R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

No-one else liked the TV miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, but I loved it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEMWtyAKRhQ

RIP, the Golden Age writers are almost all gone now aren't they?

I think a bunch of people around here DID like it.

Pohl is still around.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/

ha i remember watching that martian chronicles miniseries as a kid and being ... disappointed. but maybe it's good!

Yeah I remember the miniseries was shown just a few months after the fourth-grade reading I mentioned and I was very, very hyped for it; my parents let me stay up to watch it all. One of the first times I was ever disappointed that they didn't 'film the book,' but you have to learn at some point. I'm sure it comes across as clunky in parts now but I'm glad they did it, hell, I'm still surprised they did it!

I found it very interesting, when I got around to reading Rock Hudson's official biography/autobiography years later, that there's absolutely no mention of it at all in there.

in that still, it just looks like a Martian guested on an episode of McMillan and Wife.

Here was a recent mention: The 1970's Science Fiction Movie Poll

I'm thinking about the intro segments to that Ray Bradbury Theater (Ray Bradbury Presents?) anthology show from the 80s, where RB sits surrounded by all these crazy toys and pieces of art. 'I just look around and find my inspiration...'

The most memorable episode from that series for me was the one where the kid meets a scary old hobo in a rail car who talks to him about the savagery of the ol' cavemen...

the something wicked movie is truncated and conventionalized and the two kids aren't very good but jason robards (as will's dad the fearfully aging town librarian) and jonathan pryce (as MR. DARK) are both great and the movie kinda naturally recenters on them. they have a totally great scene together when mr. dark offers will's dad his youth in exchange for betraying the kids, and offers him one less year removed for each few seconds he hesitates, it is torture porn but just w/ talking.

Nobody on this thread liked the miniseries: Ray Bradbury's _The Martian Chronicles_

pam grier, too, in something wicked!

I think it's a sign of how specific and towering Bradbury was that I was convinced 'The Ugly Little Boy' was by him until I checked just now and discovered it was Asimov. It just SEEMS like it would be a perfect Bradbury story.

Thanks for that link to the thread there, James Redd, had almost forgotten about that. But a lot of the comments on the miniseries there are positive!

Something that really made me happy decades ago was reading in Arthur C. Clarke's autobiography how much he loved "The Crowd."

You're welcome, Ned. Sorry, but I can't read whole threads carefully anymore, I have moved down the message board life cycle chain as described by Tom in his paper.

I always had a special place in my heart for The Man Upstairs.

The TV version from Rad Bradbury Theater is excellent as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9Mv1Lzsyus

Meantime, the things I learn -- so Deadmau5's latest single is (and is inspired by)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiUAq4aVTjY

Ray Bradbury meets Groucho Marx. Crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3B1lYtTJQI

He makes an interesting appearance in this book: http://howtowreckanicebeach.com/

man, i loved this guy. reading 'the fog horn' at 9 or whatever was one of the more mindblowing moments of my reading life. i still don't know how he made a lonely dinosaur tearing down a lighthouse seem so poetic and beautiful and sad.

There is a mention of him in Ballard's intro to his complete short stories that is quoted in the Guardian obit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/06/ray-bradbury

At its best, in Borges, Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe, the short story is coined from precious metal, a glint of gold that will glow for ever in the deep purse of your imagination

David Brin in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/06/ray_bradbury_american_optimist/singleton/

It's very likely I first became aware of Bradbury by seeing him on the network moon-landing coverage.

JL, I have to read Moby-Dick first.

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius)

doing it now and easier than you think

somehow i'd never read 'the veldt' before. jesus, that's great.

Great summer reading. Like curling up with a stack of comic books and Ray Bradbury. RIP.

they have a totally great scene together when mr. dark offers will's dad his youth in exchange for betraying the kids, and offers him one less year removed for each few seconds he hesitates, it is torture porn but just w/ talking.

That scene blew my mind when I was 12, and now that I'm older, it blows my mind even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmRdHVkqS_k

RIP, the Golden Age writers are almost all gone now aren't they?

― A++++++ would deal to again (Matt #2), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:49 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Pohl is still around.

― I don't know what to read so I am reading it here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:52 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Jack Vance is still with us as well. Even older than Bradbury.

I'd put October Country up against any other scary story anthology. So great. Really, really wish all my old Bradbury paperbacks weren't in storage in another state right now.

Can never forget this (affectionate?) jab from The Simpsons:

Martin Prince: As your president, I would demand a science-fiction library, featuring an ABC of the genre. Asimov, Bester, Clarke.
Student: What about Ray Bradbury?
Martin Prince: I'm aware of his work...

I'd put October Country up against any other scary story anthology.

Oh my goodness yes. "The Man Upstairs" and "The Jar" are worth the price of admission by themselves. For some reason "The Next In Line" has always stuck in my mind. It's vague and abstract, the plot more a sketch than a drawing, and that is exactly its strength.

The October Country is his most surreal book, I'd say. And probably my favorite. Though you can't mess much with The Illustrated Man.

Has anyone read Arkham's Dark Carnival collection (o.g. version of October Country)? How do they compare?

xp (Unless you try to make a movie starring Rod Steiger out of it. No thank you, but an E for effort.)

That Brin piece just reminded me of 'All Summer in a Day,' which I'd almost forgotten. I am positive that's the first Bradbury I'd ever read, back in third grade or so. Between that and a lot of Charles Schulz you got as perfect a description of child-on-child cruelty as you could imagine.

'zero hour' scared the hell out of me when i first read it. funny how many bradbury stories seem to turn on the idea that very young children naturally resent and hate their parents.

RIP

his last ever article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/04/120604fa_fact_bradbury

RIP

xp I guess that's a fitting send-off. RIP

Back in the 1970s when Laguna Beach was still a weirdo artist beach town and not a MTV meme, there was a bookstore called Fahrenheit 451. The store carried a lot of counter-culture and beat lit along with lots of sci-fi and it always a hang-out for me. Ray Bradbury would always come by a couple times a year to read, sign books, and just yak with people - perpetually bemused that someone named a store after one of his books. I went to see him there... I was ten years old and completely in love with The Golden Apples of the Sun short stories. First time I stood in line to meet anyone - he signed my book and then said ""with a book, you'll always have a friend." Never forgot that.

Anyway, next to his writing perhaps Bradbury's most important lesson is in how to be a cranky old man and yet still be cool and enthusiastic.

Other great picture of him is his reaction shot on seeing the Rachel Bloom video.

I'd put October Country up against any other scary story anthology. So great.

― Quiet Desperation, LLC (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 12:26 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh my goodness yes. "The Man Upstairs" and "The Jar" are worth the price of admission by themselves. For some reason "The Next In Line" has always stuck in my mind. It's vague and abstract, the plot more a sketch than a drawing, and that is exactly its strength.

...The October Country is his most surreal book, I'd say. And probably my favorite. Though you can't mess much with The Illustrated Man.

― cue "White Rabbit" (kenan), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 12:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Julio Cortázar mines that territory very well, too.

a roundup of ray bradbury videos, tributes, etc that i just did:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/06/remembering-ray-bradbury/

Well done.

the future was built into the machinery of the present

Was it William Gibson that said that the future is already here, it just isn't well-distributed yet?

There's a copy of The Martian Chronicles on the surface Mars.

Attached to the deck of the lander (next to the US flag) is the "Phoenix DVD", compiled by the Planetary Society. The disc contains Visions of Mars, a multimedia collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. Works include the text of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (and the radio broadcast by Orson Welles), Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life with a map of his proposed canals, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars. There are also messages directly addressed to future Martian visitors or settlers from, among others, Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke. In 2006, The Planetary Society collected a quarter million names submitted through the Internet and placed them on the disc, which claims, on the front, to be "the first library on Mars." This Phoenix DVD is similar to the Voyager Golden Record that was sent on the Voyager 1 & 2 missions.

The Phoenix DVD is made of a special silica glass designed to withstand the Martian environment, lasting for hundreds (if not thousands) of years on the surface while it awaits discoverers.

http://www.planetary.org/assets/images/society/messages/phoenix_dvd_on-mars.jpg

Wow. Beats the hell out of those gold CDs they used to sell. What a rip-off those were.

"All Summer in a Day" changed my world, too

I read both that and "The Veldt" in my brother's Great Books compilations

I'm pretty sure I read Bradbury as a kid but I don't remember.

Where should I start?

The October Country.