As is the custom this time of year, I've retrieved my worn-out copy of The October Country by Ray Bradbury and read it through. As usual, "Uncle Einar" and "Homecoming" always get to me the most. Re the latter, I was in Salem at the appropriate time in 1970, and had the feeling Ray was there too. Hey, we're all Family.

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury. May your voices always speak to you.


Anyone have other Bradbury favorites?

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I adore The Martian Chronicles and S is for Space. I remember staying up all night on a school night in my freshman year of high school to read the first book.

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I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

I almost did that with the second Harry Potter book in third grade.

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"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
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Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Ah. Of my dozen or so favorite stories they are mostly Bradbury. My copy of The October Country (with the Goya dustjacket) is spine-cracked and coffee-spotted.

"Uncle Einar", which I first read somewhere around sixth grade and probably fifty times since, is simply the most amazing love story I can think of (With the possible exception of "A Medicine for Melancholy", which knits a lovely tapestry from the crudest suggestion available).

God up the chimney!

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

The Golden Apples of the Sun: "North," murmurred the Captain. "North."

In a Season of Calm Weather: "It's just the tide," he said.

The Murderer: "Why did you use French Vanilla ice cream?"


The Anthem Sprinters - ah, Deanna Durbin!
The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl
The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone
A Miracle of Rare Device - In Xanadu did Kubla Khan..
The Fog Horn
The End of the Beginning - then he finished cutting the grass
Powerhouse
The April Witch - Cecy, always loved Cecy
The Machineries of Joy - Blake never visited Dublin
The Big Black and White Game - gonna dance out both o' my shoes...
The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge
The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place

I Sing the Body Electric! - another of his amazing love stories. Which also introduced me to one of Whitman's greatest poems. The image of the robot grandmothers sitting in rocking chairs, knitting and talking about their families is... amazing, perfect, makes you smile and cry.

Enough for now

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

In elementary school we read All Summer in a Day. The story seemed so sad but I've loved sci-fi ever since .

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I've got to be in the right mood to read Bradbury. Sometimes I'm into it, other times it just doesn't click.

Since I've started medication I haven't read any Bradbury. Does that say more about me or him?

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
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"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I must confess that I haven't read much Bradbury. However, I do have a great love of Something Wicked This Way Comes.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

October the 28th is too late.

It's never too late to check out the illustrations the man has to offer.

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The Kilimanjaro Machine. Just the concept of going back in time to help a man die the right way...

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

"I Sing the Body Electric!" was made into an episode of the Twilight Zone IIRC.

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Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

I forget, how's that go? "never met a good writer who was a good talker..." or something like that

Lets see. I own the October Country, The Illustrated Man, One More for the Road, A Medicine for Mealoncholy, Golden Apples of the Sun, Driving Blind, I Sing the Body Electric, Quicker Than the Eye, and Ray Bradbury: 100 of his Most Celebrated Tales. (and yes I have read them all cover to cover)
I have a hard time picking a favorite short story. They're not all amazing, but they're all works of art. Honestly, Homecoming wasn't one of my favorites. Any of his stories that take place in Ireland I enjoy; his love for the country really shows. I forget the name, but the story about the night watchman and the movie studio that was to be bulldozed was great. So many of them have such deep insight into the human psyche; almost a child-like introversion and ability to see us for what we really are.

The funny thing is, I've only read pieces of Ferenheit back in Highschool as part of a Litt class, and I've never read any of his full novels. I have "Something Wicked" on my waiting list for my next Amazon order, but I have some other stuff I've started at home that I want to finish before I buy any new books.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)

The night watchman on the movie set was "The Meadow", as I recall

And the incredible, amazing, surreal "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit".

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

When I first read Bradbury, I missed an awful lot of references coz I was young (about 14) and hadn't read much fiction, let alone literary classics. I had no idea The Kilimanjaro Device was about Hemingway, for instance - I'd probably not even heard of him!

About six years later, my girlfriend and I returned to her house after a trip to the cinema, where her mother made a reference to sprinting out before the National Anthem plays. I suddenly realised, then, that "The Anthem Sprinters" was about people who really did that! It was quite a turning point.

I wish I hadn't heard of Hemingway . . . .

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Here's a free 54-minute booster shot:
An Evening with Ray Bradbury [2001]

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I myself only read the Chronicles and Fahrenheit

What would you recommend? I think it's time to read an SF classical, maybe during Christmas holidays.

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

Both of those stories exemplify how he can take genuine, typical, everyday human nature and emotion and spin it into a surreal, almost fantasy quality, yet still keep it believable and real. Almost like a dream; where everything is different but normal.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)