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SFF Author: Ray Bradbury

(1920-2012)
Ray Bradbury is the author of more than three dozen books. He has written for the theater and cinema, including the screenplay for John Huston’s classic adaptation of Moby Dick. He was nominated for an Academy Award, won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree, and adapted sixty-five of his stories for television’s The Ray Bradbury Theater. He lived in Los Angeles before his death on June 5, 2012. Here’s Ray Bradbury’s website.

The Martian Chronicles: Two reviews and a “Book Chat”

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles is a collection of Ray Bradbury’s stories about the human colonization of Mars which were previously published in the pulp magazines of the late 1940s. The stories are arranged in chronological order with the dates of the events at the beginning of each story. In the first edition of The Martian Chronicles, published in 1950, the events took place in a future 1999-2027, but a reprinted 1997 edition pushes all events forward to 2030-2057.

Kat Hooper, Stuart Starosta, Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Ray Bradbury | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |

The Illustrated Man: Grim but touching stories

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

The Illustrated Man is a collection of Ray Bradbury’s stories which are sandwiched between the account of the titular man whose tattoos come alive at night and set the scenes for the 18 tales in this collection. All of these stories are classic Ray Bradbury — full of spacemen, Earth-Mars conflict, psychiatrists, spoiled children, bad marriages, book burning, domestic work-saving technologies, and nervous breakdowns. They deal with the fear of atomic war, loneliness, prejudice, madness, and the dangers of automobiles, junk food, and media entertainment (but smoking is okay).

Fahrenheit 451: A “Book Chat”

For today’s Book Chat, we’re examining Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451. Interestingly, it’s the only one of his novels that Bradbury considered to be “science fiction,” telling the story of Guy Montag, a fireman who starts fires rather than putting them out. In Montag’s world, books and intellectual curiosity are forbidden, with interesting and terrifying consequences.

Let’s begin!

Bill: Another day, another Bradbury classic. I’ve been a fan of Fahrenheit 451 since I read it the first time way back in late middle or early high school and have remained so through all those re-reads back when I used to teach it in high school as well (most student reactions were positive).

Dandelion Wine: A perfectly-distilled small-town summer

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Can you be nostalgic for a place you never lived in, for a time long gone before you were born? I certainly never lived in Waukegan, Illinois in the summer of 1928 as a 12-year old boy named Douglas Spalding, but Ray Bradbury has perfectly evoked a magical world of a long-lost Midwest small town as seen from the eyes of a bright, energetic young boy.

You would think small town life is fairly boring and uneventful, but in the lyrical hands of Bradbury,

Something Wicked This Way Comes: A Book Chat

This Book Chat we’re continuing with another classic Ray Bradbury title: Something Wicked This Way Comes, his 1962 novel that mixes fantasy, horror, and coming-of-age to tell the story of a sinister carnival that arrives in the town of two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway.

Bill Capossere: I’ll start off by saying I loved this book when I read it the first time as a young teen, somewhere when I was probably just a year or two older than the two protagonists;

Bill Capossere, Jana Nyman and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Ray Bradbury | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

The Halloween Tree: The best history lesson you’ll ever have

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small part of a Midwest state. There wasn’t so much wilderness around you couldn’t see the town. But on the other hand there wasn’t so much town you couldn’t see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness.

So reads the charming first sentence of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. A perfectly gothic yarn that seeks,

Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations edited by Sam Weller

Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations, edited by Sam Weller, is actually several interviews, conducted over the last two years of Bradbury’s life, plus a handful of rough essays dictated by Bradbury to Weller, his long-time biographer. Despite this, the book is relatively slim, coming in at about 90 pages, with a lot of white space. This is not meant, though, to be an in-depth look at (or listen to) Bradbury;

Shadow Show: Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by various authors and artists

Shadow Show: Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by various authors and artists

Shadow Show is a graphic adaptation of a previously released anthology of the same name. That collection rounded up a host of well-known authors and asked them to write original stories inspired by and/or as a tribute to Ray Bradbury. The graphic version, which uses just a few of the stories from the original anthology, includes:

“By the Silver Waters of Lake Champlain” by Joe Hill
“The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury” by Neil Gaiman
“Backward in Seville” by Audrey Niffenegger
“Live Forever” by Sam Weller
“Weariness” by Harlan Ellison
“Who Knocks” by Dave Eggers
“Hokum Howkum History Presents Earth: A Gift Shop” by Charles Yu
“Altenmoor,

Magazine Monday: Weird Tales No. 360

The owner, publisher and editor of Weird Tales have all changed since the last issue of the magazine, and it shows. No longer innovative, with cutting edge fiction, it is now filled with pastiches of the work of H.P. Lovecraft, a throwback to the early days of the magazine. The Hugo-Award-winning team of fiction editor Ann VanderMeer and editorial and creative director Stephen H. Segal are clearly no longer choosing the fiction or art that used to brighten each issue, and the intelligent nonfiction that completed the magazine is nearly gone,

SHORTS: Valentine, Bradbury, Palmer, Lee

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about.

“Given Advantage of the Blade” by Genevieve Valentine (August 2015, free at Lightspeed Magazine)

If you’ve ever wanted to have a cagematch between Snow White’s stepmother and the evil queen in Sleeping Beauty, this is the story for you. It’s also the story for you if you find the never-ending woman-on-woman violence inherent to many of our most beloved fairy tales getting a little old.

SHORTS: Shu, Lemberg, Salvatore, Bradbury, Pinsker

Here are some of the stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about, most of which are free to read online. This week we continue focusing on 2015 Nebula-nominated short fiction, along with some other stories that caught our attention.

“Everybody Loves Charles” by Bao Shu, trans. Ken Liu (2016, free at Clarkesworld magazine; Kindle magazine issue).

I listened to this novella in the car on the way to WriteFest in Houston,

SHORTS: Poe, Bradbury, Danvers, Mamatas, James, Parypinski

Happy Halloween from Fantasy Literature and SHORTS! Our column today has an extra-large serving of horror stories.

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe (1846, free at Project Gutenberg)

Our narrator Montresor, an Italian nobleman, explains ― in a suspiciously vague way ― how his friend Fortunato has mortally offended and insulted him. Montresor sets himself on a course of implacable revenge … but he wants to do so in a way that Fortunato understands that Montresor is the source of revenge,

SHORTS: Heller, Moore, Hamilton, Bradbury, Asimov

SHORTS: In this week’s column we review several of the Hugo-nominated short fiction works, including four of the Retro Hugo nominees.

“When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller (2018, free at Clarkesworld, $3.99 Kindle magazine issue). 2018 Hugo award nominee (novelette).

In a fallen, future version of our Earth, Mink’s tribe of nomadic, intelligent lizards wanders the land, living at a bare subsistence level and frequently threatened by physical dangers, like giant verminous creatures called rustbreed. One of the tribe’s treasures is their weavers,

SHORTS: The Retro Hugo-nominated novelettes and short stories of 1944

SHORTS: Our column exploring free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. In today’s column we review the 2020 Retro Hugo nominees in the novelette and short story categories, following up on yesterday’s column, in which we reviewed the novellas.

RETRO HUGO NOVELETTES:

Arena by Fredric Brown (1944, published in Astounding Science Fiction, free online at Internet Archive). 2020 Retro Hugo award nominee (novelette).

Two massive fleets hang outside the orbit of Pluto, about to engage in a furious battle to the death: Humans and the aliens they call the Outsiders.

The Best of Planet Stories, #1: A marvelous collection from an underappreciated pulp magazine

The Best of Planet Stories, #1: edited by Leigh Brackett

Beginning in 1937 and continuing on for a good dozen years, the pulp magazine Astounding Science-Fiction, under the editorship of John W. Campbell, was the most dominant and influential publication in its field. But that is hardly to say that it didn’t have competition for readers’ attention (and their 20 cents) at the newsstands. Planet Stories, which published its first issue in 1939 and folded in ’55 after 71 issues, was one such,

They Came From Outer Space: 12 Classic Science Fiction Tales That Became Major Motion Pictures

They Came From Outer Space: 12 Classic Science Fiction Tales That Became Major Motion Pictures edited by Jim Wynorski

It really was a splendid idea for an anthology: Select a dozen of the most famous, beloved and influential science fiction movies of all time and then gather together the 12 short stories and novellas that had served as their source material. And that is precisely what editor Jim Wynorski did, resulting in his 1980 collection They Came From Outer Space: 12 Classic Science Fiction Tales That Became Major Motion Pictures.

Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors

Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin Greenberg

Though hardly a runaway success in its day, and a publication that faced financial hardships for much of its existence, the pulp magazine known as Weird Tales is today remembered by fans and collectors alike as one of the most influential and prestigious. Anthologies without number have used stories from its pages, and the roster of authors who got their start therein reads like a “Who’s Who” of 20th century horror and fantasy literature.

Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Frederik Pohl, Fritz Leiber, H. Warner Munn, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Kuttner, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Theodore Sturgeon | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies

Weird Tales: The Magazine that Never Dies edited by Marvin Kaye

Marvin Kaye’s Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies anthology from 1988 takes a slightly different tack than its earlier sister volume, Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors. Whereas the editors of that earlier collection chose to select one story from each year of the magazine’s celebrated 32-year run (1923-1954), Kaye has decided here to not just limit himself to the periodical’s classic era of 279 issues, but to also include tales from each of the four latter-day incarnations of “The Unique Magazine”

Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Arthur Machen, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Tanith Lee, Theodore Sturgeon, William Hope Hodgson | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror: Another wonderful collection from “The Unique Magazine”

Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror edited by John Betancourt & Robert Weinberg

This is the seventh anthology that I have reviewed that has been drawn from the pages of Weird Tales, one of the most famous pulp magazines in publishing history. Each of the previous collections had employed its own modus operandi in presenting its gathered stories. Weird Tales (1964) and Worlds of Weird (1965) had been slim paperbacks featuring previously uncollected stories. The Best of Weird Tales: 1923 (1997) had spotlighted tales solely from WT’s very first year.

Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Brian Lumley, C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Eric Frank Russell, Fritz Leiber, Gene Wolfe, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Nancy Springer, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, Ray Russell, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Robert Sheckley, Tanith Lee, William Hope Hodgson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology by Gordon Van Gelder (ed.)

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology is an excellent collection of 23 stories picked from the treasure trove of short fiction that’s been published in the eponymous magazine over the past 60 years. Editor Gordon Van Gelder — also the editor of the magazine since 1997 — has done an admirable job, picking stories that illustrate the diversity of both the genre and the magazine.

Stefan Raets´s rating: 4.5 | Harlan Ellison, Jeffrey Ford, John Kessel, Michael Swanwick, Neil Gaiman, Peter S. Beagle, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Roger Zelazny, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le-Guin | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories edited by John Joseph Adams

Even people who don’t usually read science fiction will often be familiar with a few classic titles in the “dystopian SF” sub-genre. After all, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and of course the famous Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World are some of the few SF titles that have entered the mainstream literary canon to such an extent that they’ve become assigned school reading for many students.

Stefan Raets and Ruth Arnell´s rating: 5 | Caitlín R. Kiernan, Carrie Vaughn, Charles Coleman (C.C.) Finlay, Cory Doctorow, Genevieve Valentine, Harlan Ellison, Kate Wilhelm, Ken Liu, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Paolo Bacigalupi, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Tobias Buckell, Ursula K. Le-Guin | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

I haven’t actually read every page of The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, yet I’m giving it my highest recommendation. Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Master and Mistress of Weird, The Weird is 1126 pages long and should really be considered a textbook of weird fiction. It contains 110 carefully chosen stories spanning more than 100 years of weird fiction.

Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Abraham Merritt, Caitlín R. Kiernan, China Mieville, Clark Ashton Smith, Clive Barker, Daniel Abraham, Elizabeth Hand, Fritz Leiber, George R.R. Martin, H.P. Lovecraft, Harlan Ellison, Haruki Murakami, Jeff VanderMeer, K.J. Bishop, Kelly Link, Laird Barron, Lisa Tuttle, Liz Williams, Lord Dunsany, Lucius Shepard, M. John Harrison, Margo Lanagan, Mervyn Peake, Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Tanith Lee | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury: Four great stories make it easy to recommend

Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury edited by Sam Weller & Mort Castle

Thanks to our recent book chats here, I’ve reread a bit of Ray Bradbury lately, so I was well primed to pick up the 2012 tribute anthology edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle, entitled Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, which collects 26 contemporary authors who were asked to write a story inspired or informed by Bradbury. The task was sufficiently non-restrictive that the stories run a gamut of style and type: horror,

Science Fiction Super Pack #1: A generally above-average anthology

Science Fiction Super Pack #1 edited by Warren Lapine

Like the companion fantasy volume, Science Fiction Super Pack #1, edited by Warren Lapine, only has one story I didn’t think was good, and it’s a piece of Lovecraft fanfiction. H.P. Lovecraft‘s overwrought prose doesn’t do much for me even when Lovecraft himself writes it, and much less so when it’s attempted by imitators. And Lovecraft’s stories at least have something frightening that happens in them; these two stories (in this volume and the other) only have visions of aspects of the Mythos and crazy people ranting,

Mike Reeves-McMillan | Alfred Bester, Brenda Clough, C.L. Moore, Carole McDonnell, Edgar Pangborn, Edmond Hamilton, Frederik Pohl, H. Beam Piper, Harry Harrison, Isaac Asimov, Jack Williamson, Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Philip Jose Farmer, Philip K. Dick, Poul Anderson, R.A. Lafferty, Ray Bradbury, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Theodore Sturgeon, Walter M. Miller | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Thoughtful Thursday: Thank you, Ray Bradbury

I did not know Ray Bradbury. But he knew me. He knew me in the quickened response to that first crisp fall day, the smell of October. He knew me in the loving slap of sneakers against pavement and the softer thwap against dirt and the way that noise never stopped. He knew me in the push me-pull me fascination I had with the dark, with the unknown, the grotesque.

He knew exactly how badly I wanted to go to Mars. See a dinosaur. Live forever. Fly.

He knew my love of dim libraries. Of movie theaters gone dark.

Bill Capossere | Ray Bradbury | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 9 comments |

Rename this horrible cover!

Wow. Just wow.

This has got to be one of the very worst book covers we’ve ever seen.

There are so many ways this is wrong.

Please help us rename this horrible cover, because it should not polluting this excellent story collection by Ray Bradbury.

The author of the new title we like best wins a book from the FanLit Stacks.

Got a suggestion for a horrible cover that needs renaming? Send it to me.

Kat Hooper | Ray Bradbury | Thoughtful Thursday | 34 comments |

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SFF Author: Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles: Two reviews and a “Book Chat”

The Illustrated Man: Grim but touching stories

Fahrenheit 451: A “Book Chat”

Dandelion Wine: A perfectly-distilled small-town summer

Something Wicked This Way Comes: A Book Chat

The Halloween Tree: The best history lesson you’ll ever have

Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

Shadow Show: Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by various authors and artists

Magazine Monday: Weird Tales No. 360

SHORTS: Valentine, Bradbury, Palmer, Lee

SHORTS: Shu, Lemberg, Salvatore, Bradbury, Pinsker

SHORTS: Poe, Bradbury, Danvers, Mamatas, James, Parypinski

SHORTS: Heller, Moore, Hamilton, Bradbury, Asimov

SHORTS: The Retro Hugo-nominated novelettes and short stories of 1944

The Best of Planet Stories, #1: A marvelous collection from an underappreciated pulp magazine

They Came From Outer Space: 12 Classic Science Fiction Tales That Became Major Motion Pictures

Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors

Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies

Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror: Another wonderful collection from “The Unique Magazine”

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury: Four great stories make it easy to recommend

Science Fiction Super Pack #1: A generally above-average anthology

Thoughtful Thursday: Thank you, Ray Bradbury

Rename this horrible cover!

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