New podcast episode: Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett

Time for a new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast - and this time I focus on Ray Bradbury's friend and mentor, Leigh Brackett.

Leigh Brackett (1915-1978)  was a short story writer, novelist and screenwriter. She has sometimes been called the "Queen of the Pulps" because of her substantial contribution to science fiction magazines such as Planet Stories. But she also collaborated with Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner on the screenplay for the classic movie The Big Sleep - and ended her career by writing the first draft of the screenplay for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Leigh was also Ray's mentor. He credited her with teaching him how to properly construct a story, and with influencing the stories he wrote between about 1942-1944.

All this and more is covered in the podcast, which you can play below, or find on your podcast app.

Useful links:

• Watch the film The Vampire's Ghost, Leigh Brackett's first effort as a Hollywood screenwriter
•  Learn more about Leigh Brackett's contribution to The Empire Strikes Back in this episode of my other podcast, Science Fiction 101
• Read "Lorelei of the Red Mist", the Brackett story that Bradbury finished. Can you tell where Bradbury takes over the writing?
• From 16th February 2025, enjoy Planet Zoom Players' audio dramatisation (with pictures) of Leigh Brackett's Terror Out Of Space!

 

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 62 - Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms include: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

 

Ray Bradbury on Radio: SUSPENSE

Here's another new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast. This time, I look at the early years of Ray's professional career, which saw him not only mastering the craft of short story writing and putting together his first book, but branching out into media - in particular, getting his stories and scripts onto national radio shows such as CBS's Suspense.

Over a span of a dozen years, Suspense produced no fewer than eleven shows based on Bradbury stories, with some of the stories being produced multiple times. I argue that this early media presence - which included a number of stories previously unpublished - helped cement Bradbury's growing popularity and reputation.

Here's the pod:

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 61 - Ray Bradbury and Radio's SUSPENSE!

 

 

And if you'd like to hear full episodes of Suspense, here's a complete set of links to the best quality recordings, held on the Old-Time Radio Researchers website:

1. 1947: Riabouchinska
2. 1948: Summer Night
3. 1948: The Screaming Woman, version 1
4. 1950: The Crowd
5. 1955: The Screaming Woman, version 2
6. 1955: Zero Hour, version 1
7. 1955: The Whole Town's Sleeping, version 1
8. 1955: Kaleidoscope
9. 1958: Zero Hour, version 2
10. 1958: The Whole Town's Sleeping, version 1
11. 1960: Zero Hour, version 3
    

 

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms include: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

 

Ray Bradbury and The Simpsons

Time for another new Bradbury 100 podcast episode!

A few weeks ago, there was a new episode of The Simpsons which was entirely based on the works of Ray Bradbury. "Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes" is not the first time Ray has been referenced by the show. In fact, the number of Bradbury allusions across all of The Simpsons (i.e. on TV, in comics, and in books) now totals: thirteen.

In this episode I detail them all!

Many of them are represented by audio clips. But there are a few gags which are purely visual, including the comic-book and book appearances, and so I'll present a few of them below. (Click on the images to embiggen!)

Also below - of course - is the podcast episode itself. But you can also pick it up using any decent podcast app, or via any of the podcast platforms listed at the bottom of this post.

 

"The Coffin" adapted for comics

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fahrenheit 451 referenced in comic

 

 

 

 

 

 

Element Rb = Ray Bradbury

 

 

 

 

 

 

"All Hail!" in comic

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wicker store

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ray, Illustrated Man, Richard Matheson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 60 - Ray Bradbury and The Simpsons!

 

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms include: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

 

Time for another Bradbury 100 podcast episode!

"Lazarus Come Forth" (1944) is one of a handful of early Ray Bradbury stories to have slipped into the public domain. It's also one of two Bradbury stories set on board a "morgue ship" - a space ship that cleans up after space battles, collecting dead astronauts to (presumably) bring them back home for proper burial or cremation.

Later in his career, Ray would dismiss these stories as being too derivative of the stories of his friend Leigh Brackett. He also completely derided the notion of a "morgue ship", saying that it would make far more sense to leave the bodies in space.

In this episode, I bring you the background behind the story, and a complete reading of it. As usual, you can listen below, or pick it up on your podcast app (check the list of podcast providers at the bottom of this post).

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 59 - "Lazarus Come Forth"

 

 

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms include: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

 

New podcast episode: Ray Bradbury on Stage!

It's been a while, but I'm back with a new series of Bradbury 100 podcast episodes.

I get things started with a look at Ray Bradbury as a playwright, tracing his career as a theatre writer from the 1950s to the 2010s. I cover both successes and failures, and discuss both "faithful" and "playful" adaptations of his own work.

I have touched on some of this before - see episode 12, where I talked about Colonial Radio Theatre's audio performances of Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes, which both used Ray's plays (rather than his books).

And elsewhere on Bradburymedia you will find a review of a performance of Fahrenheit 451.

Coming up in future episodes of the podcast, I'll have more in the Chronological Bradbury strand, a look at some lesser-known Bradbury films, and some Bradbury fiction.

Here's the new episode - and, of course, you can also listen via any decent podcast app (see the bottom of the page for some of the options).

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 58 - Ray Bradbury on Stage

 

 

 

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms include: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

Something Wicked: Exaggerated Claims Resurface...

An article about the 1983 film Something Wicked This Way Comes is doing the rounds, and perpetuates the myth that Ray Bradbury directed the film. Regular readers of Bradburymedia and listeners to Bradbury 100 will know that this claim - originating with Ray Bradbury himself - is at best a wild exaggeration of the truth, and at worst an outright falsehood.

Something Wicked suffered at the hands of a preview audience, and producers at Disney decided it needed substantial re-shoots to make it work, delaying the release for about a year. Bradbury was involved in devising some new material to rescue the film, and late in life Ray's own recounting of these events gradually shifted with each re-telling from the plausible "I helped with the re-shoots and re-edit" to "I more or less directed the re-shoots" to the preposterous "I directed Something Wicked". (These are not exact quotes; I'm paraphrasing.)

The problem with the article at CBR.com is that it relies on a single account, that given by Sam Weller in 2005's The Bradbury Chronicles, who in turn merely repeats what Ray has told him.

Let's set the matter straight.

I thoroughly researched the making of Something Wicked for my 2017 PhD thesis, which examined Bradbury as a screenwriter. From primary research using the Bradbury papers (held at the Ray Bradbury Center at Indiana University Indianapolis), I was able to reconstruct the timeline of the re-shooting and re-editing of Something Wicked, and I determined that Bradbury's claim to have directed the film is false.

True, Bradbury was present during some of the re-shooting - but so was the film's credited director Jack Clayton. However, true artistic control over the film during this re-shoot phase was vested in neither Bradbury nor Clayton, but in the Disney special effects department (with Lee Dyer supervising on set, and Tom Wilhite overseeing production).

I have written and lectured extensively on this topic. You can find a brief account on this very website, here: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2020/05/lockdown-choice-something-wicked-this.html

You will also find my detailed podcast episode on the "re-making" of Something Wicked here: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/bradbury-100-episode-45-rescuing-something-wicked-this/id1521151939?i=1000613486403

Finally, the full account of my findings can be found in chapter 4 of my Liverpool University PhD thesis, available here (third download link): https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3009310/

Bradbury 100 LIVE: 2024 Edition!

 

On Thursday 22 August 2024 - what would have been Ray Bradbury's 104th birthday! - I went live once again with my Bradbury 100 podcast.

I talked about the "Chronological Bradbury" series of episodes, and went through all the steps I usually take in putting together such an episode: the books I consult, how I compare different versions of the same story, and how to track down the rarer Bradbury stories.

I also showed some of the statistics about Ray's stories, went into questions about copyright, and looked at some of the Bradbury books which have come out in the last twelve months.

The livestream was via my Facebook page, and the recording can still be viewed there: https://www.facebook.com/bradburymedia/videos/476381738570690

The livestream was also relayed to my YouTube channel, and the recording can still be viewed there (https://www.youtube.com/@bradburymedia100) - and also here:

 

 

...and the audio from the livestream is also available as a conventional audio podcast episode (without pictures, of course). Check your podcast app, and you should now find it available to listen. Or you can listen right here:

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 57 - Bradbury 100 LIVE for 2024

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts  - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

Staying up to date with the Bradbury 100 podcast

 

To make it easier to discover my Bradbury 100 podcast, you'll periodically see this page, which gathers all the episodes and shows together.

 

Bonus Video Episode - video of my public lecture on Fahrenheit 451 at seventy (extended, lavishly illustrated, video version of podcast episode 42)

Bonus Video Episode - video of my public lecture on The Illustrated Man at seventy (extended, lavishly illustrated, video version of podcast episode 27)

Bonus Video Episode -  video of my public lecture on The Martian Chronicles at seventy (extended, lavishly illustrated, video version of part of podcast episode 17)

Bonus LIVE Video Episode - writer Steven Paul Leiva returns as we celebrate Ray's 101st birthday

 

 

Episode 56 -  Ray's first book, Dark Carnival, available in paperback for the first time

Episode 55 -  Chronological Bradbury: Ray's stories published in 1942

Episode 54 -  Bumper Christmas Q&A special!

Episode 53 -  Ray's personal fanzine, Futuria Fantasia

Episode 52 -  Chronological Bradbury: Ray's stories published in 1941

Episode 51 -  Review of some new Bradbury product

Episode 50 -  Chronological Bradbury: Ray's stories published in 1940

Episode 49 -  Reviewing Ray Bradbury: All about the journal The New Ray Bradbury Review

Episode 48 -  Chronological Bradbury: Ray's stories published in 1939

Episode 47 -  Bradbury 100 Live - 2023 edition  

Episode 46 - Chronological Bradbury: Ray's stories published in 1938

Episode 45 - Rescuing the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes after a disastrous preview

Episode 44 - How Ray wrote the book and movie Something Wicked This Way Comes

Episode 43 - Books that never were: proposed Bradbury books that didn't come into being

Episode 42 - Fahrenheit 451 at Seventy (live talk)

Episode 41 - Ray's "ghost writer" friends

Episode 40 - The "Rocket Summer" you probably don't know

Episode 39 - Ray Bradbury and Christmas

Episode 38 - Ray and EC Comics

Episode 37 - Bradbury's dinosaur tales

Episode 36 - The tragic death of Ray's Uncle Lester

Episode 35 - Bradbury's October

Episode 34 - Bradbury's advice to writers

Episode 33 - Bradbury's story "The Exiles"

Episode 32 - Dandelion Wine live talk

Episode 31 - August 2022 update

Episode 30 - Ray Bradbury's other Mars stories

Episode 29 - Ray Bradbury and the question of "style"

Episode 28 - the best Martian Chronicles films never made

Episode 27 - The Illustrated Man at Seventy (also available in extended, illustrated, video form - see Bonus Video episodes at the top of this list)

Episode 26 - tracking down "The Lonely One"

Episode 25 - with Bradbury scholar Phil Nichols!

Episode 24 - with writer and Bradbury scholar Steve Gronert Ellerhoff

Episode 23 - with writer and actor David J. Loftus

Episode 22 - with filmmaker and visual effects artist Christopher Cooksey

Episode 21 - with Russian author Pavel Gubarev, webmaster of the Russian Ray Bradbury website

Episode 20 - April 2021 update

Episode 19 - introducing my new podcast, Science Fiction 101!

Episode 18 - with science fiction writer and scholar Howard V. Hendrix, on Bradbury's influence and legacy

Episode 17 - with highlights from two centenary events: Bradbury 100 Live and The Martian Chronicles at Seventy (both of these events are also available in extended video form - see Bonus Video episodes at the top of this list)

Episode 16 - with writer and friend of Ray, Gregory Miller

Episode 15 - with Emmy-winning actor Bill Oberst Jr, who appears as Ray in a one-person show

Episode 14 - with writer and scholar Jeffrey Kahan on how Bradbury's fiction works

Episode 13 - with storyteller Megan Wells on performing Bradbury's stories and characters

Episode 12 - with writer/director/actor Jerry Robbins, who adapted many Bradbury works for Colonial Radio Theater

Episode 11 - with writer and editor Charles Ardai, who edited the new Bradbury crime story collection Killer, Come Back To Me

Episode 10 - with Ray Bradbury Theatre composer John Massari

Episode 9 - with scholar Miranda Corcoran, talking about Ray's "Elliott family"

Episode 8  - the second part of my interview with award-winning dramatist Brian Sibley, talking mostly about adapting Bradbury for radio

Episode 7 - with writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley, talking mostly about Disney

Episode 6 - continuing my interview with Jonathan R. Eller, Bradbury biographer and scholar

Episode 5 - with Jonathan R. Eller, Bradbury biographer, whose latest book Bradbury Beyond Apollo completes his biographical trilogy

Episode 4 - with photographer Elizabeth Nahum-Albright, who has a current exhibition on Ray Bradbury's house

Episode 3 - with Sandy Petroshius of the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum

Episode 2 - with Jason Aukerman of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies

Episode 1 - with author Steven Paul Leiva, creator of Ray Bradbury Week in Los Angeles

 

The best way to never miss an episode is to subscribe for free with your podcast app/service of choice. See the list of links below!

And you can also follow Bradbury 100 on Facebook.

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Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts  - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms: 

Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - Podtail - TuneIn

New BRADBURY 100 episode: DARK CARNIVAL New Edition

Today is a special day for Bradbury fans. For the first time in 23 years, there is a new edition of Ray's first book, Dark Carnival.

This also marks the first time that Dark Carnival has ever been available as a paperback or an e-book. You can get it from all good bookshops, including Amazon UK.

To celebrate, here's a new episode of Bradbury 100 where I detail the various editions of Dark Carnival and explain why it isn't the same book as The October Country!

For reasons unknown (to me), these new editions are only available in the UK, but in the episode I give advice on how to get it shipped to the US (or anywhere outside of the UK).

For more information on Dark Carnival - including photos and a video I made about the book - check out this previous blog post: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-choices-issue-1-dark-carnival.html

And if I've left you confused about the differences between Dark Carnival and The October Country, here's a previous blog post where I attempt to map the differences between the two books: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2020/05/from-dark-carnival-to-small-assassin.html

And here's the podcast episode. Enjoy!

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 56 - Dark Carnival Paperback and Ebook First Editions

 

 

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts  - Google Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn

 

New BRADBURY 100 Episode - Chronological Bradbury: 1942

Time for another new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast, and it's another one of the occasional "Chronological Bradbury" series. This time, we hit 1942, the year when Ray broke through to the two leading science fiction and fantasy pulp magazines of the time: Astounding Science Fiction and Weird Tales.

It's actually a fairly quiet year, as Ray only published two stories in 1942. (But he was evidently busy writing, because the following years will be full of professional appearances.)

The two stories I cover today are "Eat, Drink and Be Wary", from July 1942, which you can read in full here...

...and "The Candle", from November 1942, which is available here.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

 

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 55 - Chronological Bradbury 1942

 

 

 

Please subscribe to the Bradbury 100 podcast - it's totally free on all platforms. Where to find it:

 

 

Main platforms:

 
Apple Podcasts  - Google Podcasts - Soundcloud - Spotify

 

 

 

Other platforms: 

Amazon Music - Audible - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Listen Notes - Player FM - Pocket Casts - Podbean - Podcast Addict - Podcast Index - Podcast Republic - Podchaser - Podfriend - Podlink - TuneIn