This time I dig into the Bradbury files held by the Ray Bradbury Center in Indianapolis, and uncover a 1960 file in which Ray lays out his book publishing plans for the following couple of years.
Alongside familiar titles (Something Wicked This Way Comes, Farewell Summer), we find some totally unfamiliar ones. Listen to the pod (below - or via your podcast app) for all the details.
One of Ray's proposed books was an anthology to be called God On Tomorrow Morning. Something of a follow-up to his two previous anthologies (Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow and The Circus of Dr Lao), this would have been themed around the relationship between science, humanity and religion.
Although the book never came to exist, we do have a proposed table of contents, which I have reproduced in full below, with detail added on where each story originated. You could seek out these stories, and assemble the anthology for yourself!
God On Tomorrow Morning, to be edited by Ray Bradbury: Suggested Contents
Three Stories by Bradbury: The Fire Balloons, The Man, If Sun and Moon Should Doubt
Stories by others:
|
|
Short Story |
Author |
From |
|
1 |
For I Am A Jealous People |
Lester Del Rey |
Star Short Novels (anthology, ed. by Frederik Pohl), 1954 |
|
2 |
Subterfuge |
Robert Silverberg |
Amazing Science Fiction Stories, March 1960 |
|
3 |
Up The Mountain Or Down |
Sylvia Jacobs |
Universe Science Fiction, September 1953 |
|
4 |
Postscript |
Eric Frank Russell |
Science Fiction Plus, October 1953 |
|
5 |
Saint Julie And The Visgi |
Robert F. Young |
If: Worlds of Science Fiction, January 1955 |
|
6 |
The Quest For Saint Aquin |
Anthony Boucher |
New Tales of Space and Time (anthology, ed. by Raymond J. Healy), 1951 |
|
7 |
Many Mansions In The Sky |
Koller Ernst |
Super-Science Fiction, August 1958 |
|
8 |
A Demon At Devotions |
Jane Roberts |
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1958 |
|
9 |
The Star |
Arthur C. Clarke |
Infinity Science Fiction, November 1955 |
|
10 |
The Pure Observers |
B.J. Rogers |
If: Worlds of Science Fiction, October 1958 |
|
11 |
The Funnel Of God |
Robert Bloch |
Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, January 1960 |
|
12 |
Every Work Into Judgement |
Kris Neville |
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Winter-Spring 1950 |
|
13 |
Last Rites |
Charles Beaumont |
If: Worlds of Science Fiction, October 1955 |
|
14 |
The Sons Of Japheth |
Richard Wilson |
Infinity Science Fiction, December 1956 |
|
15 |
The Guest Rites |
Robert Silverberg |
Infinity Science Fiction, February 1957 |
[Update: since I wrote this post, I read the following in chapter 25 of Jonathan R. Eller's biographical volume Ray Bradbury Unbound:
"[Bradbury's God on Tomorrow Morning] surviving list of fifteen titles were all published in the 1950s, mostly in the few genre digests that he still occasionally read: If, Infinity Science Fiction, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Ballantine’s Star anthology series of new stories."
Eller is slightly incorrect regarding the 1950s, since two of the stories appeared in magazines dated as 1960. However, it is conceivable that those magazine issues appeared on news stands at the very end of 1959.]
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4 comments:
Wow, that ghost anthology looks interesting.
But I wonder how the stories were selected? Ray was surely no longer reading science fiction by 1960 so, with the exception of friends like Beaumont and perhaps Bloch, he wouldn't have known much about what other writers were doing in the field.
It's also interesting that there are two Silverberg stories. Bob Silverberg only really started doing his best work from about 1962 onwards.
I know, it's amazing when I think about it. I wonder if he put the word out among his many writer friends, and got them to alert him to any suitable stories. Or perhaps someone like William F. Nolan was keeping an eye out on his behalf.
I'll try to find out more, but I don't hold out much hope!
I've just looked in Jon Eller's book RAY BRADBURY UNBOUND, and this is what he says about the story selections for GOD ON TOMORROW MORNING:
"His surviving list of fifteen titles were all published in the 1950s, mostly in the few genre digests that he still occasionally read: If, Infinity Science Fiction, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Ballantine’s Star anthology series of new stories."
So it sounds as if RB DID find all those stories himself, but only from a narrow field of reading. Eller is slightly incorrect about them all being from the '50s; two of them were published in magazines dated early 1960 (although I daresay that those issues might have appeared on newsstands at the very end of 1959).
Thanks, Phil!
Indeed I didn't hold out much hope, but that's as good an answer as can be hoped for.
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