Ray Bradbury is likely my favorite short story author of all time. What other writers need pages to say, he can do with a single paragraph. In one spare sentence, he can chill you to the bone with an insight into humanity that, perhaps, you would rather have not had. His finest work lies on the border between horror and science fiction. This omnibus is a perfect collection of his finest collections. ( )

Martian Chronicles: Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to the Red Planet and found the Martians waiting, dreamlike. Seeking the promise of a new beginning, man brought with him his oldest fears and his deepest desires. Man conquered Mars--and in that instant, Mars conquered him.

The illustrated Man: Eighteen startling visions of humankind’s destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin. In this phantasmagoric sideshow, living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, Martian invasions are foiled by the good life and the glad hand, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets.

The Golden Apples of the Sun: Thirty-two of his most famous tales--prime examples of the poignant and mysterious poetry which Bradbury uniquely uncovers in the depths of the human soul, the otherworldly portraits of outré fascination which spring from the canvas of one of the century's great men of imagination. From a lonely coastal lighthouse to a sixty-million-year-old safari, from the pouring rain of Venus to the ominous silence of a murder scene, ( )