I watch the re-runs of the Twilight Zone on MeTV at night…I was hoping it would be ISTBE yesterday or the day before, but nope.
Favorite memory of mine: When I was in collage our theatre department held an annual playwrighting contest. The submissions were judged by a panel the included students, faculty and noted authors and playwrights. One year Ray Bradbury was approached to be a judge. He had to beg off due to other time commitments, but he sent us a letter of thanks and encouragement, then he called the box office trying to reach the Artistic Director of the theatre. I happened to be in the office at the time and answered the phone. After I told him the the AD was not available, he struck up a conversation and ended up chatting with me for over half an hour. It wasn’t even fanboy gushing on my part. We talked about the festival, his work, even the weather. He was the nicest guy and it was a blast to be able and sit and just chat with him.
All time best brush with celebrity I have had.
Thanks for this --I wasn’t aware of this story. It’s well worth reading Mr. Bradbury’s own telling of the tale:
Like almost everybody else in this thread, I got hooked on science-fiction in my early teens. Eventually I drifted towards ‘serious’ mainstream books. I don’t know if sci-fi (I know, some people hate this abbreviation for some reason) is just for teens, but every time I have tried to read in adulthood new sci-fi books, I have been disappointed, but for a couple of exceptions.
There wasn’t much hard science in Ray Bradbury’s universe, just compare his stories to those of Isaac Asimov. Bradbury as he told in a recent issue of The New Yorker, was a dreamer. And in his marvellous collection Martian Chronicles, science is not his concern but the meeting of different species and cultures.
My favourite book opening apart from the first verses of Genesis is the one in “Fahrenheit 451”.
In every anthology of sci-fi I read there was in the introduction a long winded definition of ‘science fiction’ and why it was as good or superior to mainstream fiction. Every definition was different, so the more anthologies I read the more confused I got. Finally I ended up skipping every page before the beginning of the first story. It seemed to me that by trying so hard to prove sci-fi’s literary worth, all those guys were achieving was to show that they hated to be considered low class in the literary world.
By trying so hard to convince readers that what they were reading was not ‘low class’ fiction, the harder they tried, the more they made people aware that yes, sci-fi was a ‘genre’. It wasn’t ‘real’ literature. I never cared, science-fiction was a genre? So what? It was fun, it was thought provoking, it was speculative, it reflected the fear, the concerns, the phobias etc of the time and the societies the writers belonged to. So, it was relevant.
Science-fiction is a ‘genre’, and so are Westerns movies. But who would deny that Westerns such as “High Noon” or “The Searchers” are Art?
“Fahrenheit 451” for instance is IMHO literature. It is well written, it is original, poignant, entertaining. It is unforgettable.
Most of the writers I read were Americans. In adulthood I discovered the British writer, Michael Moorcock and I became a fan of him. His Jerry Cornelius series are intelligent, imaginative, a delight. “Byzantium Endures” is my favourite book of his.
But going back to Mr Bradbury. You mention Mars to me, and the first thing that comes to my mind is not the fearsome god or Mr H.G. Wells’ invaders, but those ancient melancholy beings who Mr Bradbury imagined.