The City by Ray Bradbury

You can run, but you're already home.

Starting off 2025 with a banger, courtesy of the maestro of short stories himself, Mr. Ray Bradbury! It's highly probable that I have encountered this one before since it felt vaguely familiar—though I might be mixing it up with another one of his other post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories (the dude was prolific and chalk it up to my faulty memory). Regardless, this is a tightly woven and fast-paced little gem from start to finish. 

In this story, Bradbury introduces us to an unnamed "City" (hence the title), possibly a forsaken Earth, but with a twist: it’s alive, sentient, and out for revenge. This city has spent the last 20,000 years meticulously plotting its revenge against humanity. Don't let the cheesy sci-fi B-movie premise fool you, it's riveting stuff and Bradbury has a lot of fun here. He weaves a darkly comical narrative, balancing eerie suspense with moments of biting humor, all leading up to a twist ending that is unsettling as much as it is oddly satisfying. 

The author skillfully avoids the temptation of overwhelming the reader with excessive info-dumping or drawn-out backstory. Instead, every detail is carefully chosen, offering just enough to vividly paint the eerie, desolate landscape while leaving room for the imagination to roam. The sparse yet evocative descriptions perfectly capture the sense of foreboding that hangs heavy in the air, creating an atmosphere where danger feels omnipresent—lurking in every shadow and around every ominous corner. It’s a subtle but effective narrative approach that makes this such an enjoyable read.

The City is vintage Bradbury: entertaining, clever, chilling, and even a little cheeky. What a way to kick off the new year!

You can read this story HERE.

2024 Reflections

Hello 2025! 

Not to go off on a tangent here but is there a statute of limitations for when we should stop saying happy new year? Come on, it’s mid-January and at this point, saying "Happy New Year" feels like showing up to a Christmas party with a Valentine's Day card. Honestly, we need rules. Like, after January 7th, it should be illegal to start a conversation with 'Happy New Year.' By then, we’ve all accepted our fate, and no amount of forced cheer is going to fix the fact that we’re back to the grind.

Now that I have gotten that out of my system, here are some brief reading reflections of 2024:

• Grand total of novels read in 2024? A resounding zero. That’s right, not a single one—just short stories. It’s not that novels and I are on bad terms; we’re just… taking some time apart. Plus, my attention span is terrible and any attempt at reading a novel puts me to sleep. 
• My delusional reading goal for 2024 was to conquer 1,000 short stories. That was doomed to fail before I even started.
• Despite my loft ambitions and the tumultuous year that left very little time for reading,  I somehow managed to read somewhere between 150-200 short stories. (Don’t ask for exact numbers—at some point, I lost count and just rolled with it.) Honestly, considering how my reading habits have been circling the drain for years, this feels like a monumental feat. Cue imaginary applause.
• 2024 also marked my most prolific year on this blog, with 120 posts, most of which were reviews. I’ll take my pat on the back now, thank you.
• Discovered some amazing short-story writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lucia Berlin and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. I look forward to reading more of their work.
• Rediscovered some old favorites like Bradbury, O. Henry, Updike, Murakami 
• I read some of Donald Barthelme's work before but 2024 was the year I fell headfirst into his wonderfully weird world. I have come to really appreciate his ingenuity and satirical brilliance. He was my most-read author of the year and now holds a secure spot in my top five short-story writers of all time.
• Best short story read in 2024: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel García Márquez
• Worst short story read in 2024: Late, Late Show by John O'Hara

And there you have it—a year of short-story adventures and just enough success to not give up on reading entirely. Here’s to 2025, where I’ll probably set another delusional reading goal and regret it by February. 

Cheers.