Bradburyesque... 3

The band in Heaven's album Caught in a Summer Swell, coming soon from Decades Records, shows a clear influence from Ray Bradbury... at least in the titles of the opening and closing tracks on the album.

The opening track is "Dandelion Wine", and the closer is "Farewell Summer". The former, of course, is named after Bradbury's 1957 novel. The latter is named after its 2006 sequel.

"Dandelion Wine" is out now, and has a video to accompany it, although it must be said that the imagery of the video owes more to the "summer of love" and pagan ritual (and maybe even The Wicker Man!) than it does to Bradbury. See for yourself...

Green Town Tribute

As I mentioned a while ago, Bradbury's home town of Waukegan Illinois - fictionalised as Green Town in his books Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer and Something Wicked This Way Comes - paid tribute to Ray on the day he died. TV news crews were in attendance, and so we have an opportunity to see a little of the event at the city's public library:





There is now gathering momentum for some kind of memorial to Bradbury in Waukegan, and the 1903 Carnegie Library (currently empty and disused) is naturally being looked at as a potential centre for honouring his memory. In his lifetime, Bradbury supported the campaign to save the Carnegie from demolition, and indicated that he would support some kind of Bradbury collection being deposited in the building, perhaps turning it into a museum or tourist attraction.

Though it may be sad to think that Bradbury's death would be the trigger for some action to finally be taken to restore the Carnegie Library to public life, it would be a fitting place to commemorate one of Waukegan's favourite sons.

There is more information about the preservation of the library at the website of the Carnegie Preservation Project. My thanks to Wayne Munn for the link.

Dandelion Wine Wedding

I've read Dandelion Wine. I've read its disappointing sequel Farewell Summer. I've read Summer Morning, Summer Night, the collection of Dandelion Wine leftovers.

I've read Dandelion Wine, the play; and heard the radio drama version.

I've seen (but didn't understand) the Russian TV miniseries based on Dandelion Wine.

But I've never heard of a Dandelion Wine wedding.

Until now.



And if that wasn't weird enough, here's a video for a song called "Bradbury", performed by an Argentinian band. Look out for Bradbury's face!

More Bradbury sightings on the web...

Tobias Anderson's one-man Bradbury show The Illustrated Bradbury has just received a rave review from The American Chronicle. Mr Bradbury was in attendance on the same day as the Chronicle's reviewer, prompting this observation:

One touching moment in the presentation was during "The Foghorn." Tobias Andersen, in the persona of the lighthouse keeper, was commenting on the cry of the mysterious beast from the sea and the plaintiff foghorn, when I heard a loud sigh from the audience. Mr. Bradbury was in attendance and he was reacting to the sound of his own words being delivered with such passion from the stage. It was beautiful.

Another, brief report appears here in Pasadena Now.



When was the last time you awarded a book three Ws? That's the rating The Weekender has given to Bradbury's recent book Summer Morning, Summer Night. This review is perhaps a little confused (or confusing), referring to the book as both a novel and short story collection, and omits to mention that it is a collection of off-cuts and therefore likely to appear highly disjointed to the read who is unaware of the text's history. It is, of course, the volume of material that didn't make it into either Dandelion Wine or its sequel Farewell Summer.


Blogger Celtic Lady has posted about real dandelion wine, and gets us in the mood by quoting evocative passages from Bradbury's book.

Bits and/or Pieces

Halloween moves ever closer. It holds little personal interest for me in real life, but I appreciate a good Halloween depiction in literature or film. So, too, does this Guardian book blog, one of the few general Bradbury appreciations I have seen in the British press.

Out of sync with the season, I today received my copy of Summer Morning, Summer Night. This is the missing link between Dandelion Wine and its sequel Farewell Summer. Literally. Bradbury conceived of one large work, but back in the '50s decided to publish only half (DW). Just recently the second half (FS) was published, and as a follow up SM, SN is now available from Subterranean Press - but order soon, as it sounds like stocks will sell out.

Just over a half of SM, SN is material previously published in short story form. The remainder is material previously unpublished, mostly in the form of short fragments, episodes that somehow didn't fit into the text of either of the other two books. There are some longer stories, however, and I have enjoyed the tiny amount of the book I have read so far. However, it feels like a book that will only make sense to a completist, someone already familiar with both DW and FS.

Last weekend I saw the Catherine Wheels/National Theatre of Scotland production of Something Wicked This Way Comes. A splendid production of one of Bradbury's most awkward stage plays. If you get the chance to see this production, I highly recommend it. However, abandon your preconceptions of what SWTWC should be like, and be prepared for a fun, energetic and inventive piece of theatre. I hope to post a full review soon.

Farewell Summer and other news

So it took me two years to get round to reading Bradbury's 2006 release Farewell Summer. Partly because I had a whole load of other stuff to do, but if truth be told it was also partly because I feared it would be one of his lesser works. It is, after all, the left-over portion of Dandelion Wine, the part the original publisher didn't want.

In fact, I found the book a brisk read, with some interesting elements, but not exactly a classic. Click here to read my review.




Further to my recent post about tidying up my Short Story Finder, I have another item to remove from the Finder. One of the mystery items in there has always been "Affluence of Despair". Someone, somewhere, must once have caused me to think "Affluence" was a short story. Indeed, it was once anthologised in a SFWA Grand Masters book edited by Frederik Pohl - a book I have never laid hands (or eyes) on.

However, friend Eric has seen this book, and he has confirmed that "Affluence of Despair" is not a short story. It is, in fact, an essay. The very same essay is to be found in Bradbury's essay collection Bradbury Speaks.

I have also updated the links to the magazine covers in the Short Story Finder. These point to external websites, in some cases to commercial sites that sell back issues. All the Playboy cover links are now fixed, and I have added cover links for Dime Mystery and The Saturday Evening Post. CAUTION: Those of a delicate disposition should avoid clicking on the Playboy links, as the external site I link to carries random ads of an adult nature. You have been warned!



The Nebula-winning author Sheila Finch (pictured) has just posted a guest blog at the Nebula Awards site where she compares Bradbury's Dandelion Wine to Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. It's a short article, but gets right to the heart of how Bradbury's prose works.

Dandelion Wine

Just when you thought you had the seasons all figured out; just when the dandelions have died back; just when you have said Farewell Summer, celebrated autumn with The Halloween Tree and contemplated celebrating further with a re-read of Something Wicked This Way Comes...

It's summer again! When? Just after Christmas. New Year.

Confused? Then I'll explain.

On 1st January 2007, Colonial Radio Theatre releases its CD audio production of Dandelion Wine. Taken from Bradbury's stage play, rather than directly from his novel, it brings Doug Spaulding, Tom, Colonel Freeleigh and co to life in a lavish audio production. You can hear some clips from the CD on Colonial's web site.

Colonial were kind enough to send me a review copy, so I have written a review which you can read here.


Meanwhile, back in the real world of (post-) Halloween, Utah-based radio station KUER-FM has recently broadcast a live dramatic production of Bradbury's short story "Zero Hour". Staged and performed by Plan B Theatre Company, this production used Anthony Ellis' 1955 Suspense script, which can be viewed online here, courtesy of Generic Radio Workshop.

"Zero Hour" was presented as part of the RadioWest show on KUER, as second half of a double-bill with Lucille Fletcher's "The Hitch-Hiker". You can listen to/download an MP3 recording of the entire show here. (I don't know how long KUER keep their archived shows, so best to listen now while it's still there!)

Farewell Summer

I haven't got my copy yet - I have to wait for it to cross the Atlantic, so I'm holding out for strong westerly winds - but Farewell Summer, Bradbury's new novel is out now.

The LA Times published a favourable review yesterday - click here to view it. There are links to other reviews in my earlier post.

It has become clear that Bradbury's two other forthcoming titles, Leviathan '99 and Somewhere a Band is Playing will be published together in a single volume. Although Bradbury and others have described them as novels, it looks as if they are really novellas, and too short to justify mass-market publication as separate volumes.

Green Town, Illinois

I've been listening to a review copy of Colonial Radio Theatre's forthcoming CD dramatisation of Dandelion Wine (which is beautifully done, by the way). That, and thinking about the imminent release of Bradbury's new book Farewell Summer, got me curious about the relationship between Bradbury's fictional Green Town - home of Ray's alter ego Doug Spaulding - and his real home town of Waukegan Illinois.

In Eller and Touponce's Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction there is a sketch of Green Town that Bradbury drew in the 1950s. At the suggestion of his publisher, he drew the layout of the town and also wrote out a cast of characters. All this was to help him get a grip on the material, and to help him see one of the problems with his draft of Dandelion Wine, which was that it was really an assembly of short stories, nearly all of them dealing with different characters. The publisher was afraid that the reader wouldn't be able to keep track of what was going on. (This, of course, was well before the coming of 'blockbuster' or 'bestseller' novels, with their casts of thousands.)

Bradbury's sketch shows the layout of fictional Green Town (see below - click on image to enlarge).

What is striking is that if you look at the real Waukegan from the air - courtesy of Google Earth - you get a very similar image (again, click on image to enlarge):


...especially when you realise that the Bradbury family lived on the intersection of Washington Street ('grandpa' on the Green Town sketch) and South St James Street ('Doug and Tom' on the Green Town sketch). Note the similarity of the ravine in both images. The area around the ravine between Sherman Place and North Park Avenue is nowadays called Ray Bradbury Park. This seems to correspond exactly with the bridge over the ravine that Lavinia Nebbs uses to walk Helen Greer home before her encounter with... the Lonely One...

Walloon has reminded me that there is more information on Bradbury's Waukegan (with lots of excellent links) on this thread of the Bradbury Message Board.

Farewell Summer, video odds and ends

Advanced reviews have started to appear for Ray Bradbury's forthcoming book Farewell Summer. This, you may recall, is his sequel to Dandelion Wine (1957), although most of it was written at the same time as the original novel, and both books were originally conceived by Bradbury as a single novel.

Publisher's Review's text is posted on the Amazon page for the book. Kirkus Review's text is available on their site, but only to paying subscribers. However, over at the Ray Bradbury Message Board, Walloon has posted the Kirkus text. Many thanks, Walloon.

There are some interesting Bradbury-related video clips on YouTube these days. Nard has alerted me to Exposure Three: a short behind-the-scenes feature on the making of The Small Assassin. And then there is this quirky little piece: The Adventures of Ray Bradbury. This is a little comedy that parodies the persona of Bradbury - not so much his fiction or writing style, but his Ray Bradbury Theater persona. Until I saw this, it had never occurred to me that Bradbury was a celebrity capable of being parodied, but I guess he is!

Other Bradbury-related material on YouTube can be found here.

New Bradbury books

We're in for a spree of new Bradbury material in the next few months.

First to be released will probably be Farewell Summer. This is a sequel of sorts to Bradbury's classic Dandelion Wine. In fact, the two books were originally conceived as one, but Bradbury was persuaded to split it into two...and then took around fifty years to polish the second part. Farewell Summer is out in hardcover in October 2006.

Around the same time, Match to Flame: the Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451 should appear. This is the latest in a series of volumes from Gauntlet Press. It's rather a costly volume, but for the Bradbury completist it will be a must-have. Edited by Bradbury's bibliographer Donn Albright, the book includes essays by Jon Eller which show that Fahrenheit 451 didn't spring fully formed from Bradbury's creative genius, but rather had a long gestation through various precursor short stories. This volume should be a perfect conpanion piece to (and extension of) Eller & Touponce's Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction. The book contains "The Fireman", the short story that developed into Fahrenheit 451, plus a long list of other precursors.

After that should come Somewhere a Band is Playing. I believe that this is another "Green Town" novel, but don't know much else about it. The last information I heard about this wasthat Guantlet Press would be publishing it in 2007.

And finally... according to Bradbury himself in a number of recent interviews, the long-in-development novel version of Leviathan '99 is now with his publishers, and is likely to see publication in 2007. Leviathan '99 is Bradbury's space age version of Moby Dick. Having spent a year adapting MD for the screen, Bradbury was unable to let go of the mythic white whale. In the early 1960s he began the novel, but soon turned it instead into a radio play...and then a stage play... and now it's come full circle and is to appear as a novel.