The October Country
Ratings39
Average rating4
A nice little collection of short stories. I really like Bradbury's use of language.
I think the stories I liked best from this one were: The Next in Line, The Lake, The Emissary, Jack-in-the-Box, The Wind, There Was an Old Woman, and The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone.
It's Ray Bradbury's short stories so of course, they're going to be good. One of my favorite short story writers, no question.
In this collection, I see a theme of characters who become obsessed or deeply neurotic about events/things that lead them into situations they may (or may not) have avoided. A few examples of this are “The Next in Line,” “The Crowd,” and “The Wind.”
The description calls these “macabre” stories and perhaps they are, but I found humor in some of them too, “Skeleton,” “There Was an Old Woman,” and “Homecoming” in particular. It could just be me; it has occurred to me that I have a weird sense of humor.
“Homecoming” was one of my particular favorites, like The Munsters if Marylin had been less well-adjusted.
Fun collection and my favorite Halloween read this year.
Mr. Bradbury was very kind in that to make up for the the unsettled mood he's put you in for the first half of the book, the last few stories are much more comforting and end on sweeter and more pleasant notes.
The October Country by Ray Bradbury is an excellent collection of short stories ranging from weird to creepy to even a bit beautiful. I haven't read Bradbury since high school and I'm so glad I decided to pick this book up this October. It's a wonderful volume for spooky season, especially for readers who might want stories that seem to fit Halloween but aren't all hardcore horror. Bradbury's introduction is one of the best I've read and the stories were pretty much all 3 stars and up, with lots of fours and some fives. Some of my favorite tales from this collection included The Dwarf, The Crowd, The Scythe, The Man Upstairs, and Homecoming. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
All these stories are so good but super sad. Some of them hit especially close to home: anxiety and fear of mortality seem to be the recurring theme of the collection.
A brilliant collection of stories centered around what Bradbury called his “autumn people.” Of course, anything by Ray Bradbury is going to be high caliber, but these stories speak to me at the heart. Much like “Something Wicked” the stories focus on worlds very similar to ours, but always a little off.
Bradbury is at his best in short stories and every one in this collection doesn't disappoint. If you like the man at his most eerie, weird, disaffected and dark, this is essential reading.
Worlds of funhouses, quack doctors, catacombs, corpses, skeletons, ancient houses, all tied together by a lonesome, empty street, small town feel. Bradbury, while in some stories all but glorifies the small town, in this collection we see the darkest side the master could conjure up about such places.