This collection of short fiction ranges over several genres rather than the fantasy/science fiction for which the author is known. These include macabre tales of life in Mexico in a rather death-orientated culture, a story in which an old woman is visited by Death in the guise of a lost young lover who offers her one day as an eighteen year old again, and a tale about a family who are the only ones left after the parents wished everyone else away.

The most effective in the book for me were 'The One Who Waits', a story set on Mars about a strange lifeform, 'Some Live Like Lazarus' in which a woman narrates how she feels about a man she has known from childhood, who had promised to marry her but allowed his domineering mother to come between them, and 'A Flight of Ravens' about the shocking transformation of old friends that a man visits in the hope of finding respite. On balance I would give it a 3 star rating. ( )

A very good short story collection, with stories ranging from scifi to fiction to fantasy. Well written and with some good concepts. Not all of the stories are great, but none were bad, either. ( )

No habla Blake en alguna parte dijo el padre Vittorini de las Maquinarias de la Alegria? Es decir, no promueve Dios los ambientes y luego intimida las naturalezas dando vida a la carne, llevando a hombres y mujeres de aqui para alla, como nos ocurre a todos? Y asi felizmente lanzados hacia delante, dotados de gracia e ingenio, en calmos mediodias, en climas serenos, no somos las Maquinarias de la Alegria de Dios?

Poetic and evocative, like all of Bradbury's works. ( )

Ray Bradbury did have some good writing to his credit, and I rank his "Something Wicked This way Comes" up there with "Fahrenheit 451", and "the Martian Chronicles". This collection, by its nature could not be completely at that level. "the Drummer Boy of Shiloh" is the best story here.