied selection of writers--each with a unique style of storytelling. As with any collection of this sort, some of the stories are stronger than other, both thematically and stylistically. I was very pleased to find that well over half of the stories really quenched my literary thirst. In particular, I was really taken by:
The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman
The Exchange, Thomas F. Monteleone
By The Silver Water of Lake Champlain, Joe Hill (Probably my favorite in the collection. Hill always delivers)
Young Pilgrims, Joe Meno
Children of the Bedtime Machine, Robert McCammon
Two of a Kind, Jacquelyn MItchard
Fat Man and Little Boy, Gary A Braunbeck
The Tattoo, Bonnie Jo Campbell
Hayleigh's Dad, Julia Keller
Two Houses, Kelly Link
Of the stories I didn't care for at all (there were only one or two), I suspect my aversion was the result of a distaste for style rather than a disappointment in subject matter. Each and every one of the stories had an interesting (or potentially interesting) theme.
I would absolutely recommend this book to anybody who has read and loved Ray Bradbury. While it is not the same as reading a beloved Bradburian tale, it is a nice homage to a dearly missed creative force.
The collection contains a varied selection of writers--each with a unique style of storytelling. As with any collection of this sort, some of the stories are stronger than other, both thematically and stylistically. I was very pleased to find that well over half of the stories really quenched my literary thirst. In particular, I was really taken by:
The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman
The Exchange, Thomas F. Monteleone
By The Silver Water of Lake Champlain, Joe Hill (Probably my favorite in the collection. Hill always delivers)
Young Pilgrims, Joe Meno
Children of the Bedtime Machine, Robert McCammon
Two of a Kind, Jacquelyn MItchard
Fat Man and Little Boy, Gary A Braunbeck
The Tattoo, Bonnie Jo Campbell
Hayleigh's Dad, Julia Keller
Two Houses, Kelly Link
Of the stories I didn't care for at all (there were only one or two), I suspect my aversion was the result of a distaste for style rather than a disappointment in subject matter. Each and every one of the stories had an interesting (or potentially interesting) theme.
I would absolutely recommend this book to anybody who has read and loved Ray Bradbury. While it is not the same as reading a beloved Bradburian tale, it is a nice homage to a dearly missed creative force.