Ray Bradbury is ultimately one of my favorite authors. But I haven’t read any of the fiction he’s written in the last 25 years or so. (Bad me!) For some reason, maybe it’s a dark and dusty wind blowing my way, I’m aching to read some more Bradbury now. Dopers, what is the best of the later Bradbury?
His collection of short stories, The Toynbee Convector (1988), contains my all-time favorite short story ever: The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair. No matter how many times I read it, it always makes me tear up profusely (if not outright cry). Not exactly in his sci-fi vein, but IIRC, this tale’s the exception. The rest of the stories are great too, and there’s a few familiar favorite characters.
I haven’t read much of his recent stuff (“recent” meaning written after 1970). I did recently pick up a book called The Halloween Tree, and… it was terrible. Painful to read. Like a bad parody of Bradbury, with all his annoying stylistic tendencies amplified until they’re intolerable. But possibly (I hope) that’s an aberration.
It’s been a few years since I read The Toynbee Convector, which was delightful, and another story about an old man & his two elderly lady friends who made good use of -um- his unexpected long-lost… wood L
To be fair, I think The Halloween Tree was written at a child’s level. I haven’t read it but I saw the cartoon which I did enjoy greatly.
I have read The Halloween Tree (1972), and I’d agree with most of your assessment, Baldwin. The boy-love mawkishness running through the story is also embarrassing (is he still pining for John Huff?).
But some of his descriptive passages here and there, such as the first view of the title tree, are as evocative as anything he’s written. And I love the Mugnaini pen and ink drawings.
I read The Halloween Tree when I was eleven years old, and loved it. Don’t know what I’d think of it nowadays, but it was a good book for a kid. Really captured what I loved about the season back then.
I just picked up From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance the other day. Haven’t started it, yet, but I’m looking forward to it.