Loosely based on the period in 1953 when Bradbury lived in Ireland and worked on the screenplay of “Moby Dick” for film director John Huston. A series of terrific set-pieces (such as, “The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place,” “The Cold Wind and the Warm,” and “The Anthem Sprinters”) are strung together with accounts of the writer-narrator’s meetings with the director, and incidents of the latter’s casual cruelty and unreasonable demands. But the set-pieces, embedded in a 1992 volume, date from the mid-1970s and before, and one might have preferred a more direct, detailed portrait of Huston and Bradbury instead of this recycled collection. But if one has never read any Bradbury before, this is as good a place to start as any, particularly for its rich, entertaining portrait of Ireland and the Irish. Read by Jimmie A. Kepler.
Tag: Science-fiction
The Toynbee Convector
I first read this collection of short stories in 1992. It includes a reprint of the 1983 story that appeared in the January 1984 issue of “Playboy.” It has twenty-two other stories. The majority are reprints from magazine articles. I nominate the short story of “The Toynbee Convector” for the best fantasy/science fiction story ever written. It is as good as Bradbury’s story from his 1951 book the “Illustrated Man – “The Veldt”. It is that good. Here is the story plot/summary. The story’s protagonist claims to have returned from the future. He has tapes and films of a miraculous technological wonderland. Humankind has solved all its major problems – no cancer, no world hunger, etc. This energizes the world with confidence. People believe that their dreams will come true. They proceed to build that future. They have no idea it is all a lie. The lie pictures a wondrous future. It describes this future in breath-taking detail. There is almost an action plan with hints as to how to get there. The world’s brain trust of scientists, economists, and politicians take the clues and make this future a reality. It comes the day when we are at the time and place where he is to appear from the past in the created future. A major deflection occurs. You have to read the story for the conclusion. It is worth reading. While the other stories in the collection are good and “worth the read,” none match the opening story.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury is the story of two boys, James Nightshade and William Halloway. It is the story of the evil that grips their small Midwestern town with the arrival of one Autumn midnight. It tells how the boys save the town. It is great reading.
Ray Bradbury excels in revealing the dark side in us all, teaching us ultimately to celebrate the shadows and not fear them. In many ways, this is a companion piece to his joyful, nostalgia-drenched Dandelion Wine, in which Bradbury presented us with one perfect summer as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old. In Something Wicked This Way Comes, he deftly explores the fearsome delights of one perfectly terrifying, unforgettable autumn.
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Fahrenheit 451
The genesis of Fahrenheit 451 is in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles where he has the story on book burning. Written in 1950 this book is as relevant today as it was when it first went into print.
The book is about political correctness and burning those books that make certain groups feel bad about themselves. The fireman in Bradbury’s book don’t put out fires, they start fires. They search out and burn books. It is a crime, in this society, to own or read books. It is not a society I would want to live in.
Knowledge is evil. People receive all of their culture through television walls that are built into their houses.
Guy Montag is a fireman who loves his work. He likes nothing better than to spray kerosene on a pile of books and watch the pages curl and turn into flakes of black ash that flutter through the air. Until the day he meets Clarisse, a young girl who has been told about a world of books, thoughts, and ideas. Their conversations precipitate a crisis of faith in Guy, and he begins to steal books and hide them in his home.
His wife discovers what he is doing. She becomes terrified. She turns him in. He is forced to burn his beloved collection. Guy flees to avoid being arrested. He joins an outlaw band of scholars who are trying to keep the contents of important books in their heads.
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Long After Midnight
Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury was published in 1976. This volume is the last of Bradbury’s great short story collections. It is one of my personal favorites.
There are 22 short stories. Each short story is 10 to 15 pages long. That makes the stories ideal to read one story in a sitting.
“One Timeless Spring” is a unique coming-of-age tale of a 12-year-old who is convinced his parents are poisoning him.
“The Utterly Perfect Murder” details a 48-year-old’s revenge on the boy who bullied him when they were 12 years-old.
“Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!” depicts the relationship between a Catholic priest and the rotund young man who periodically comes to confession to talk of his peculiar obsession.
“The Parrot Who Met Papa” is an utterly hilarious spoof of Hemingway (or maybe Chandler) and his literary groupies.
The title story is a very different one for Bradbury, about a lonely oceanside suicide … and then there are some of Bradbury’s usual stories about friendly robots and light horror. The book is a truly marvelous story mix. Read by Jimmie A. Kepler
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Writer’s Life: The Personal Nature of a Rejection
You’ve heard it all before … never take a rejection personally … send out that manuscript (poem, story) to another market and keep on keeping on when you get the rejection.
We’re constantly told by day job co-workers, family and friends that less than one percent of all writers “make-it”. “Make it” is defined as being able to quit the day job and live on the earning from their writing.
You know the stories. You’ve heard the tales. You could share all the negative garbage well-meaning others have dumped on you.
It’s hard not to take the rejection personal. I received two rejections this week. One was especially hard to accept. The magazine had sent me an initial email back in January saying they liked the short story enough they were referring it to a “review committee”. I wish they had never told me it was going to the review committee. That got my hopes up just to be shot down two months later.
I chuckled a little when the rejection email arrived. I had this bizarro version of Sally Field’s second academy award best actress acceptance speech come to mind. I could see myself with tears streaming down my face screaming “you hate me, you really hate me”.
I knew they were illiterate and didn’t recognize good speculative fiction … then I was honest to myself … it didn’t meet their current needs. I knew what I had to do. I would rework it, pray over it and ship it out to ambush the next unsuspecting editor.
The editors have a heck of a job, don’t they. I would hate to read all the wanna be writer fiction they get.
What am I trying to say? Hang in there. In the last week I sent the first five chapters to a publisher who only agreed to read them because one of her authors recommend me to her. This is either a kind, courtesy read by the editor/publisher or a massive example of good luck or providence on my part.
On the flip side, I am looking for some computer contract work to help pay the bills. I have two writing conferences I want to attend later this year. I need a sale or two, a contract with a nice advance, or some contract work to get the needed conference money. One of the conferences is near my home in Dallas, Texas this September. It is the American Christian Fiction Writer’s Conference.
Even if you’ve heard it before I want to remind you — don’t give up your passion for writing. I was told in a college senior level creative writing English class that it takes about 10,000 hours to master a craft. That’s true for playing the guitar, piano, writing poetry, or writing the next great novel. If one works 40 hours a week for the 52 weeks in a year that’s only 2080 hours. 10,000 = 5 years+ of full-time work.
So, get to writing … and master your craft. I’m still working at it. As an editor told me back in the 1980s … you’re not the best writer, but you write saleable copy, write to specification, and meet deadlines. It’s writers like you that will ultimately succeed. I’m still trying … and I’ll make it.
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Writer’s Life: Keep Writing and Submitting!
Today I attended orientation at my new part-time day job. It was fun. It also allows me more time for writing. Since I quit the full-time day job the end of January I have submitted four poems, one short story, and pitched my historical fiction novel. I also have attended my Dallas Writing Practice Group each week.
I keep reminding myself I must write daily and send my manuscripts with the consistency of the sun rising and setting. This I do.
I continue reading. I’m reading speculative fiction, the Bible, Steve Jobs biography, a historical fiction novel set Virginia during the US Civil War, and nonfiction military history. I also am listening to a number of podcasts. They include: “I Should Be Writing”, “The Drabblecast”, “The Writer’s Almanac”, and “Writing Excuses”.
I had one speculative fiction short story rejected. I continue writing and editing my historical fiction book.
I was encouraged when I received an update from Candace Have Online Writer’s Workshop Chat Group today. It has the story of one member of the group who after over 400 rejections sold her first book, followed by two more and then a series.
Hold on tight to you dreams, but keep writing and learning.
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The Illustrated Man: Chapters Nineteen –Twenty-One
Chapter Nineteen – Usher II
Literary expert William Stendahl has retreated to Mars to escape the book-burning dictates of the Moral Climate Monitors. On Mars he has built his image of the perfect haunted mansion, replicating the building from Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher, complete with mechanical creatures, creepy soundtracks and the extermination of all life in the surrounding area. When the Moral Climate Monitors come to visit, each of them is killed in a manner reminiscent of a different Poe story, culminating in the immurement of the lead inspector. When all of Stendahl’s persecutors are dead, the house sinks into the lake.
Chapter Twenty – The Playground
When Charles Underhill was a boy, he was tormented by neighborhood bullies. When his son begins playing in a local playground, he becomes deeply disturbed when he sees a bully from his youth.
Chapter Twenty-one – The Illustrated Man
An overweight carnival worker is given a second chance as a Tattooed Man, and visits a strange woman who applies skin illustrations over his entire body. She covers two special areas, claiming they will show the future. When the first is revealed, it’s an illustration of the man strangling his wife. Shortly after this comes to pass, the carnival workers run the man down, beat him, and look at the second area, which shows an illustration of the same beating they are doing.
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The Illustrated Man: Chapter Eighteen – The Rocket
Fiorello Bodoni, a poor junkyard owner, has managed to save $3,000 to fulfill his lifelong dream of sending one member of his family on a trip to outer space. The family, however, finds it impossible to choose who will go because those left behind will inevitably envy the chosen one for the rest of their lives. Bodoni instead uses the money to build a replica rocket from an old mock-up, and sets up a 3D theater inside the cabin and convinces the children they are actually going through space.
The British edition, first published in 1952 by Hart-Davis omits The Rocket Man, The Fire Balloons, The Exiles and The Concrete Mixer, and adds Usher II from The Martian Chronicles and The Playground from The Stories of Ray Bradbury.
An edition published in 2001 by William Morrow omits The Fire Balloons and adds The Illustrated Man to the end of the book.
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The Illustrated Man: Chapter Seventeen – Zero Hour
Children across the country are deeply involved in an exciting game they call ‘Invasion’. Their parents think it is cute until it turns out that the invasion is real and aliens are using the children to help them get control of Earth.
