Rating: 
Summary: I Wanted to Love it but I only Liked it
Review: I've been an admirer of Ray Bradbury since my grade six teacher read stories from the Illustrated Man to us back in the 1970's. I've read SOmething Wicked This Way Comes and Dandelion Wine a half dozen times each and I delve into his short stories all the time. When I discovered this book, a new Bradbury book about the Family, I had expectations so huge they could never be matched. Somehow the book never took hold. Maybe I'm too old, maybe his writing style has changed. To be sure the book has it's moments but as a whole it let me down. I wanted to love it so much I read it twice, but again that spark just wasn't there. It's still a good read just not the unforgettable master-piece I really wanted it to be. You just can't fake love no matter how much you wish it were different.
Rating: 
Summary: His masterwork
Review: If I could blame one author for my life-long obsession with the printed word, Ray Bradbury would be a likely scapegoat. His strange and sad stories are so braided with my own memories, it's sometimes hard to sort them out. After years of studying and teaching literature, I still maintain that Bradbury is a visionary. Yes, in my studies I've encountered plenty of cynics who would mock him as a sappy crackpot, but my love for his skewed tales has survived. That said, I strongly believe "From The Dust Returned" is his strongest work. A novel even the most screw-faced doubter must grudgingly admit is brilliant. I'm not trying to be grim when I say this, but it strikes me at once as the sort of book which could only be written by a great man near the end of his life. It has a sweeping, elegiac quality and easily meets all the expectations one might have for a novel 50 years in the womb. Of course, it is full of the fantastic, the sad, the phantasmagoric-- all crystalized in the amber of Bradbury's inimitable prose. It is a book of rememberances, through the vivid lense of childhood. It is a novel about everything-- love, death, faith. Above all, it is a novel about imagination and memory, and how through those concepts, it may be possible to, in a small way, cheat fate. I've read it twice already, and repeated readings are not only needed by infinitely pleasing. The writing is at once sparse and simple, but full of infinite secrets. If you are a lover of Bradbury, you don't need my recomendation. If you are jaded soldier of the literary battle fields, come home to this wonder-full book and rediscover why you started reading books in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful conglomeration of old and new writings
Review: In 1945, Ray Bradbury published a story called "Homecoming" about an odd Family called the Elliotts. Since then, Bradbury has been revisiting the Family over the years. Now all those stories have been compiled--together with new linking material--into a novel, From the Dust Returned. It is composed of stories from Dark Carnival, The October Country, and The Toynbee Convector--as well as others. Truly, this is an ambitious project. But Bradbury has pulled it off winningly. It is a wonderful novel full of all the stuff that makes Bradbury's stories great. His intense enthusiasm for his work always comes through on to the page, making each of his books a treat. From the Dust Returned is no different.
Rating: 
Summary: A pleasant visit with some old friends.
Review: In From The Dust Returned, a book literally fifty years in the making, Ray Bradbury revisits an old haunt, The Autumn House, a Mecca of sorts for all manner of ghosts, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, witches, and things that go bump in the night. The house, rendered in loving detail by the great Charles Addams on the wrap around dust jacket, is also home to some of Bradbury's most memorable creations: the housebound Cecy, whose spirit roams the earth each night, seeking sensation by briefly inhabiting others' bodies, the foundling Timothy, the only "normal" denizen of the house, and good ol' Uncle Einar, he of the magnificent pair of wings. A reworking of several of his short stories (among them the renowned "Homecoming"), the book is a must have for Bradbury fans. Is it prime Bradbury? Mostly. Is it self indulgent? Yes, a bit. But hell, the man's a legitimate national treasure (just last year, he received the National Book Award's Medal of Distinguished Honor) , and I'm happy he's reached that point in his career and life where he can pursue so obvious a labor of love as this. His joy in his work is evident, as his love for these characters, drawn from memories of his own relatives and acquaintances. A good book to share with children, particularly around Halloween, it's a pleasant way to while away a couple of hours, especially for those already familiar with Bradbury's one of a kind prose style.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Halloween Story
Review: In From the Dust Returned, Bradbury returns to the format he uses in Dandelion Wine, The Martian Chronicles, and Green Shadows, White Whale, extracting old short stories and building upon them until he creates a novel. While it is wonderful to revisit the characters of Uncle Einar and Timothy from The October Country (his best anthology, I believe), Bradbury's style has obviously changed since then and he tends to lapse into the "purple overwriting" that he has grown accostomed to. For certain Bradbury fans, like myself, this is wonderful, but unfortunately his current works tend to alienate the average reader. His narrative is nowhere as tight as Fahrenheit 451 or Something Wicked This Way Comes, and while the story may bear similarities to The Halloween Tree, it lacks that book's focused themes and ideas. Instead, From the Dust Returned is like an anthology of poems, bits of delicious imagery strung together on a thin plot. While this itself is enjoyable enough, I wish that he could have developed the family members more (too much time spent on Cecy, and "Uncle John" seems to be a horrible plot contrivance to get to the end) and thus opened the book up to a larger audience, where it could have become a classic. Unfortunately, I fear that this book will fade into the obscurity of Bradbury's later works.
Rating:
Summary: A Dark tale for Bradbury fans..
Review: In its solitude stands the house, the house that is an entity in itself. A house with a story, a history and most importantly a historian even if he is not ready for the job yet.
As you read the book, the sky turns gray, the wind has certain coolness and there's that eerie melancholy all around you that almost makes you wish you were dead and part of this family.
You pity little Timothy who can't fly like Uncle Einar, can't dream like sister Cecy. But thankfully he can survive when the surge of crowd will invade the house and he can write this story.
Bradbury has done wonders for Gothic art and this maybe one of his finest works.
Related Book : October Country
Must Read : Something Wicked This Way Comes, Martian Chronicles
Rating:
Summary: The Wonder of Ray Bradbury
Review: In this story, Ray Bradbury warns us of the frailty of wonder in our world. An Information Society refuses wonder, only to suffer the ignorance of minds narrowed until a shadow is just a shadow, the wind no longer is said to howl or whisper, and the night is packaged in a televised product as poor and destructive as anyone can attest.
This book simply is alive with wonder. Listen close.
Rating:
Summary: Quite fascinating, and, in its own way, heartwarming
Review: In upper Illinois there stands a house, a house not built by human hands. And in this house there dwells a family unlike any other, a family of the undead. Mummies, vampires, werewolves, and some beyond description live there, or visit on special occasions. And there lives there one small human, Timothy. Left on the doorstep as a baby, it is Timothy's fate to write the story of the house and the family. This is Timothy's story. From the above description, one might assume this book to be a work of horror. Strangely enough, that couldn't be further from the truth. This surrealistic story tells of a family that isn't and can't be, and that's rather too bad. This wonderful story draws you into the human condition of a very unhuman family, holding up a dark and distorted mirror to all humanity. It is quite fascinating, and, in its own way, heartwarming. This novel is the product of some 40 years of Ray Bradbury's life. It influenced the work of Charles Addams (author of the Addams Family cartoons), and shows many affinities with those stories. So, if you are a fan of the Addams Family, of Ray Bradbury, of undead stories, or just plain a fan of good literature, then I highly recommend this wonderful book to you!
Rating:
Summary: Like a Fine Wine
Review: Like a fine wine, Bradbury keeps getting better as he ages. Once again Bradbury has written a master work. From the Dust Returned sends the reader back to the people of the October Country. His magical story about a family gathering of monsters and ghouls is interweaved with small vingettes about individual family members and their encounters. The characters are of a dark sort, however their tribulations actually celebrate life. As time progresses, this work should rank right up there with some of his best work. A new reader does not have to have read any of Bradbury's other works to love this piece. As a matter of fact this novel may be a perfect way to introduce a reader to Bradbury. I hope he keeps writing work of this quality for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: Twilight in the October country.
Review: Logic demanding reader beware! From the Dust Returned is a work by Bradbury the poet, NOT the short story writer. One of the greatest voices in 20th century writing as returned to, perhaps for the final time (though I sincerely hope not), that October Country filled to bursting with Dark Carnivals, Magic, and Wonder. Again and again his words carry us around the world, singing a bittersweet song that is part Dirge and part Ode to Joy for all things shadowy and creepy, sweet and spooky along the way. As the twilight fades to dawn, all things nightly battle to survive a world that believes it no longer needs them. But without shadow how can we truly love the light, and vice versa? Again and again Bradbury shows a unique mastery of the tone poem in this gathering of tales that only he could write. So gather around the jack o' lantern this Halloween and listen to one of America's literary greats whisper of delightfully spooky things. Listen.
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