# Your favorite Ray Bradbury story? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [August 4, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048 "2023-08-04T15:09:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/1 "2023-08-04T15:09:46Z")
So many to choose from, but I just reread “The Fog Horn” and that one’s haunted me ever since I first read it, decades ago. [Here’s a link](https://ia801405.us.archive.org/10/items/HeliganSecretsOfTheLostGardens/BradburyRay-TheFoghorn.pdf) to the text. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/2 "2023-08-04T15:11:48Z")
“All Summer in a Day.” > **[filedownload.ashx](https://www.mukilteoschools.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=183&dataid=731&FileName=6-All-Summer-in-a-Day-by-Ray-Bradbury.pdf)** > > 94.38 KB I appreciated it when I was a kid, but did not truly understand the horror of it until I became an adult. Every time I read it as I grow older, it strikes me as more and more appalling. “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” is a really, really good one too, as are many of the stories collected in _The Martian Chronicles._ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/3 "2023-08-04T15:14:34Z")
The Blue Bottle. I liked its darkness and its subtle message to enjoy your life. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/4 "2023-08-04T15:19:33Z")
I’ll go with _The Toynbee Convector,_ for reasons that’d take about as long to go into as the short story, uh, is. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/5 "2023-08-04T16:20:26Z")
Bradbury is tricky, because he’s a phenomenally-skilled writer, but mostly what he uses that phenomenal skill to convey is so damned depressing. And call it shallow of me, but I don’t like to be depressed. So my notion of “favorite” necessarily does not line up with “best”. I’m going to go with Fahrenheit 451, because while it’s a bleak, depressing story, it still ends with a ray of hope in the future. A ray of hope, I can work with. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/6 "2023-08-04T16:29:20Z")
Love most of his stuff. I sometimes confuse his works with Fredric Brown, though. My choice would be _Something Wicked This Way Comes_ which is also one of his less depressing pieces (though not entirely). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/7 "2023-08-04T17:26:50Z")
I too pick Something Wicked. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/8 "2023-08-04T17:43:52Z")
_There Will Come Soft Rains_ is it for me. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/9 "2023-08-04T18:16:40Z")
_The NIght_. A very early one, very simple, atmospheric, and full of dread. ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/10 "2023-08-04T18:23:05Z")
I probably can’t pick just one these days, but when I was a kid, I loved “Homecoming” (and by extension, all the other stories about the Family). ---
**Author:** ![doc481](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@doc481](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doc481)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/11 "2023-08-04T18:36:43Z")
I think I was a young teenager when I first read “All Summer in a Day”, and was shocked with the power of the bully and the loneliness and isolation of the “different” one. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/12 "2023-08-04T18:37:14Z")
ninja’d by literally one minute. All Summer in a Day. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/13 "2023-08-04T18:42:09Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _There Will Come Soft Rains_ is it for me. Ditto, possibly because I heard it on the radio, possibly a rebroadcast of when it ran as part of a science fiction anthology radio show in the early 1950s ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/14 "2023-08-04T18:42:47Z")
The Fog Horn is runner-up. I just love that story. But my favorite is The Shore Line at Sunset, which is a bit more uplifting. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/15 "2023-08-04T19:13:07Z")
I re-read _Fahrenheit 451_ a few years ago, and was amazed at how prescient Bradbury was, more or less predicting social media and our fascination with it. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/16 "2023-08-04T19:22:10Z")
“Rocket Man” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/17 "2023-08-04T19:23:12Z")
I’ve always had a soft spot for “The Man Upstairs.” ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/18 "2023-08-04T19:29:58Z")
_Drink Entire: Against The Madness Of Crowds._ There’s a lot there about the relationships between men and women that I don’t know Bradbury intended but I see and hear. Plus, it’s such a jewel of language, even more so than most of his stories. ---
**Author:** ![tripthicket](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripthicket/32/297_2.png) [@tripthicket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tripthicket)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/19 "2023-08-04T19:48:22Z")
Hard to pick a favorite, but the first thing that jumped to mind (okay, first two things) were passages from _Any Friend Of Nicholas Nickleby’s Is A Friend Of Mine_ (“It was the being crazy alone that I couldn’t stand anymore.”) and _I Sing The Body Electric_ (“You SAID but LIED!”). As a teen who felt very much an outsider everywhere, even at home, these phrases touched and continue to touch me in very personal ways, but I’m sure they touched many folks in a very similar manner. There’s so many more, but these two quotations demanded they be first in line. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2023, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048/20 "2023-08-04T22:16:43Z")
One of the creepiest things that I have ever read…several times: [Heavy Set](https://xpressenglish.com/wp-content/uploads/Stories/Heavy-Set.pdf), originally from Playboy October 1964 and anthologized a bit since. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-ray-bradbury-story/988048.md?page=2)