Venice, California, 1949. Tra le ombre e i fangosi canali, i bungalow in rovina e le palme asfittiche della città californiana, si aggira forse un omicida. A sospettarlo è un giovane scrittore, perso nel suo mondo di storie inventate fino a quando attorno a lui non cominciano ad accadere strani fatti. All'inizio si tratta di misteriose telefonate, ma via via gli 'incidenti' si fanno sempre più inquietanti. E fatali. Il ragazzo chiede allora aiuto a Elmo Crumley, detective di strada, e a una ex gloria del cinema ancora affamata di vita. Insieme riusciranno a venire a capo del puzzle.

A young screenwriter and his crafty partner, detective Elmo Crumley, protect an aging movie queen from a deadly enemy who is determined to put an end to both her career and her life.

DER TOD IST EIN EINSAMES GESCH - BRADBURY RAY - Diogenes

È in una serata di settembre, nei Wisconsin, che appare l'Uomo illustrato. È ormai anziano, cerca un lavoro. Invano. Tutti fuggono da lui quando osservano gli strani, bellissimi disegni di cui è ricoperta la sua pelle. Non sono tatuaggi ma opere d'arte. O forse di stregoneria... A guardarle a lungo, quelle figure si animano, raccontano storie. Non storie qualunque: svelano a ciascuno ciò che lo attende, la storia della sua vita e della sua morte. La sfrenata fantasia di Ray Bradbury trascina il lettore in un mondo futuribile e tanto più inquietante.

When Jack Davis took up his pen for EC Comics, he made his innocent victims more eye-poppingly terrified, his ax-murderers more gleefully gruesome, and his vampires and werewolves more bloodthirsty and feral than any other artist. These horror and suspense tales — from the pages of Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, and Shock SuspenStories — offer everything a horror fan could ask for: re-animated bodies and body parts, a ghoul who stores bodies like a squirrel stores nuts, a vampire who moonlights at (where else?) a blood bank, greedy business partners, corrupt politicians, jealous lovers, revenge from beyond the grave, and a healthy complement of vampires, werewolves, and assorted grotesqueries. All leavened with the cackling, pun-laced humor of scripter Al Feldstein and illuminated as only the virtuoso brushwork of Jack Davis can present them.

Montag fa il pompiere in un mondo in cui ai pompieri non è richiesto di spegnere gli incendi, ma di accenderli: armati di lanciafiamme, fanno irruzione nelle case dei sovversivi che conservano libri e li bruciano. Così vuole fa legge. Montag però non è felice della sua esistenza alienata, fra giganteschi schermi televisivi, una moglie che gli è indifferente e un lavoro di routine. Finché, dall'incontro con una ragazza sconosciuta, inizia per lui la scoperta di un sentimento e di una vita diversa, un mondo di luce non ancora offuscato dalle tenebre della imperante società tecnologica.

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendaryTwilight Zone writer, with a foreword by Ray Bradbury and an afterword by William Shatner

It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts forThe Twilight Zone—for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension.Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont’s finest stories, including five that he later adapted forTwilight Zone episodes.

Beaumont dreamed up fantasies so vast and varied they burst through the walls of whatever box might contain them. Supernatural, horror, noir, science fiction, fantasy, pulp, and more: all were equally at home in his wondrous mind. These are stories where lions stalk the plains, classic cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. With dizzying feats of master storytelling and joyously eccentric humor, Beaumont transformed his nightmares and reveries into impeccably crafted stories that leave themselves indelibly stamped upon the walls of the mind. In Beaumont’s hands, nothing is impossible: it all seems plausible, even likely.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Jack Kamen's precise, clean style was perfect subversion for EC Comics tales of seemingly normal men and women who cooly act on the rage, jealousy, and greed just below their glamorous façades. Kamen’s crime capers include “Forty Whacks” (Whatever became of that ax Lizzie Borden used?), “Contract for Death” (A suicidal man agrees to accept $5,000 for his fresh corpse, then changes his mind. But the contract fails to specify that the body has to be his…), “The Neat Job!” (Her “neat freak” husband drove her crazy, so when she chopped him up into little pieces…), “Just Desserts!” (A madman bent on revenge hosts a dinner for his victims … and the final course is a killer!) — plus 20 more gripping tales of tension as only EC could do them! Like every book in the Fantagraphics EC Artists’ Library, Forty Whacks And Other Stories also features essays and notes by EC experts on these superbly crafted, classic masterpieces.

In The Halloween Tree, master of fantasy Ray Bradbury takes readers on a riveting trip though space and time to discover the true origins of Halloween.

Originally published in 1972, this striking new hardcover edition features dramatic illustrations throughout by Gris Grimly, giving a new generation of readers a chance to discover the magic.

"The Playground" was part of the first hardcover edition of Ray Bradbury's legendary workFahrenheit 451, published in 1953.

In the story, Charles Underhill is a widower who will do anything to protect his young son Jim from the horrors of the playground—a playground which he and the boy pass by daily and the tumult of which, the activity, brings back to Charles the anguish of his own childhood. The playground, like childhood itself, is a nightmare of torment and vulnerability; Charles fears his sensitive son will be destroyed there just as he almost was so many years ago.

Underhill's sister Carol, who has moved in to help raise the young boy after his mother passed away, feels differently. The playground, she believes, is preparation for life, Jim will survive the experience, she feels, and he will be the better for it and more equipped to deal with the rigor and obligation of adult existence.

Underhill is caught between his own fear and his sister's invocation of reason and feels paralyzed. A mysterious boy calls out to him from the playground, and seems to know all too well why Underhill is there and what the source of his agony really is. A mysterious Manager also lurks to whom the strange boy directs Underhill. An agreement can be made perhaps—this is what the boy tells Underhill. Perhaps Jim can be spared the playground, but of course, a substitute must be found.

The people of Earth are preparing for war—a war that could potentially destroy the planet. Explorers are sent to Mars to find a new place for humans to colonize. Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is presented here as a full cast audio production with an original music score and thousands of sound effects by the award winning Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air. It marks their fourth collaboration with one of the most celebrated fiction writers of our time—Ray Bradbury.

Nell'arco di oltre sessant'anni, Ray Bradbury ha rilasciato più di trecento interviste. Le dodici selezionate nel presente volume toccano tutti gli aspetti della sua vita, dalla narrativa alla sua visione della fantascienza, dalla politica alle esperienze televisive e cinematografiche. Nell'avvicendarsi concitato d'idee e scenari - dalle atmosfere sognanti de L'estate incantata alla denuncia dei totalitarismi e del potere dei media di 'Fahrenheit 451', fino alle profondità siderali delle 'Cronache marziane' - a emergere è un carattere all'insegna della curiosità, della necessità di andare oltre la superficie delle cose, per scoprire cosa si nasconde dietro il quotidiano e il banale, condannando il conformismo di ieri e oggi. Ray Bradbury si confessa, accompagnando il lettore in un viaggio lungo mezzo secolo, con uno stile acceso e frizzante che non potrà non sorprendere gli appassionati, ma anche chi voglia leggere il Novecento attraverso le lenti di un suo testimone d'eccezione, poetico e realista a un tempo.

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America’s most beloved authors. In a much-celebrated literary career that has spanned seven decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays, and numerous superb short-story collections, includingThe Martian Chronicles: masterfully rendered stories of Earth’s settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury’s Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars…and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time’s passage. In connected, chronological stories, the grandmaster of science fiction enthralls, challenges, and delights us, exposing in stark and stunning spacelight our strengths, our weaknesses, our follies, and our poignant humanity, on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America’s most beloved authors. In a much-celebrated literary career that has spanned seven decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays, and numerous superb short-story collections, includingThe Martian Chronicles: masterfully rendered stories of Earth’s settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury’s Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars…and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time’s passage. In connected, chronological stories, the grandmaster of science fiction enthralls, challenges, and delights us, exposing in stark and stunning spacelight our strengths, our weaknesses, our follies, and our poignant humanity, on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America’s most beloved authors. In a much-celebrated literary career that has spanned seven decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays, and numerous superb short-story collections, including The Martian Chronicles: masterfully rendered stories of Earth’s settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury’s Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars…and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time’s passage. In connected, chronological stories, the grandmaster of science fiction enthralls, challenges, and delights us, exposing in stark and stunning spacelight our strengths, our weaknesses, our follies, and our poignant humanity, on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future, narrated here by Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television 'family.' But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future, narrated here by Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television 'family.' But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future, narrated here by Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television 'family.' But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.'

The carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour of a chill Midwestern October eve. Ushering in Halloween a week before its time, a calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Young boyhood companions James Nightshade and Will Halloway are the first to heed its call. From a place of safety, they watch a midway come to spectral life, their emotions a riot of eagerness, trepidation, bravado, and uncertainty. For they can sense the change that's in the air; that this is the autumn in which innocence must vanish in the harsh, acrid smoke of disillusionment…and horror.

Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show's mazes and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes and the stuff of nightmares. All those who still dream and remember—and those who have heard the whispering but have yet to experience its dark, poetic power—you are welcome. A shadow show like none other is about to begin…again.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

The carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour of a chill Midwestern October eve. Ushering in Halloween a week before its time, a calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Young boyhood companions James Nightshade and Will Halloway are the first to heed its call. From a place of safety, they watch a midway come to spectral life, their emotions a riot of eagerness, trepidation, bravado, and uncertainty. For they can sense the change that's in the air; that this is the autumn in which innocence must vanish in the harsh, acrid smoke of disillusionment…and horror.

Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show's mazes and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes and the stuff of nightmares. All those who still dream and remember—and those who have heard the whispering but have yet to experience its dark, poetic power—you are welcome. A shadow show like none other is about to begin…again.