About This Site
Although there are some good Bradbury sites out there, there are few that pay more than lip service to Bradbury's work in the media. As I've been collecting Bradbury adaptations for years - lots of off-air taping of TV shows, films, radio broadcasts - I decided there was nothing for it but to put together a site of my own.
This is very much a site perpetually under construction. I'm a full-time media lecturer, and only get time to dabble with this site every now and again.
I've been reading Bradbury since (guess what?) the age of twelve. The Golden Apples of the Sun was my introduction. The first time a book presented to me in school had any appeal. Stories such as "The Pedestrian", "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" and "Hail and Farewell" made me realise that there was a world of literature that could look outward and inward at the same time.
Over the years, I have become excited - and then disappointed - at nearly every adaptation of Bradbury stories the media have thrown at us. Some (The Illustrated Man for one) left me thinking "so what?". Others (The Martian Chronicles) left me groaning (for god's sake, they even had a script by the excellent Richard Matheson, and they still made it dull and clunky). But every now and again...
...I would stumble across a gem such as Mike McDonough's masterful Bradbury Thirteen, or lay hands on Bradbury's own readings of his stories. And, hey, even Ray Bradbury Theater had some good moments!
So I'm jaded, and this may come across in the reviews to be found on this site. But if ever disappointment shows through, please know that it comes from a knowledge of what might have been, had the film-makers done the work justice!
This site - which I started in the early 2000s - was the springboard to my PhD study of Bradbury's screenwriting, which I completed a couple of years ago. The growth of the site slowed considerably during the seven long years it took me to work on the PhD. And these site pages look rather old-fashioned now. I can only apologise for the clunky Web 1.0ness of it all, but hope you will find some interesting information here.
The most recent additions to the site have been the links to my audio podcast (Bradbury 100), my Youtube channel (Bradbury 101) and my general science fiction audio podcast (Science Fiction 101). Please check them out!
Phil Nichols
Updated May 2021