Ooh, ooh, The Lake! Is it The Lake? Is it? Is it?

(I rarely get these, so I have to leap in enthusiastically on those rare occasions that I DO get it.)

To "leap enthusiastically!" Nice. Is that like to "Run laughing!"?

Phil, nope. But, ponder this image:
"A couple of crazy dumb old gooney-bird, drying their bones in the sun."

Well, my first thought was "The Shoreline At Sunset"...

Good thinking!

I was not familiar with this s.s. until I picked up Stories of RB and settled in for a read. I must admit, however, as I finished I was unsettled...

Your ball, SD!

Yeah, that one gave me the willies too, Butch!
Well, since it seems nobody is exactly on tenterhooks waiting for me to come up with yet another quote, I may get to it in a day or so...

"It was late afternoon already and the sun had started to vanish behind blue hills. A few stars were visible. The odor of water, dust, and distant orange blossoms hung in the warm air."

Hmmm...!? Let me see now -

("Blue hills and orange blossoms," you say!)

It sounds somewhat "Martian," but I think not!

OK. A quote from a few paragraphs prior to the above:
"...watched him go as a small child watches his favorite sand castle eroded and annihilated by the waves of the sea."

Nice!

Does anyone use words any better than Ray Bradbury? I mean, he has written 500 short stories, 30 books, and every page seems to possess a brilliance in phrasing and imagery!

Point in case: As I sit typing, these are three "random openings," simply looking onto the exact page selected from Stories of Ray Bradbury ~

#1
pg. 475 "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"
(IRONIC- See BRII's original passage and my response - per "martian.") Then this jumps from the page,
"...and the wind roaring forlorn and changing through the old peach trees, the violet grass, shaking out green rose petals."

#2 Let's try another.
pg. 660 "The Terrible Conflagration up at the Place"
"Hearing this, the Lordship turned to look at them with his bland and not-unfriendly face, the face of an old hound who has seen many foxes killed and just as many escape, who has run well, and now in late years, paced himself down to a soft, shuffling walk."

#3
pg. 304 "The Great Wide World Over There"
"But Cora was after her. For in that instant she had seen something like a scarecrow, something like a flicker of pure light, something like a brook trout jumping upstream, leap a fence in the yard below. She saw a huge hand wave and birds flush in terror from a crab-apple tree."

I rest my case...for the time being!

Braling II,

Sandcastles; at first I thought this was The Lake, but Phil tried that on the previous story. Cellar Dweller, is it our friend Smith from Chrysalis, which can be found in the S is for Space collection?

Huzzah! You've got it!
The quote occurs just before Smith tosses his cigarette and floats into space.

Your turn, greenray!

Thanks Cellar Dweller,
Here is my quote;

"The First Rocket arrived from a night sky and landed on the planet Mars. There was a great gasping sound as its machines drank of the cool air."

God, I love his writing!

I'm still amazed this topic isn't more popular.

A site devoted to the appreciation of a wonderful writer, and such a tiny percentage of posts are about his writing!