New BRADBURY 100 Episode - Bumper Question-and-Answer Show for Xmas!

 Seasons greetings!

Here's a special, bumper, double-length Christmas episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast in which I answer questions about Ray Bradbury and his works.

The questions were submitted by members of the "Science Fiction Book Club" Facebook group. And there are some excellent questions here, and in some cases I have to do a bit of thinking and/or digging to come up with a suitable answer.

Members of the Facebook group (which you can ask to join here) also get to see a written version of my answers, but the audio version in the podcast has some extra detail. In the audio version, I've anonymised the question-askers, and used a cast of highly-trained AI helpers to voice them.

It will take you nearly two hours to get through this episode, but feel free to break up the journey with rest breaks for Xmas pudding or left-over stuffing!

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 54 - Q&A Special

 

 

 

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 - Ray's Fanzine, Futuria Fantasia

In this new episode of the Bradbury 100 podcast, I explore Futuria Fantasia - the fanzine that Ray Bradbury produced when he was a teenage science fiction fan.

The first issue of Futuria Fantasia, published when Ray was eighteen years old, catches him just before he heads off to New York for the first-ever World Science Fiction Convention. In that first issue, he is very much focused on "Technocracy", a movement which promised to turn science fiction into political reality. The issue includes an essay on Technocracy by Bruce Yerke, followed by an early piece of Ray Bradbury science fiction: "Don't Get Technatal", a satirical look at how boring it will be to live in a utopia!

"Don't Get Technatal" was Ray's third piece of published fiction, although he hid behind the pseudonym of Ron Reynolds. I read it in full in the podcast, along with Ray's other contributions to FuFa No. 1. (I also read selections from the writings of the other contributors.)

If you want to read the whole magazine, it's freely available, since the copyright on FuFa expired decades ago. The best place to find it - and the other three issues that Ray published - is via the links at science fiction history site FANAC.

So, come with me now to the world of 1939, where fans of "scientifiction" enthusiastically support the bright future offered by the Technocracy movement, perhaps oblivious to the impending likelihood of world war...

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 53 - Ray's Fanzine, Futuria Fantasia

 

 

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: 1941

Time for another new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast - and it's another in my occasional series, "Chronological Bradbury".

It's 1941, and the year that Ray Bradbury makes the breakthrough as a professional writer!

In this year, Bradbury had six stories published: three amateur pieces published in fanzines; two semipro pieces (published in a fairly prestigious magazine, but he got paid with free copies of the magazine); and at year's end, his first professional sale, to the pulp science fiction magazine Super Science Stories.

In the podcast episode, I go through each story in turn, giving a brief summary and a review. If you want to read the stories for yourself, you can find some of them online. Some of them are only available in books, though. And one of them is, alas, not available anywhere that I can find.

Here's a list of the stories covered, with direct links where there are online copies:

• “How Am I Today, Doctor?”
• “The Trouble With Humans Is People”
• “Wilber and his Germ” - I haven't been able to find this story anywhere. Let me know if you have a copy!
• “Tale of the Mangledomvritch”
• “To Make A Long Story Much Much Shorter”
• “Pendulum”

 Stories which can't be found online are usually found in The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition, Vol. 1, or in The Earliest Bradbury. 

Here's the episode. Please let me know what you think of these stories!

 

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 52 - Chronological Bradbury 1941

 

 

 

 

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 - Reviewing some new Bradbury product

Here's another new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast. This time I review three new Bradbury-related products which I've recently received. Here are ordering links for the three:

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, 1980 TV miniseries on Blu-ray: order from ViaVision Entertainment

Phoenix 451, a collection of Ray's own dramatisations of Fahrenheit 451: order from Gauntlet Press

It Came From Outer Space, 1953 film written by Ray, on 4K HDR Blu-ray: order from Amazon US - or order from Amazon UK

Here's the pod. Enjoy!

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 51 - Some Recent Bradbury Product

 

 

 

 

 

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 Podcast Episode: Chronological Bradbury, 1940

Can you believe it? My Bradbury 100 podcast has reached its fiftieth episode! And it's another in my "Chronological Bradbury" strand - this time covering the year 1940.

Ray published nine stories in 1940, nearly all of them in fanzines (and one of them in a semi-prozine). Here's a list, with links to online versions of the stories, where they exist.

• "The Fight of the Good Ship Clarissa"
• "The Maiden of Jirbu"
• "The Tale of the Tortletwitch"
• "Luana the Living"
• "The Piper"
• "The Last Man"
• "The Tale of the Terrible Typer"
• "It's Not The Heat, It's The Hu-!"
• "Genie Trouble"

In the podcast, I say more about where you can find these stories. So without further ado, here it is:

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 50 - Chronological Bradbury: 1940

 

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

 

Guesting on Podcasts

As well as producing my own podcasts (Bradbury 100 and Science Fiction 101), I've guested on quite a few pods and radio shows over the years. But it occurred to me that I don't have one place where all those appearances are gathered together.

Until now.

So here's all the audio shows which have been kind enough to invite me on, listed in sort-of chronological order. I do hope I haven't missed any...

If you have a podcast or radio show which would benefit from my dulcet tones discussing Ray Bradbury, science fiction, screenwriting, film, TV, radio drama, or related topics, please get in touch!

Take Me To Your Reader

August 2015 - "A Sound of Thunder" (Bradbury)
August 2016 - Fahrenheit 451 (1966 movie; Bradbury)
May 2018 - Fahrenheit 451 (HBO movie; Bradbury)
October 2018 - The Halloween Tree (Bradbury)
September 2019 - The Illustrated Man (Bradbury)
January 2022 - Rendezvous With Rama (Arthur C. Clarke)
October 2022 - Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury)
August 2023 - "The Crystal Egg" (H.G.Wells)

 

The Ray Harryhausen Podcast

May 2016 - Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen

 

Radio Free Acton

May 2018 - Fahrenheit 451 (book and HBO film)

 

Imaginary Worlds

June 2018 - Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury - episode also features Neil Gaiman)

  

BBC World Service: The Forum 

August 2020 - Ray Bradbury

Hugos There

January 2022 - The Fountains of Paradise (Arthur C. Clarke) 

 

Words to Write By

March 2022 - Zen in the Art of Writing (Bradbury) 

 

Continuum Drag

April 2022 - The Martian Chronicles  (TV miniseries; Bradbury)

New BRADBURY 100 Podcast Episode: Reviewing Ray Bradbury

This time on Bradbury 100 I talk about The New Ray Bradbury Review, the online journal I edit on behalf of the Ray Bradbury Center.

But I lead into the discussion by examining the ancestry of the journal - which stretches way back to 1952, and William F. Nolan's original fan publication, called simply Ray Bradbury Review.

I also pay tribute to Nolan as the first person to really study Ray's work, and I discuss his ongoing engagement with Ray as both a friend and a colleague.

You can download a free PDF copy of Nolan's ground-breaking original Ray Bradbury Review here, courtesy of FANAC: https://fanac.org/fanzines/1950s_One_Shots/ray_bradbury_review_nolan_1952.pdf

And you can find the modern equivalent - The New Ray Bradbury Review - online for free, here: https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/nrbr

The other William F. Nolan books I discuss in the podcast are The Ray Bradbury Companion and Nolan On Bradbury. 

Here's the episode. Enjoy!

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 49 - Reviewing Ray Bradbury

 

 

 

 

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 Podcast Episode: Chronological Bradbury, 1939

Here's a new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast - and it's another in my occasional series, "Chronological Bradbury". Last time I covered 1938, so this time it's onward to 1939.

1939 finds Ray Bradbury writing under a variety of names:

• ...as Ron Reynolds: "Don't Get Technatal" - in Futuria Fantasia issue 1
• ...anonymously: "The Pendulum" - in Futuria Fantasia issue 2
• ...as Brian Eldred: "To Run a Successul Ghost Agency" - in D'Journal issue 2
• ...as Cecil Claiborne Cunningham: "Mummy Dust" - in D'Journal issue 3
• ...and as Ray Bradbury: "Gold" - in Science Fiction Fan

 

Here's the episode. Let me know what you think about these early stories!

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 48 - Chronological Bradbury: 1939

 

 

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 podcast episode - B100 Live!

As promised, the Bradbury 100 podcast feed now carries the audio of my recent livestreamed edition of the pod. Pick it up in all the usual podcast places, or listen below!

Towards the end, I mention The New Ray Bradbury Review. You can find it here - and the actual content of the new issue will be online very soon. UPDATE: the content of the Review is now live!

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 47 - Bradbury 100 LIVE, 2023 Edition

 

 

 

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

Bradbury 100 LIVE - The Beast, and Ray's Miracle Year

As promised, here's the video recording of my live episode of Bradbury 100, celebrating Ray's 103rd birthday.

I will also port the audio from this into my usual Bradbury 100 podcast feed, so you can also pick it up as a normal audio podcast (although some of the visual references may not work quite as well in that format...)

Towards the end, I mention The New Ray Bradbury Review, the  journal of the Ray Bradbury Center. You can find it online here: https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/nrbr - but you won't be able to view the new issue's content until I click the "publish" button.

Happy Birthday, Ray!

Today - 22 August 2023 - is the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Ray Bradbury. And so, in time-honoured tradition, I will be doing a LIVE episode of Bradbury 100, streamed via Facebook.

I'll be taking you back 70 years to 1953 - one of the biggest years of Ray's life!

 

Just use this link, and look for the live stream: https://www.facebook.com/bradburymedia

 

22 AUGUST 2023 / 8pm UK time / 3pm Eastern Time / Noon Pacific Time

 

 

...and if you don't do Facebook, don't worry. I'll make a recording available via Youtube and via this blog, after the event. (You'll just have to wait a couple of days!)

Martian Chronicles - new bluray release

 

Australian bluray publisher Imprint Films has announced a new release of Ray Bradbury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, the 1980 miniseres. The CHRONICLES has been out on this format before, but with very little in the way of extras.

This new release has audio commentary by veteran science fiction film journalist Gary Gerani, and interviews with several industry professionals. They're also throwing in the documentary Ray Bradbury: American Icon, which was first released in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

 

Ray famously said that this miniseries was "boring", and he was heavily chastised by NBC for saying it. He wasn't entirely wrong. But the announced extras should make this a very collectable release.

 

It's a limited edition set, and I understand that it will be region free. I've placed an order, and found that they do ship to the UK (with added shipping of about 30 Australian dollars - which is about £15 in UK money). It's released at the end of September.

 

Ordering information is here: https://viavision.com.au/shop/ray-bradburys-the-martian-chronicles-1980-imprint-television-5

 

 

 

Staying up to date with the Bradbury 100 podcast

 

To make it easier for you 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 Episode - writer Steven Paul Leiva returns as we celebrate Ray's 101st birthday

 

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.

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

 

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: 

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

Ray Bradbury: New Volume of Letters!

 

Coming soon from Simon & Schuster publishers...

 

Ray Bradbury biographer Jonathan R. Eller has edited Remembrance, a selection of Ray's correspondence. It's been several years in the making, in part because (as with all correspondence volumes) it can be a nightmare to get all the necessary permissions. But around November of this year, the book should be available. Amazon (UK) is already taking pre-orders here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Remembrance-Selected-Correspondence-Ray-Bradbury/dp/1668016974

The title of the book alludes to once of Ray's best-loved poems, the one that ends with the haunting lines "I remember you. I remember you."

 

Here's what the publisher says about the book:

 

----------------------------------------------

Remembrance offers the first sustained look at his life in letters from his late teens to his ninth decade. Bradbury's correspondence was far-reaching - he interacted with a rich cross section of 20th-century cultural figures, writers, film directors, editors, and others who simply wanted insights or encouragement from a writer who had enriched their lives through his stories and novels.

 

Bradbury scholar and biographer, Jonathan R. Eller, organized this volume into categories of correspondents, showing Bradbury's progression through life as he knew it, and not necessarily as the public perceived him. Letters to and from mentors and other writers are followed by correspondence with such film directors as John Huston, François Truffaut, and Federico Fellini. Letters with publishers and agents are followed by letters that capture moments of national and international recognition, the shadows of war and intolerance that motivated some of his best writing, and the friends and family members who shared the memories of his life. Among the writers whose letters illuminate Remembrance are Theodore Sturgeon, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Twilight Zone writers Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, Dan Chaon, Bernard Berenson, Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell, Graham Greene, Anaîs Nin, Gore Vidal, Carl Sandburg, and Jessamyn West.

 

Remembrance illuminates the most elusive aspect of Ray Bradbury's wide-ranging writing passions - the correspondence he sent and received throughout his long life, each letter originally intended for an audience of one.

 

----------------------------------------------