Friday, December 22, 2023

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!


 
 
 
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Friday, December 08, 2023

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...



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