Amazon.com (ISBN 0394513355, Hardcover)

The Stories of Ray Bradbury--a hundred of his best stories, selected by the author himself--is the definitive collection of one of the greatest fantasists the world has ever known. Published in 1980, the volume contains stories selected from the first four decades of Bradbury's career. There are his unique stories of Mars, which later landed in The Martian Chronicles. There are nostalgic stories of Green Town, Illinois, which Bradbury later brewed into Dandelion Wine. The treasures here also include his regional tales of Ireland and of rural Mexico, classic science fiction such as "The Fog Horn," and the rarely reprinted novella "Frost and Fire." Among the half dozen previously uncollected stories are a few of his earliest--and most terrifying. These include the unforgettable "October Game" (which the author regards as perhaps his most shocking story amongst the thousand that he's written), and "Black Ferris," later to be transformed into the classic Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury also contributes a revealing and highly informative look back at his own career. If you can possess only one book by the legendary Ray Bradbury, this is it. --Stanley Wiater