One cannot overlook the ‘fantasy’ writing - he and Charles Addams were contemporaries and had always planned to collaborate on something. I know Chas. Addams DID illustrate the cover of RB’s last book about his…unusual… family of supernatural creatures, who could very well be the beloved neighbors, or even relatives, of the Addams family.
One of my favorite RB stories is “A Medicine for Melancholy”. It’s very unusual.
Seconding I Sing the Body Electric. Wonderful stuff. Ray has gotten rather cranky of late, but when I dealt with him (back in the Dark Ages) he was a personable, affable man with infinite patience and joy. It was reflected in his writing. Even the darkest pieces had a core of innocence and wonder.
The EC Comics adaptation* of that one (with, IIRC, Feldstein artwork) is just stunning.
What a melancholy story.
*E.C. Comics, in the '50s started… < cough > “borrowing” science fiction stories for adaptation without attribution…especially Bradbury’s because they were short and tended to pack one hell of an emotional punch.
They didn’t count on the fact that Bradbury was a huge fan of comics in general and E.C. Comics in particular. So, after seeing several of his stories “borrowed”, he sent a letter to William Gaines, head of E.C. Comics saying something like “Dear Mr. Gaines, I loved your adaptation of X, Y and Z stories that I wrote. Strangely, the royalty check seems to have been lost in the mail. Please resend and I look forward to seeing more of your wonderful adaptations.” Gaines promptly sent a check to Bradbury and after that started splashing Bradbury’s name all over the covers of their comics.
You’re not the only one who feels that way: Ray Bradbury once said it was his favorite among his own writing.
I agree that “vignettes of mood” and “myth” are better descriptions of The Martian Chronicles than “fantasy” or “not science fiction”.
I guess I have to come out of lurking for this one.
IMHO, Something Wicked This Way Comes is indeed a fantastic novel.
One of my favorites as well. Nice username. 
You have to come to Bradbury with the right attitude. Forget hard science - if you are expecting any scientific consistency at all, you will be disappointed. Mars in The Martian Chronicles is not that far off from how it was commonly shown in Planet Stories and the like, where the stories appeared, but even those writers didn’t think you could see a war on Earth from Mars with your naked eye. But if you are willing to accept the stories as about people and not speculation, you will enjoy them. That is why he is so popular in the old mainstream world, where people looked at you funny for objecting to a scientific implausibility.
I like him with the part of my brain that did well on the Verbal SAT, not the part that did well on the Math SAT.
Bradbury’s work is difficult to classify.
It reminds me that the term SF can be ‘Science Fiction’ or (as Ellison once suggested) ‘Speculative Fiction’.
His treatment of fantasy in ‘The October Country’ certainly is a fine piece of modern fantasy and written with his usual flair for prose.
Not only is it my favorite, but it’s the first Bradbury work I ever read. I think I was in junior high or so…our literature books contained various poems, short stories, and story exerpts. I got bored with whatever we were discussing in class at the time, and started flipping through the book. I happened to land on this story; I remember rereading it several times, as I was so impressed with it.
Oh, I was this close to being the first to recommend ‘The October Country’. It is very excellent, a collection of short stories rather than a novel, but different from ‘The Martian Chronicles’. These are not “happy” stories by any means, but well written and well worth the read. But like olivesmarch4th wrote above, not to everyone’s taste.
Thank you for these replies. I am actually excited now at getting into the favourites listed here. I’ll start with those before reaching for Martian Chronicles.
Thanks also for clarifying that Martian Chronicles is a loosely connected anthology of shorts. So do I take it that it’s akin to the Beatles White Album: intended to be enjoyed from beginning to end as a unit, but each item relatively independent? In other words, would I be doing the author a disservice if I read, say, “Way in the Middle of the Air” first?
Yes, you can read it independently. One of the reasons it can be cut is that it is a sidebar to the story and not embedded in it.
Put me down in the column of reading everything sci fi, but not loving Ray Bradbury. Give it another try, sure, but if it doesn’t resonate for you, don’t force yourself.
I did the same thing with “All Summer In A Day” which is possibly the saddest story I’ve ever read.