Before we had people walking on the moon, but after we knew space travel was possible and in fact likely, science fiction was in a weird place. On the one hand, it was still possible to be weirdly futuristic and completely ignore present-day developments in space travel. On the other hand, it became quite likely that future America was going to have these space rockets integrated in to the very folds of everyday existence. Bradbury, whose scifi has always been very down to earth and personality and character based, has written about a future in which rockets are all around us -- where the family man instead of going to work at the office goes to work in the stars.

Kids in this future world don’t just dream about going to space, some of them actually get to go. Rocket launches are commonplace and the rockets themselves become almost a sideline compared to what they can do. Some of Bradbury’s best stories are in this collection from “Here There be Tygers” to “Uncle Einar.” In light of recent rocket events and disasters, this book induces a wistful sort of nostalgia for a future that never was.