Bradbury 101 - episode 4: The Illustrated Man

 I somehow found time to make another Bradbury 101 Youtube video. This time, it's about The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story collection.

I've gone with another shock-tactic headline for the video: Ray Bradbury, Stuck in Science Fiction. This is because The Illustrated Man is the book which really landed Bradbury with the label "science fiction writer". Although he'd been writing SF from early in his career, he was pretty much done with the genre by 1951; much of his new fiction from this point was anything but science fiction. Think Dandelion Wine, the Moby Dick screenplay, Something Wicked This Way Comes, etc.

And yet, with two books of (arguably) SF in a row - The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man - he gained both a reputation and a label that he found hard to shake off.

Read more about the book here.

I hope you enjoy this quick run through of the Illustrated Man stories. Let me know if you'd like more of this type of thing!

Science Fiction 101 - episode 2

Just a quick note that the second episode of my non-Bradbury podcast dropped a few days ago. Science Fiction 101 is a general SF podcast in which Colin Kuskie and I review science fiction books, films, TV and anything else that crosses our radar.

You can pick up episode 2 through your podcast app, or via the Science Fiction 101 blog: https://101sf.blogspot.com/2021/03/its-about-time-episode-2-of-podcast.html

Bradbury 101 - New Video!

I've just put up another video in my Bradbury 101 Youtube series. In this one I reveal some of the items in my Bradbury collection, all the while protesting that I'm not a collector!

My reasoning - as you will see - is that collectors are much more systematic, exhaustive, thorough and consistent in their collecting. Whereas I will only pick up things that have some specific use for me.

Specifically, I don't go chasing after special editions of books I already have a version of. So, for example, I'm not particularly drawn to those Folio Society editions of Bradbury books.

But what I do go after are one-offs, like It Came From Outer Space - which presents Bradbury's original typescript for that film's treatment.

And I do have a few magazines, including a grand total of three - count 'em, three! - pulp magazines. Watch the video, and I'll show you a couple of them.

New Podcast: Science Fiction 101!

I'd like to introduce you to a new podcast I've been working on: Science Fiction 101.

It's something of a spin-off from Bradbury 100 (podcast) and Bradbury 101 (Youtube series)... but without the Bradbury specificity. That doesn't mean that Ray is off-limits; on the contrary, he gets mentioned a couple of times in the first episode!

If you already subcribe to Bradbury 100 on your podcast app, you will shortly be served up with the first, sample episode of Science Fiction 101. If you like it, you can then search for it and subscribe separately.

You can also pick up new episodes of Science Fiction 101 directly from  the companion blog, which is here: https://101sf.blogspot.com

And to make it even easier, here's the first episode, right here:

 

Do please let me know what you think of this first episode - and if you have suggestions of what you'd like to hear in future episodes,  please send them my way!