If you loved how stories like “A Sound of Thunder” or “The Rocket” deliver a complete spark of wonder in a few pages, Calvino’s linked shorts narrated by the shapeshifting Qfwfq will hit the same pleasure centers. In “The Distance of the Moon,” moonlight lovers climb ladders to gather lunar milk; in “All at One Point,” the universe begins in a cramped room crowded with personalities. Like Bradbury, Calvino gives you one brilliant idea per tale and lets it bloom into awe.

If the melancholy wonder of “There Will Come Soft Rains” or the drifting poignancy of “Kaleidoscope” stayed with you, you’ll be moved by Simak’s saga of Earth told through far-future legends. Robot butler Jenkins tends empty houses, dogs inherit the planet and pass down tales of vanished humans, and the question of whether we were ever real heroes lingers like an echo—just the kind of wistful cosmic scope Bradbury fans savor.

If Bradbury’s poetic lines in pieces like “The Scythe” or the twilight hush of “The Night” are what you cherish, Beagle’s tale will feel like a song. The unicorn’s quest, Schmendrick’s clumsy miracles, and Molly Grue’s heartbreaking honesty unfold in language that glows on the page—prose that, like Bradbury’s, makes the fantastical feel intimate and luminous.

If what drew you to “The Veldt” or “Mars Is Heaven!” was how the speculative premise exposes human nature more than gadgets, travel with Genly Ai and Estraven across the Gobrin Ice. Le Guin’s focus on culture, gender, and trust—culminating in the perilous, intimate glacier crossing—offers the same soft-SF depth and moral warmth that powers Bradbury’s best.

If the allegorical bite of “The Pedestrian,” “The Smile,” or “The Murderer” hooked you, Jackson’s collection will pierce just as cleanly. “The Lottery” turns a sunny village square into a symbol of ritual cruelty; elsewhere, ordinary rooms and routines warp into indictments of conformity and fear—precisely the kind of resonant, image-rich social fables Bradbury excels at.