I started re-reading The Martian Chronicles about a year ago, and was surprised with how well it holds up despite being published in 1950. Not just holds up, but is still a fantastic read. Think of how much the world has changed in the following 60 years. Admittedly, his concerns about censorship seemed somewhat quaint in this age of Too Much Information, and I remember the chapter of black Americans building their own rocket to go to Mars being a bit to much a product of its own time for modern sensibilities.
Still, he was a fantastic writer regardless of genre. RIP.
“What has this man from Illinois done, I ask myself when closing the pages of his book, that episodes from the conquest of another planet fill me with horror and loneliness?” – Jorge Luis Borges
I don’t know anyone who was better at hints and glimpses. Now I need to re-read Dandelion Wine.
Thanks for that Borges quote, Courteous. Never heard that before.
Bradbury was an exceptional writer. A real craftsman of language, something a vast majority of science fiction authors have no interest in being.
My introduction to his work was Martian Chronicles. Something Wicked, though, is my favorite. It’s a wonderful melange of the Midwestern nostalgia of Dandelion Wine and the humanistic dread of October Country.
I’m a slow reader, and don’t read many books and hardly ever re-read anything. However, Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked are books I re-read every few years. Their literary content–that is, the poetry in their prose–makes them far deeper and far more rewarding than most genre fiction.
Reading Bradbury as a child completely changed the way I looked at the world around me. Some people toss around the phrase "life changing, but his writing actually was life changing for me.
It sounds from his recent political statements that Bradbury (always a weird kind of grouchy optimist) saw a lot of what he wanted to see in Republicans like George W. and maybe missed much of the reality. From reading a lot of his work, I think he would be in a hard-to-categorize political category–technophobic like environmentalists (but hating environmental cant) and small-government like the tea party (but for love of people and towns, not ideology). His religious views are also sui generis, I would say. A unique character, and very out of place among other sci-fi writers, other Californians, and other modern Americans.
I want to read some Bradbury with my 9-year-old tonight to introduce him to RB, as my eulogy to him.
Thoughts on a good intro? Short story with creepy elements would be good in getting him interested. I remember really liking Bradbury’s horror (which was an interesting change from the SF I usually read) as a kid, but alas I went on a lengthy Bradbury kick in my teens so it’s been nearly 30 years since I ready most of his stuff.
I remember reading All Summer in a Day when I was a kid and that story blew my mind. It was like science fiction and the real world blurred together since I knew kids just like that.
I read him The Veldt tonight. “Those are some evil kids, Dad.” But he liked it.
Goosebumps and similar have well-prepared modern kids for Veldt-level storylines.
Amazing story to have been written in 1950, though, with the predictions of home automation and holodeck-level entertainment. The only funny anachronism is when they shut down the automated house at… the fusebox. :)
What made Something Wicked this Way Comes so cool for me was that I had lived in Terre Haute, Indiana during 6th grade, just a few years before I read it, and the neighbor kid and I used to run around like the kids in the story, and Bradbury perfectly captured the feel.
Bradbury was always one of my favorite writers. My memories of exactly when I first started reading his stories are somewhat clouded, but I’ll never forget playing Fahrenheit 451 on my C64. I made countless runs through that game trying different things and working towards the different endings. I have no idea if he was actually involved with the game, but it was a lot of fun at the time.
It’s a shame I can’t remember the names of most of the stories that I enjoyed (they all blur together these days), but of the few I do remember, A “Sound of Thunder” and “Frost and Fire” really stand out. The latter really resonated with me for some reason.
