As a teen I devoured Asimov, Heinlein, Pohl, Clarke, a bit of Niven, a dash of Bova (one Herbert ). I kept bumping into this Bradbury fellow - usually in the form of folks saying “you must read the Martian Chronicles”
I did enjoy a collection of his short stories (although I barely remember any) and I loved his TV show “Tales of Tomorrow” But I gotta tell you: though I tried several times I just could not get through Martian Chronicles, and at the time I thought the premise of Farenheit 451 was dumb.
But that was decades ago. Maybe it’s because my tastes back then were pigeon-holed more into “hard-sci-fi”. Older and wiser that I am, in your opinion should I give Martian Chronicles and Farenheit 451 another try or do you think it’s not worth it?
It’s always worth it to read Bradbury. He’s one of the giants. The Martian Chronicles is one of the bases for modern SF. Just remember, it’s not a novel. It’s a fix-up of multiple short stories.
Bradbury was probably the best prose stylist of all the Golden Age SF writers, and he was more interested in the human emotions and philosophy than the others of his age.
I can’t imagine not falling instantly in love with anything Bradbury, but if he’s not for you, he’s not for you. Why force yourself to like something you’re just not that into?
I can’t in good conscience recommend any Bradbury except Fahrenheit 451. It’s all just too damn depressing. I mean, I used to think that Steinbeck was bad, but the worst that ever happens in Steinbeck is that people die.
Good point, though tastes change. As I kid I hated olives and now I can’t get enough (on preview: I only just now noticed your name - subliminal coincidence?)
I’m also wondering, given how much love there is for Martian Chronicles, if maybe it just went over my head as a kid. Now that my head is so much bigger (read that as you will) maybe now I’d grok it. As a kid I wondered if the love for Bradbury was an emperor’s new clothes thing. That view was bolstered by the Simpsons - you know the scene:
Martin: As your president, I would demand a science-fiction library, featuring an ABC of the genre. Asimov, Bester, Clarke.
Someone else: What about Ray Bradbury?
Martin: (dismissively) I’m aware of his work…
Bradbury is (Martin aside) almost universally hailed as one of the giants. I’m convinced I was just too young. Just wanted to see if you’all agree.
I read it as an adult and I wasn’t that into it. It seemed much more like fantasy than science fiction (i.e. you could replace “Martian” by “fairy” and “rocket ship” with “sailing ship” without skipping a beat), and not even great fantasy, just so-so fantasy.
I haven’t read him in ages, but I had the same antipathy when I read his stuff. It felt more like vaguely depressed navel-gazing philosophy than “real” science fiction. Not my cup of tea.
I have no great love for Bradbury, but you can probably find at least a sampling of his works at the library, so check them out and see. If you like him, then you can go about reading him. If you don’t, then you’ve just lost a couple of hours’ time.
I think that most of his writing is not really SF, but fantasy or just plain Literature. He was able to get published in mainstream magazines, and break out of the SF ghetto/country club because of that. He did use SF ideas and themes, but really, most of his stories could have been written for mundane audiences, using mundane themes.
I enjoyed Bradbury’s short story collections the most, e.g. The Illustrated Man, R is for Rocket, etc. But the greatest Bradbury work, imho, is Something Wicked This Way Comes.
The “big” stories are usually the hardest to get into, imho. E.g. The Foundation Trilogy, Lord of the Rings, Martian Chronicles, etc.
I went through a Bradbury phase in my mid-20s (forty years ago!!!). I’ve tried re-reading some of his work since then, but couldn’t really get into it. Some day I’ll try again.
Maybe you WERE too young, because I remember reading The Martian Chronicles when I was very young. I (I blush to admit) didn’t catch on that the stories were not chapters of a book, but just different stories with the theme “Mars” :o. Though I did like the writing and some of the stories stayed with me for years, I didn’t ‘get it’. Read it again as an adult and LOVED LOVED LOVED it, as I love all of RB’s books.
I was a real SciFfy buff in High School, and Bradbury was probably my favorite. I’m still a big SciFan fan, but gravitate more towards movies. I’d be surprised if I found I disliked RB, but I do think the appeal is more to the younger audience since there is a bit of a moralistic* element to his stories.
*not even sure that’s the right term… maybe a little bit of mysticism or fantasy mixed in with SciFi.
That is an important point – Bradbury’s “Greatest Hits” (the Chronicles, Illustrated Man, and F451) are in the genre but he is not *only *a F/SF writer. He is clearly not “hard” SF, and his fantasy would be more along the lines of “middle-American magical realism”, by his own admission he only considered F451 to be SF. He even described some of his other works, specially the Chronicles, as something closer to myth.
He has done a good amount of mainstream literary fiction, nonfiction and screenwriting (did with John Huston the screenplay for Huston’s Moby Dick, and wrote a making-of piece about it). I was particularly taken with his columns/essays about the city of Los Angeles when I belatedly discovered them in the Bradbury Speaks collection, and his column explaining how he had to overcome his fear of flying was a hoot.
olivesmarch4th’s post would best describe how I feel about Bradbury: for me his work just clicks but I can see how that would not be necessarily universal.
Hi Lynn. You’ve managed to push a large number of my buttons all in a single paragraph. I will try to scrape myself off the ceiling and compose a short and civil response.
I’ve said here many times that sf is not about spaceships. It is about ideas. Bradbury did not write hard sf, but he most definitely wrote sf. It was not the same style as Asimov or Heinlein but so what? Joyce and Faulkner and Dreiser didn’t write in the same style either. Bradbury used sf as the most powerful way to illustrate his ideas, and produced stories that would not have had the same power if written with mundane themes. (Mundane as used here means everyday, i.e. regular, fiction, not dull or boring.)
My personal opinion is that much of The Martian Chronicles is fantastically beautifully written, although many of the stories are individually better read as vignettes of mood rather than plotted stories and some are certainly dated sociologically. If you do read the book you must - must, MUST - get an edition that includes the story “Way in the Middle of the Air”. It has been cut from some recent editions, possibly because this is no longer 1950. Yet that story just knocks me out. It is one of the most powerful fables of race ever written in this country. Worth reading even if you skip the rest of the book.
). I kept bumping into this Bradbury fellow - usually in the form of folks saying “you must read the Martian Chronicles”