Staying up to date with Bradbury 101 videos

The original idea for my Youtube series Bradbury 101 was to provide an introduction to Ray Bradbury, but over time I have also gone down some of the more obscure rabbit-holes of his work. It's been a while since I made any new episodes, but I hope to get back to making more in the coming months.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to catch up with what you may have missed, here's the story so far...

 

Episode 1 - Introduction to the series and to the works of Ray Bradbury

 

 

Episode 2 - Ray Bradbury's 'Lost' Book: Dark Carnival

 

 

Episode 3 - Confessions of a Bradbury Collector

 

 

Episode 4 - Stuck in Science Fiction: The Illustrated Man

 

 

Episode 5 - Ray Bradbury Makes the Mainstream: The Golden Apples of the Sun

 

 

Episode 6 - This is not a Novel: Fahrenheit 451

 

 

Episode 7 - The Unstoppable Re-Writer: The October Country

 

 

Bonus Episode - My discovery of the original cut of Something Wicked This Way Comes

 

 

Bonus Live Episode - A live episode of Bradbury 100 to celebrate Ray's 101st birthday

 

 

Bonus Live Talk- My illustrated talk on The Martian Chronicles at seventy

 

 

Bonus Live Talk - My illustrated talk on The Illustrated Man at seventy

 

The best way to never miss an episode is to subscribe for free on YouTube!

Bradbury 101!

Today would have been Ray Bradbury's 101st birthday - so what better way to celebrate than with a new episode of my Youtube series, Bradbury 101. This time, I look at The October Country. Scroll down to play it.

Thanks to everyone who joined me for yesterday's Bradbury 100 LIVE on Facebook. The recording is still there if you missed it and want to take a look. Or you can wait a few days, and I'll put a better quality version on here. (The live show was done through Zoom, which degrades the picture and sound quality terribly. But I also recorded it "locally", so I can put out a kind of re-mastered version!)

 

 

Bradbury 101 - new episode: Fahrenheit 451

Time for another episode of my Youtube series Bradbury 101. 

We've now reached the year 1953, and the release of Ray Bradbury's first true novel, Fahrenheit 451. Except...

The first appearance of Fahrenheit was actually a collection rather than a novel!

Confused? You will be! Watch and learn below.

You can find out more about Fahrenheit 451 from my blog post on the book, here: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2020/04/lockdown-choices-issue-5-fahrenheit-451.html

 

Bradbury 101 - new episode - The Golden Apples of the Sun

Here's another of my Bradbury 101 series, freshly released on Youtube.

This one explores Ray Bradbury's 1953 book The Golden Apples of the Sun, which was the first Bradbury book I ever encountered (in the mid-1970s). It's also the favourite of many Bradbury admirers that I've spoken to.

It has a blend of fantasy, science fiction and "realism" which places it apart from Breadbury's earlier books. And you could argue that this blend is what would characterise most of Bradbury's short story collections from this point forward. Viewed in this way, Golden Apples can be seen as a turning point in Bradbury's published works.

I hope you enjoy this. Let me know in the comments!

You can learn more about Golden Apples in my blog post from last year: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2020/04/lockdown-choices-issue-4-golden-apples.html

Bradbury 100 - April 2021 update

I've produced another brief episode of my audio podcast Bradbury 100, intended to bring you up to date with some things in the Bradbury universe. Listen to the episode below, or through your podcast app.

Bradbury 100 · B100 - episode 20 - April 2021 update

 

Show Notes

My Bradbury 101 Youtube channel is here.

Orty and Sandy on Ray Bradbury & Comics, and Ray's Waukegan can be viewed here. 

Listen to Bradbury biographer Jon Eller on Ray and the FBI on the Dead Writer Drama podcast from American Writers Museum.

Listen to Bradbury Center director Jason Aukerman and RBEM's Patrick Mullins on the Nation of Writers podcast from American Writers Museum.

 

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!

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.

Bradbury 101 - Bradbury's Lost Book

Dark Carnival is something of a lost book. It was Bradbury's first book, published way back in 1947, but allowed - by Bradbury - to go out of print.

In the latest episode of my YouTube series Bradbury 101, I pick some of the best stories from Dark Carnival and explain why and how it became a lost masterpiece.

You can read more about Dark Carnival in my Lockdown Choices series, here. And learn more about the book it evolved into - The October Country - here.

I've also blogged about The Small Assassin, a UK-only book which is something of a bridge between Dark Carnival and The October Country. Read all about it here.

I hope you are enjoying the Youtube series. After you've watched the latest episode, let me know what you think!

Bradbury 101 is here!

Last year, Ray Bradbury's centenary, was the year of Bradbury 100 - my audio podcast celebrating his life and works.

This year, I switch to Bradbury 101 - a new series that gets back to basics and offers suggestions of how to get started with Ray Bradbury. The first episode is on Youtube now - see below - and future episodes will include more video episodes and some audio-only podcasts. I'll always post them here, but you can also pick the video episodes up from Youtube and the audio episodes via your existing Bradbury 100 podcast subscription

So without further ado, here's the first episode, in which I give recommendations of how to get started with Ray Bradbury stories, books, films and biography.

 

Here are links for current editions of the various books etc recommended in the video:

The Stories of Ray Bradbury - Amazon US - Amazon UK

Bradbury Stories - Amazon US - Amazon UK

The Illustrated Man - Amazon US - Amazon UK

Fahrenheit 451 book - Amazon US - Amazon UK

The Bradbury Chronicles biography - Amazon US - Amazon UK

Fahrenheit 451 bluray - Amazon US - Amazon UK

The Ray Bradbury Theater DVD  - Amazon US - Amazon UK

 

 

 

Coming soon...

Happy New Year!

With 2020 well and truly over, we can say goodbye to Ray Bradbury's centenary year. Although, as I have pointed out previously, you could legitimately say that Ray's centenary year runs from 22 August 2020 through to 22 August 2021...

But let's not confuse matters!

In any case, the centenary-style celebration of Ray can continue. We don't need any excuse for that. And so, with a minor little drum role, I will introduce you to this year's successor to my Bradbury 100 podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome -

 

Bradbury 101 is not simply clicking the year on and saying, "Oh, we're celebrating Ray's 101st year now." No, it is a sort of sister podcast to Bradbury 100. Think of it as "Bradbury for beginners", or "introducing Ray Bradbury".

It's going to be a while before I launch the first episode, but you'll be the first to hear about it here on Bradburymedia. The episodes will be shorter than the Bradbury 100 episodes, more in the way of bite-sized examinations of Ray's work. And it will adopt a more-or-less chronological approach, talking about each of Ray's major works in turn. I think you're going to like it!