I Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection
of short stories by Ray Bradbury.
The book takes its name from an included short
story of the same title, which in turn took
the title from a poem by Walt Whitman published
in his collection Leaves of Grass.
== Contents ==
The collection includes these stories:
"The Kilimanjaro Device" (originally titled
"The Kilimanjaro Machine", first appeared
in Life Magazine, January 1965)
After a long drive, a man arrives in Idaho
and begins to ask questions about a local
who had died.
In a bar, he finally finds someone who was
familiar with the person he is looking for.
Though never referred to by name, it becomes
clear that the person in question is none
other than Ernest Hemingway.
When asked why he's looking for him, the traveler
reveals that his truck has the ability to
travel in time.
He goes further to explain that there are
right graves and wrong graves; that people
do not always die at the right time, and this
local man is one of them.
The traveler then departs to search for Hemingway,
hoping to help him find a better end.
"The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place"
A band of rebels plot to overthrow the local
lordship and express their own freedom by
burning down his stately home.
Before they can get on with it, the lordship
himself catches them in the act and invites
them inside.
Offering drinks, he resigns to let them burn
his house, though bargains with them to do
it the following night, so that he and his
wife may still attend the theatre.
The rebels ultimately agree that it is the
only decent thing to do.
However, before they leave the house, the
lordship asks that they also spare the priceless
works of art residing in the house.
Before long, the complications of burning
the house become too much, and the Lordship
too friendly, leaving the rebel plans long
forgotten.
"Tomorrow's Child"
Peter and Polly are excited about the birth
of their first child, but the doctor has unfortunate
news.
Due to a series of malfunctions in the new
birthing machines, their newborn child has
been born into another dimension.
While ultimately healthy, the baby's appearance
is that of a small blue pyramid with tentacle-like
appendages.
Peter and Polly decide to take the baby home
on the condition that the doctors continue
ongoing work and research to try to bring
their child back into his rightful dimension.
Time passes, with both Peter and Polly dealing
with the burden of raising their abnormal
child; Polly takes it especially hard and
begins drinking heavily.
After almost exactly a year, the doctors give
them a difficult choice.
Their attempts to retrieve the baby have proved
futile, however, they would be able to send
Peter and Polly to the same dimension.
They would be reunited with their child, but
their altered appearance would force them
into solitude from the rest of society.
"The Women" (originally published in Famous
Fantastic Mysteries, October 1948)
A man and his wife are at the beach, but something
sinister has awakened in the water.
Calling out for the man to step in the ocean,
the water entity attempts to draw him to the
depths.
Increasingly aware of the danger, his wife
does all she can to distract him from the
call of the ocean.
Time ticks by, the intelligence in the water
growing desperate, knowing that if it cannot
lure the man before he leaves today, it will
be over.
Storm clouds roll in, and wife believes she
has won; her husband does not understand why
she seems to be cheerful that their last day
at the beach has been ruined.
As they begin to walk away, the husband suddenly
hears a drowning voice call out for help,
and rushes into the water to save it.
The entity envelops the man, and hours later
releases his body to wash up on shore.
"The Inspired Chicken Motel"
The narrator recalls the time he spent traveling
with his family during the Great Depression.
In particular, he looks back fondly on a motel
where the owner was the proud owner of a chicken
with the ability to tell fortunes.
When the family arrives, the owner presents
them with two eggs, laid only days before
their arrival.
On one is the raised image of a longhorn steer,
and the other contains the message “Rest
in peace.
Prosperity is near.”
Unsure what to make of the message, but ultimately
given new hope, the family sets back out on
the road.
"Downwind from Gettysburg" (originally published
in Playboy Magazine, June 1969)
When a robotic recreation of Abraham Lincoln
is shot dead in a movie theater, Bayes finds
the dead Lincoln in a seat on the stage, and
reminisces of the past when he and Phipps
worked together to create him.
Bayes confronts the killer, Mr. Booth, a self-pitying
man who takes pleasure in doing harm.
Bayes interrogates him, finding Mr. Booth
had killed Lincoln to gain attention and pleasure.
Bayes then takes that away from the killer,
ensuring that he will gain no attention for
the murder.
The killer fights back, but Bayes intimidates
him, going to the point where he threatens
him with death should he ever talk about the
murder.
Mr. Booth flees from the theater, while Bayes
reflects on himself over letting the killer
go.
"Yes, We'll Gather at the River"
A small town is confronted with the reality
of a new roadway being built.
The new road bypasses the town completely,
and threatens the livelihood of all the town's
businesses.
The store owners reflect on how things have
changed; roads used to take years to build,
and now only a matter of hours.
They each know that even though they will
move onward, a part of them will die with
the town; they ultimately accept this without
ill feeling, seeing the inevitably changing
course of the road like that of a flowing
river.
"The Cold Wind and the Warm" (originally published
in Harper's Magazine, July 1964)
In Dublin, Ireland, a David and his team of
strange travelers arrive at the Royal Hibernian
Hotel, with the intention of "doing something
mysterious".
They meet a few of the townspeople, some of
which find the visitors bizarre.
The townspeople find the visitors suspicious,
and they observe the travelers, finding them
standing still in park, watching the leaves
change colors.
They report their findings back at the tavern,
only to have David walk into the tavern himself.
He tells the story of two races travelling
to the other's countries, to escape the heat
or cold, and reveals that he himself was trying
to escape the heat of the equatorial countries
and visit a colder country like Ireland.
The townspeople watch the leaves change colors
as David and his team travel back to their
countries.
"Night Call, Collect"
A man stranded on Mars sits in an empty town,
in an empty house.
A phone rings, and when he picks up he hears
his own voice.
He spent all his early years recording messages
for his older self, years setting up the connections
so that he might never feel alone.
Now, years later, the calls all begin to come
at once.
At first they are comforting, but quickly
become a maddening reminder of all that he
has lost.
His youthful self sits out of the reach of
time, mocking him as he grows only older.
Maddened, he sets off across the planet, attempting
to destroy every vestige of his own voice.
On his way, he gets a call from a passing
ship; is he finally rescued, or is it simply
another trick played on him by his own voice?
"The Haunting of the New"
Nora, a rich owner of an illustrious house,
invites Charlie to investigate her house after
it seemingly causes her previous party to
die down and end quickly.
As Charlie drives to her house, he reminisces
of the time he and Nora had spent together,
and when he investigates the house, he finds
a few good memories from his past.
Nora then reveals that the real house had
burnt down 4 years ago, but she had recreated
it down to the finest details with the help
of numerous artisans.
She also wants Charlie to own the house, saying
that she was too sinful and old for the house,
claiming that her sins had caused the original
house to burn down in the first place.
Charlie refuses, and he and Nora drive to
her other home, while holding hands.
"I Sing the Body Electric!" (originally titled
"The Beautiful One is Here", first appeared
in McCall's Magazine, August 1969; initially
a screenplay by the author appearing on the
TV series The Twilight Zone with an original
air date of May 18, 1962)
Following the untimely death of their mother,
a family decides to buy an electric grandmother
in order to help around the house and serve
as a nanny for the three children.
Thrilled at the idea, Tom, Timothy and Agatha
go with their father to the Fantoccini company
showroom in order to custom build their new
grandmother.
The children take turns selecting her parts,
the color of her eyes, even the tone of her
voice.
Weeks later, a mysterious package arrives,
a sarcophagus containing their factory-fresh
electric grandmother.
At the turn of a key, she springs to life
and quickly becomes an essential part of the
family.
Tom, Timothy and their father immediately
begin to love her, but Agatha remains distant,
untrusting.
It slowly becomes clear that Agatha does not
believe that the grandmother will always be
there for them; she is afraid that she will
leave them, just as their mother did when
she died.
One day, Agatha runs from the house in tears
straight into traffic.
In a flash, the grandmother pushes her to
safety, only to be hit by the car herself.
Agatha cries, but finds herself comforted
by the grandmother, who is unscathed by the
accident.
The grandmother insists that she will never
leave her and that not even death could separate
them.
Agatha realizes that the grandmother is the
only one who can keep that promise and finally
opens up to her.
"The Tombling Day" (originally published in
Shenandoah, Fall 1952)
"Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's Is a Friend
of Mine" (originally titled "Charlie is My
Darling", first appeared in McCall's Magazine,
January 1966)
A man calling himself Charles Dickens arrives
in a small, Mid-west American town and moves
into the boarding house run by the mother
of the narrator, a young boy.
He proceeds to "write" the novels of Dickens,
sometimes dictating them to the boy and sometimes
with a pen and paper.
To the boy, the man is an inspiration; to
the town's adults, he is a fraud.
"Heavy-Set" (originally published in Playboy
Magazine, October 1964)
"The Man in the Rorschach Shirt" (originally
published in Playboy Magazine, October 1966)
"Henry the Ninth" (originally titled "A Final
Sceptre, a Lasting Crown", first appeared
in Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1969)
"The Lost City of Mars" (originally published
in Playboy Magazine, January 1967)
"Christus Apollo"
== I Sing the Body Electric! and Other Stories
==
In 1998, Avon Books published I Sing the Body
Electric! and Other Stories, which includes
all the stories from the original collection
as well as the following stories from Long
After Midnight:
"The Blue Bottle"
"One Timeless Spring"
"The Parrot Who Met Papa"
"The Burning Man"
"A Piece of Wood"
"The Messiah"
"G.B.S - Mark V"
"The Utterly Perfect Murder"
"Punishment Without Crime"
"Getting Through Sunday Somehow"
"Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds"
== Reception ==
Joanna Russ reviewed the collection favorably,
saying "This is third-rate Bradbury, mostly.
It is silly.
It totally perverts the quotation from Whitman
which it uses in its title.
It is very good."
Russ noted that Bradbury "presents almost
everything either in lyrical catalogue or
dramatically, and while the lyrical catalogues
sometimes fall flat, the dramatic dialogue
hardly ever does.
This gives his work tremendous immediate presence."
The New York Times also received Body Electric
favorably, saying "Whatever the premise, the
author retains an enthusiasm for both the
natural world and the supernatural that sends
a tingle of excitement through even the flimsiest
conceit."
== 
Adaptations ==
The title story, "I Sing the Body Electric!",
was adapted from a 1962 Twilight Zone episode
of the same name, which Bradbury had written.
It was later adapted as a 1982 television
movie, The Electric Grandmother, starring
Maureen Stapleton.
== Notes
