I sing the body electric! Book

It's a good thing I'm writing this review months after reading this book because a decent acid test for a short story collection is how many stories stick in your mind after you've put some time between reading and reviewing or just plain old remembering.

The centerpiece of the book is the title story, which was adapted into a Twilight Zone episode and a made for TV movie starring that kid from E.T. whose name wasn't Elliot:



A dad buys a robot grandma to take care of his three children after his wife dies. The robot grandma makes crappy tasting wheat cakes, falls down a lot, and smells like motor oil, yet that doesn't prevent her from winning the children's hearts. Eventually. Dawwww!

Other stories that made an impression on me (i.e. are sort of imprinted on my aging crack-addled brain):

The funny one about the Irish Revolutionary dudes and saving some paintings.

The sad/sweet one about a guy who impersonated Charles Dickens.

The interesting one about the triangle baby and the human parents.



The weird one about a descendant of John Wilkes Booth shooting a robot Abe Lincoln.



The touching story about giving Ernest Hemingway a more fitting death.

The strange one about the old dude on Mars who punks himself over and over again.

Caveat emptor: There's a poem at the end of the book that I sort of read in an I'm-almost-done-with-this-book-so-I'm-going-to-sort-of-speed-read-it-and-just-pretend-I-read-it way.

Miller Analogy Bonus public service content for you potential grad-schoolers:

Poetry : Jeff :: Kryptonite : Superman

The relationship is thus: Prolonged exposure to Kryptonite will kill Superman and prolonged (hell even brief) exposure to poetry will eventually kill me.

Good luck in grad school, kids! Stay in school, don't do drugs!!

Although Bradbury has a tendency to be lumped into the science fiction category, these stories straddle multiple genres and, for the most part, are well worth checking out. So if you were force fed Fahrenheit 451 as a high-schooler, give Bradbury, who's raison d'etre (<- bonus French content) was the short story, another shot.