El hombre ilustrado

Escrito por Ray Bradbury

Narrado por Jordi Salas

Uno de los clásicos imprescindibles del catálogo de Minotauro, ahora en audiolibro.
En esta colección de historias entrelazadas, el narrador anónimo conoce a El Hombre Ilustrado, un curioso personaje con el cuerpo completamente cubierto de tatuajes. Sin embargo, lo más remarcable e inquietante es que las ilustraciones están mágicamente vivas y cada una de ellas empieza a desarrollar su propia historia, como en La pradera donde unos niños llegan un juego de realidad virtual más allá de sus límites.

O en Calidoscopio, el sobrecogedor relato de un astronauta que se dispone a reentrar en la atmósfera terrestre sin la protección de una nave espacial. O en La hora cero, en el que los invasores extraterrestres han encontrado unos aliados lógicos y sorprendentes: los niños terrícolas.

Cada uno de los dieciocho relatos que componen esta colección es una muestra de la maestría narrativa de Bradbury y no han perdido ni su vigor ni su actualidad desde que fueron publicados por primera vez.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Planeta Audio
• Traductor: Francisco Abelenda
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 19 may 2020
• ISBN: 9788445009260

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (22 August 1920 – 5 June 2012) published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old. Among his many famous works are 'Fahrenheit 451,' 'The Illustrated Man,' and 'The Martian Chronicles.'

Comentarios para El hombre ilustrado

[reading_vicariously · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Bradbury is known as a science fiction writer for good reason, but man this collection is a reminder of how dark and horrifying a lot of his stories can be. More often he's using his familiar realm of rockets and martians as a backdrop for psychological horror that would fit right alongside Shirley Jackson or Stephen King. Actually, any time that someone uses "Black Mirror/Twilight Zone" as a comp I would add this collection to that list. The Illustrated Man is a great dive into the mind of a brilliant storyteller and an example of why Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Definitely more fantasy than SF. Venus is still wet, ferpeetsake, in 1950. Not as lame as the Martian Chronicles but still.

Otoh, Bradbury is a poet and psychologist (at heart) and so the language and themes of the stories are marvelous. Better than I remembered.

Fans of Neil Gaiman (weird worlds and beautiful writing) and Terry Pratchett (knife-sharp observations of humans, and of gods, and of other aliens...) are missing a treat unless they go back and read the original master. Now, it doesn't have to be this collection. You could choose October Country, or Dandelion Wine, or a 'Best of' collection. But do read something (in addition to Fahrenheit 451) by him.

[rkosarko-360552 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Oddly, the worst story in the collection is the framing story. Honestly the book probably didn't need it.
Anthologies, famously, tend towards being uneven in quality. The Illustrated Man is one of the few examples where this is not the case: absolutely every single story in this book is a masterful piece of work. They are all fantastic, imaginative, and leave you thinking about them afterward.

Stories included are:
Prologue: The Illustrated Man
The Veldt
Kaleidoscope
The Other Foot
The Highway
The Man
The Long Rain
The Rocket Man
The Last Night of the World
The Exiles
No Particular Night or Morning
The Fox and the Forest
The Visitor
The Concrete Mixer
Marionettes, Inc.
The City
Zero Hour
The Rocket
The Illustrated Man

[willchildress · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This 1951 collection of short stories from the mind of Ray Bradbury is a wonderful introduction to science fiction reading that gives bite-size (at least five pages and at most seventeen pages in the Bantam Books Grand Master Edition that I was reading) stories that are perfect for those that want a bit of a dark foray into some classic literature.

When a man is hiking a walking tour of Wisconsin he comes across a man with a woolen shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck and all the way down to his wrists. When the woolen man takes off his shirt, the hiker sees mystical arcane tattoos that seem to show vivid scenes from the future. This collection follows what the man sees that night while he gazes at the tattoos all over the titular Illustrated Man's body.

Some personal highlights for me were the short stories "Kaleidoscope," which is a very interesting look at death and what the idea of impending death does to the human psyche; "The Highway," a short look at war and how it can affect all of us; and "The Last Night of the World," which is once again a sweet look at what happens when we all know the world is coming to an end that very night.

While this is not the darkest book in the world there are some looks into psychology, war, violence, and other topics that might be upsetting if you know these things upset you on a regular basis. There is also one use of a slur against Japanese people used in the last quarter of the book in the short story "Zero Hour."

All in all, this is an amazing collection of science-fiction short stories that leaves me wanting more of Ray Bradbury's writing that has certainly earned its spot on my bookshelf for many reads to come.

[martialalex92 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Not as good as the martian chronicles but some thought-provoking pieces in there. Also some pretty weak ones, especially the story about aliens finding jesus

[kslade-1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Good stories.

[brianinbuffalo · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Given the fact that Bradbury published this short story anthology in the early 1950s, it’s stunning how prescient some of his mind-bending tales are even with the passage of more than seven decades. A few of the stories felt a bit like throw-aways – or at least fillers. A couple even felt somewhat redundant. But in the big picture, I truly enjoyed this strange and oftentimes creepy collection of yarns spun by a master storyteller. I’m not sure how this book escaped my attention in my high school and college reading adventures.

[bdgamer-669415 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Many of the stories were wildly imaginative and had interesting world-building and plots. However, they are strained by the era they're written in, making it incredibly difficult to suspend disbelief at times. However, it's incredibly interesting to see the wildly imaginative visions of Bradbury, especially in his visions of home automation and society at large. "The Veldt" comes immediately to mind, mostly due to its warning of the future, which I suspect has come or is close to fruition in the way parent-children relationships work. "The Other Foot" is a racially charged story that works well in 2021, the BLM era.

Many of the stories felt like they would be great as visual adaptations. I could see "The Long Rain", "Marionettes Inc." and "The City" as episodes of Love, Death & Robots. Many of the stories would also work well as movies, especially "The Fox and the Forest", "The Highway", and "The Man."

[kristelh_15 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury written in 1951. I enjoyed most of these stories that are framed by the Illustrated Man but otherwise not connected to each other. The stories address dehumanizing technology, danger of nuclear war, censorship. One story address the dark people who went to Mars (white supremacy), turning children into parent haters (The Veldt and Zero Hour). There is a couple that have time travel; The Fox and the Forest and The Visitor. I think several also work for horror reads.

[nx74defiant · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I vaguely remember seeing the movie and hating it. But I gave the book a chance. I liked the majority of the stories. I'm glad I gave the book a chance.

[sarahebear · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A great collection of short stories about potential futures for earth and its inhabitants. The story starts with the narrator coming across a man covered almost entirely in tattoos. At night each of his vivid tattoos comes to life and tells a story - the short stories of the book. I first read this when I was in University in the 1980s and enjoyed it just as much now as I did then. Some of the concepts are a little dated but the depictions of human nature, emotion and visual descriptions still ring true. A wonderful read for the Sci Fi fan. 

[susanfaithcorl · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

The first science fiction books I ever read. Read it in middle school, and it started my love of fantasy and science fiction.

[melydia_1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

A collection of short stories more or less connected by a man's magical tattoos. A lot of them were pretty good, though the more Bradbury I read, the more I feel like I'm being kept at arm's length, as a woman. It's one thing for your female characters to be bland and reactionary (common in classic SF), but there is a distinct impression here that this is a man's world. Which is fine, so far as it goes, but it does prevent me from getting as lost in the story as I might have been. That said, there were quite a few gems in here, the best being - perhaps ironically - the ones with no women in them at all.

[ajlewis2_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is only the second book of short stories that I've finished in recent memory. For the most part, I don't like short stories, but these were very good. They are unrealistic in their views of Mars and space travel coming from the late 1940s and early 1950s. The beauty is not the science in them, but rather it is the story-telling. There is a depth of feeling and a drawing out of thought about life. The true brilliance is the way with words to stir the imagination and the heart. Bradbury does this powerfully. These stories are charged, one in the horror of revenge and one in the beauty of family love and the span in between.

[andrlik · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

An enjoyable collection of stories from Ray Bradbury, although I wouldn't mark them as memorable as those from his other works.

[emma_manolis · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is the first collection of short stories I have ever read and I was not in the least bit disappointed.I really love that it wasn't just a dumping of stories, Bradbury actually took the time to connect them with the illustrated man.

Some of the stories have the ability to remain with you past your initial reading. For me those stories were "Zero Hour," "The Fox and the Forest" and "The Rocket." Beautifully crafted and really just a fantastic read.

[rbeffa_2 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

It is pretty easy for me to give this collection of stories 3 1/2-4 stars, in comparison to other works of 1950's era science fiction. There's a wraparound story here of the Illustrated Man, but it isn't much of anything as it turned out, despite a promising beginning, and just leaves this reader wishing there was more. It should have been a beter story of the Illustrated man. The treasure here are the 18 stories assembled. This book is older than I am, which says something. I read this as a teenager in High School, and I don't think I read it since, although a number of the stories have appeared elsewhere and a few of those I have read more recently. Despite a few dated characteristics and ideas, the writing here is almost uniformly excellent and I really savored reading these stories one or two at a time. Bradbury slips in social commentary just about everywhere. I'd recommend this one as an introduction to Ray Bradbury.

The leadoff story "The Veldt" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, which goes to show you how mainstream Ray Bradbury was, and yet so wildly imaginative. The Veldt is perhaps my favorite story in this collection. Another really good one is "The City", a tale about spacemen who find a city that has waited 20,000 years for revenge. Horror science fiction, that one is. Most, maybe all of the stories in the Illustrated Man are really science fiction stories - ot fantasy - outer space exploration is a running theme for example.

The contents are:

• 1 • Prologue: The Illustrated Man • (1951)
• 7 • The Veldt • (1950)
• 19 • Kaleidoscope • (1949)
• 27 • The Other Foot • (1951)
• 39 • The Highway • (1950)
• 42 • The Man • (1949)
• 53 • The Long Rain • (1950)
• 65 • The Rocket Man • (1951)
• 75 • The Fire Balloons • The Martian Chronicles • (1951)
• 90 • The Last Night of the World • (1951)
• 94 • The Exiles • (1949)
• 106 • No Particular Night or Morning • (1951)
• 114 • The Fox and the Forest • (1950)
• 128 • The Visitor • (1948)
• 139 • The Concrete Mixer • (1949)
• 156 • Marionettes, Inc. • (1949)
• 162 • The City • (1950)
• 169 • Zero Hour • (1947)
• 177 • The Rocket • (1950)
• 186 • Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) • (1951)

[renbedell · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A collection of SF short stories that mostly have a setting in the future, Mars, and fantastical elements. Each story is great with its own set of twists. They are all pretty dark that doesn't give much hope for humanity's future. All are incredibly interesting and gripping. A great collection from a great author.

[datrappert · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is, overall, a pretty dark collection from Bradbury. Definitely some gems here worth digging into. The movie version wasn't bad, either.

[threadnsong · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

What great stories, what interesting twists, and what true innovation in seeing the world. For anyone wanting to know what the science fiction authors thought "back in the day" in the Golden Age of Science Fiction writing, this is a prime example. Some of the characterizations of women are sadly 1950's, but others are much more elevated. I think my favorite is the priests who discover the real Martians and step down from thinking they need to teach them about God.

[floratina · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

READ IN ENGLISH

I don't remember exactly why I bought this book, and I think it has been on my TBR for the last two years. But as I'm trying to actually read my TBR, I came across the Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, most famous of course for his novel Fahrenheit 451.



And, I really was surprised at how much I liked this book! (I also like Fahrenheit 451, now I think of it), but this novel is more like a collection of short stories (the central story is fascinating, but very small, and from a given point, it doesn't even appear between the short stories any more). I'm not a particular fan of short stories, but some of these were really good.



Most of them were SF, though some of them tended to be more like Horror-SF (if something like that exists?). Written in 1951, there is a fascination of atom bombs, biological warfare, space missions, the general destruction of live as we know it and (because this is Ray Bradbury) book burnings. Nice to read it now, as some of the stories are set in like 1969 or 2005, it's funny what people thought might have become of us by then =)



I'd not thought I would like this book so much, and now I actually want to read even more books by Ray Bradbury.

[leslie398 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Good set of 1940-50s science fiction short stories but some of them are dated now (65+ years after their first publication). Others were just as good as ever!

[jculkin-1 · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

My advice: read it, but as soon as you begin to suspect it's hollow, put it down - it won't be redeeming itself.

The opening is my favourite opening of any book. A shame about the actual collection of short stories, which are pretty much all perfect examples of the tragedy of great sci-fi ideas injected into poor narratives. I did enjoy some of the first few stories though.

[terris-7 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Another great one by Ray Bradbury!

[isabelx_21 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

According to the date in the front, I acquired this book of short stories second-hand in 1983. This could well be the first time I've re-read it in 20 years, as I only really remembered two of them: "The Veldt", about a futuristic house with a holographic playroom whose walls show whatever the children want and "Zero hour", another story about kids getting back at their parents. These stories, tattooed on the illustrated man's body, tend toward a pessimistic view of the future. They are peopled with astronauts driven mad by the emptiness of space, Martians invading earth who are themselves conquered by the banality of life in small-town America (a very misogynistic story), and women despairing about their men-folks' obsession with space.

I think I prefer the more optimistic view of the future pictured in the John Varley stories that I read last month.

[theokester · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I've loved Bradbury's writing since I was first introduced to some of his short stories in elementary school and later read some of his novels in Junior High and High School. Even loving his work, there is so much of it that I've never read. I finally decided to remedy that problem. The Illustrated Man is an interesting "novel" to read as it is actually a short story collection framed within the concept of a tattooed man whose images come to life to tell true stories and have a prophetic aspect that effects anyone who watches them long enough.

The book consists of 18 different stories ranging from the ultra "sci-fi" to the less "sci-fi" tales of wonder. Think of it like an eclectic collection of 'Twilight Zone' episodes done with expert mastery. Even though these stories were written individually over a number of years, the framing together with the larger narrative made me look at these stories a little differently...not as a single cohesive story by any means, but I did notice ways in which some of them related to one another or "spoke to" themes and elements of others. Part of me wanted a little more "wrapping" to learn the story of the Illustrated Man and how he interacted with the characters in these various stories (granted, we get some of that in 'Something Wicket This Way Comes' but I was left wanting more here).

As with many (most? all?) of Bradbury's stories, there are certain twists and reveals that I don't want to spoil with a plot synopsis but I will comment that I absolutely enjoyed all of the stories in this book. Admittedly, some were better than others but I wouldn't say any are specifically "bad" stories...I'm certain some will be less liked than others but that will largely be an issue of preference as well as an early writer finding his voice.

As a parent, I felt a certain unease with the opening story ("The Veldt") which was then set back in balance by the closing story ("The Rocket"). I didn't do a full compare/contrast of the stories but I felt like this sort of balance was present in the book. I don't see any heavy handed balancing act in place but I was truly impressed with the selection and order of the stories in the book. I felt like everything flowed together in a way that felt natural and helped keep the reader engaged and with a good emotional ride.

There is definitely a fantastical element to all of the tales but whether you're a die hard fan of Bradbury and/or sci-fi or if you're just a lover of a well written story, The Illustrated Man will surely have something you will enjoy. I'm thinking about re-initiating our "bedtime story time" routine and reading these stories to my kids. This is a collection that is definitely recommended. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

*****
4.5 out of 5 stars

[lobotomy42 · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

The most surprising thing about this collection of stories is how often they veer from 50s adventure sci-fi (the word "rocket" appears conspicuously in almost every one) into the kind of "twist" horror stories that one imagines 12-year-old boys might once have told around a campfire. For the most part, this particular transition is as repetitive as it is unimpressive.

Virtually all of the stories in this mold are so predictable that I saw the twist coming almost as soon as the premise was established. (Perhaps these stories were so influential that their twists have been copied ad nauseam in the years after this was published, but somehow I doubt it.) And once you remove the twist-horror gimmick, there's little left to the stories to recommend them. Bradbury's prose is plain, his characters all virtually indistinguishable from each other. A few themes repeat throughout - "The Real Problem is Humans," "Children Are Secretly Evil," "War is Horrible" and "Space is Awesome." These, too, feel a bit tired today, although I suspect they were more resonant in the 50s when these stories were originally published.

That said, when Bradbury stops trying to surprise us with monsters in closets and doesn't descend into unsubtle moralizing, a few of his stories are quite good. "Rocket Man," probably the best of the bunch, is about a father who sees his family only a few days every 3 or 4 months and works because most of the action and feelings are unspoken. (The son secretly scrapes spacedust off his Dad's uniform every time he returns -- because he longs to see space, or is desperate to retain any piece of his dad that he can?) "The Long Rain," about a few explorers seeking shelter on an eternally-raining Venus, has a decent sense of atmosphere as well.

The rest, though, are easily forgotten.

[stige_3 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Suprisingly dated. Occasional beauty. Mostly interesting for sci-fi historians.

[amilofinn · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I enjoy collections of well written short stories very much and was very pleased with this sci-fi collection from Ray Bradbury. The film version focussed on only three of the short stories in this volume, but the book contains many more. My favourites are The Veldt, a cautionary tale about switched off parenting, The Long Rain, about a trek through a water logged forest to find the sun dome, Kaleidoscope, featuring astronauts floating through space and the Fox and the Forest, about a couple's misadventure in a time machine.

[whitewavedarling · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Bradbury's vision is something both horrifying and wonderful, played out in this collection of fantastic and futuristic stories and held together by the tenuously changing and tortured skin of an illustrated man. As a framed and connected collection, its powerful is wonderful, but even on their own, the stories hold such wonder, heartbreak, and beauty that they're each worth exploring in and of themselves.

Absolutely recommended.