Saturday, November 21, 2020

Bradbury 100 - episode 18

Time for another episode of Bradbury 100! And - for now - the last episode.

When I started this series back in July, I expected I might be able to produce a handful of episodes. But I was overwhelmed by the number of Ray's friends, collaborators and fans who agreed to be interviewed. And so I ended up with enough material for eighteen episodes.

But now, with the academic year in full swing (I'm a full-time university lecturer), I have very little free time, and the production cycle of Bradbury 100 needs to stop.

I do hope to return with some one-off episodes, so I hope you will stay subscribed on your podcast app. That way, you will continue to see any new episodes that come along.

To end the regular series, I chose to speak to Howard V. Hendrix, a professional science fiction writer who also happens to be scholar of science fiction. Howard has given public presentations about Ray's work, and published books and articles about Mars in science fiction.

And although Howard is often classed as a "hard SF" writer - putting him at the opposite end of the spectrum to Ray Bradbury - Howard is also a creative wordsmith. With Howard's SF writing chops and critic's insight, I can think of few people better to consider the question of Ray Bradbury's legacy.

Shortly after I interviewed Howard, his suffered the terrible loss of his family home to the California forest fires. Thankfully, Howard and his wife were safely evacuated. Howard, who is himself a volunteer firefighter, shortly afterward wrote a moving but philosophical account of how the fire swept in and wrecked whole communities. You can read his article for the San Francisco Chronicle here.


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/R9q8pYq8KMM/maxresdefault.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Show Notes

Howard V. Hendrix is an exceptional writer of science fiction. In the podcast, he discusses his short story collection The Girls With Kaleidoscope Eyes: Analog Stories for a Digital Age, which you can find in all good bookshops, and at Amazon (US) and Amazon (UK).

Howard's other books can be found on his author page, here.

A few years ago, Howard co-edited a book about Mars in science fiction, building on a conference on the same theme. I contributed an article about Bradbury's Mars stories. You can find Visions of Mars here.

Howard's entry in Wikipedia.

2 comments:

Sean Etches said...

Just writing to thank you very much for this highly enjoyable series. I have read Ray Bradbury's work for over 30 years and his visionary perspective has meant a great deal to me throughout that time. I will miss the regular series but I look forward to occasional episodes in the future. Sean Etches

Phil said...

Thanks, Sean, much appreciated!