And at what age? In my case, "Homecoming," when I was 13. Even when I read it, I sensed it was part of a longer story, so "From the Dust Returned" is a true "Homecoming" for me. Read "Uncle Einar" soon after and in some ways it's still my favorite!

I started about 11,my sister,who,i might add,isn't a real big Ray Bradbury fan (dumb,huh) was giving me a free reign in some books she was giving away. Instantly,my eyes fell upon a red book,Labeled "Illustrated Man" So i thought 'Hey,what the heck,let's give it a whirl' opened it,and from that moment on I was in a world of my kind. Dont ask.....
and now my world basicly and mostly revolves around HIM.
YYYEEEHA LONG LIVE RAY BRADBURY!!!!!!!HIPH IP HOORAY!!!!

DITTO..... I was smitten young at 11, it was the Illustrated Man in Montana the Summer of 71, Burton's point Hebgen Lake.
On my 12th birthday I asked for all the books Ray Bradbury had written. Little did my parents know he had written so many books!
I have been reading his work since. LIVE FOREVER RAY

[This message has been edited by uncle (edited 12-18-2001).]

I *think* the first Bradbury story I read was 2020 There Will Come Soft Rains. It was pleasant enough, and I did enjoy it, but then a friend of mine recommended F451, and then I got a copy of California Sorcery....And it's all escalated since then.

I think for me it was "The Emissary". I ran into in a paperback horror antho when I was eleven or twelve and it scared the sh*t out of me. THose final paragraphs! After that, I kept running into Ray's work in other horror anthos. So it was the horror stories that first hooked me--"The Handler", "The Smiling People", "The Man Upstairs" etc. I loved the EC comic adapatations, too. They were great. But the horror stories led me to the rest of his stuff and ultimately to "Dandelion Wine" and, if I wasn't head over heels before, I was then smitten!

I've never read, nor seen, "The Emissary" or "The Smiling People." Are they short stories that are part of a book or are they books themselves? I would REALLY love to read them both. Are they available anywhere?

Iman, those are both short stories from "Dark Carnival." "The Emissary" is VERY available, most notably in "The October Country" and "The Stories of Ray Bradbury." As for "The Smiling People," you can opt to spend big bucks on the reprint of "Dark Carnival," or look for the August Derleth anthology in which the story appears. My favorite search engine for used books is www.addall.com.

Okay, Thanks a lot. I don't have "Dark Carnival", thats probably why I've never heard of either stories. Someone told me that "Dark Carnival" was just the name of the earlier version of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" That's why I never looked into it, I already had that book. But I WILL try to get ahold of it now.

[This message has been edited by DR.IMAN (edited 01-09-2002).]

That wasn't "Dark Carnival," it was "The Black Ferris," also in "The Stories of Ray Bradbury." "Dark Carnival" was such a good title they couldn't leave it alone. Check out addall and amazon.com to see how many other works used it.

Hey, Dandelion...that addall.com looks pretty good. Thanks. Usually, I use www.abebooks.com, but I can always use another.

I borrowed R is for Rocket from the school library in 1969 and was hooked from the title story (which I now know had first been published as "King of the Gray Spaces."

By the way, dr Iman, Dark Carnival is very expensive, but you can find about half its contents (including "The Smilng People") in a British paperback called The Small Assassin. It's out of print, but a second hand one may still be quite cheap.

You weren't exaggerating when you said expensive. I searched for the "Dark Carnival" and found the cheapest copy to be $135. But if I had the money I WOULD buy it, looks like it's time to get a job. Darn!

How right you are. The scariest thing about that book is its price! Even the new edition costs more than most people in my country (South Africa) earn in a month. But I'm still tempted ... I reckon if I'm going down financially, I might as well go down reading Dark Carnival!

By the way, for those who absolutely can't afford Dark Carnival, I've done some checking.

Dark Carnival consisted (originally) of 27 pieces.
Fifteen of these were reprinted and in some cases revised for The October Country (Ballantine, 1955).
Another six (not revised) can be found in the British paperback, The Small Assassin (Four Square, 1964).
Two more - "The Coffin" and "The Traveler" were also in The Stories of Ray Bradbury, 1980. I have all of these reprints.

That leaves just four pieces - "The Maiden", "Interim", "Reunion", and "The Night Sets" which I've never seen in any form, and the first two of these are very short pieces.

But I'm STILL tempted ...

I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, are four stories worth $100? If they were by any other author I'd say no way! But in this case...I'm tempted also.

It's more than a matter of four stories. Please read the notes regarding content under the "Dark Carnival" thread.