Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury

As in Ray Bradbury's own stories, there is some violence in the selections in Shadow Show: a werewolf attack, a mercy killing, a serial killer, and fatal encounters with vampires and sea monsters. But the violence and bloodshed are usually referred to obliquely, left mostly to the reader's imagination.

The most explicit story in Shadow Show is "Light" by Mort Castle, concerned with the sex life and final days of Marilyn Monroe. Margaret Atwood's "Headlife" features sexual imagery and talk. Otherwise, there is little emphasis on sexuality in these stories

In general, the stories in Shadow Show employ language not much stronger than would be found in Ray Bradbury's stories during his heyday -- the '40s through '60s. (The use of the word "prick" is one story is rather startling.) The exceptions are Mort Castle's "Light" and Margaret Atwood's "Headlife," which feature "f--k" and its variations as expletives and in reference to sexual intercourse.

Drinking, drugs and smoking do not occur often in the stories in Shadow Show. They do play a part in "Light," a story about the last days of Marilyn Monroe. And it is implied that the parents in Joe Hill's "By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain" are hungover.

Parents need to know that Shadow Show is a fitting tribute to the late Ray Bradbury, one of the most acclaimed and popular science fiction and fantasy writers of the 20th century. The contributors do an exemplary job of putting their own imprints on Bradbury's classic themes and settings, involving elements such as space travel, robots, vampires, werewolves, and dinosaurs. In general, the levels of violence, profanity and sex match those in Bradbury's original stories from a less explicit time in popular literature. Exceptions are "Light" by Mort Castle and "Headlife" by Margaret Atwood, which feature "f--k" and its variations as expletives and in reference to sexual intercourse. The violence and bloodshed are usually left to the reader's imagination, but there's a werewolf attack, a mercy killing, a serial killer, and fatal encounters with vampires and sea monsters.