Bradbury 100 - episode 18

Time for another episode of Bradbury 100! And - for now - the last episode.

When I started this series back in July, I expected I might be able to produce a handful of episodes. But I was overwhelmed by the number of Ray's friends, collaborators and fans who agreed to be interviewed. And so I ended up with enough material for eighteen episodes.

But now, with the academic year in full swing (I'm a full-time university lecturer), I have very little free time, and the production cycle of Bradbury 100 needs to stop.

I do hope to return with some one-off episodes, so I hope you will stay subscribed on your podcast app. That way, you will continue to see any new episodes that come along.

To end the regular series, I chose to speak to Howard V. Hendrix, a professional science fiction writer who also happens to be scholar of science fiction. Howard has given public presentations about Ray's work, and published books and articles about Mars in science fiction.

And although Howard is often classed as a "hard SF" writer - putting him at the opposite end of the spectrum to Ray Bradbury - Howard is also a creative wordsmith. With Howard's SF writing chops and critic's insight, I can think of few people better to consider the question of Ray Bradbury's legacy.

Shortly after I interviewed Howard, his suffered the terrible loss of his family home to the California forest fires. Thankfully, Howard and his wife were safely evacuated. Howard, who is himself a volunteer firefighter, shortly afterward wrote a moving but philosophical account of how the fire swept in and wrecked whole communities. You can read his article for the San Francisco Chronicle here.

 

 

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 18 - with science fiction author and scholar Howard V. Hendrix

 

 

Show Notes

Howard V. Hendrix is an exceptional writer of science fiction. In the podcast, he discusses his short story collection The Girls With Kaleidoscope Eyes: Analog Stories for a Digital Age, which you can find in all good bookshops, and at Amazon (US) and Amazon (UK).

Howard's other books can be found on his author page, here.

A few years ago, Howard co-edited a book about Mars in science fiction, building on a conference on the same theme. I contributed an article about Bradbury's Mars stories. You can find Visions of Mars here.

Howard's entry in Wikipedia.

Update on VISIONS OF MARS

The book Visions of Mars is approaching publication. Its a collection of essays and articles which are mostly derived from the 2008 Eaton Conference, which was subtitled "Chronicling Mars". The book looks at the way Mars has been depicted in literature, film and popular culture.

The table of contents is now online. I see my chapter "Re-Presenting Mars: Bradbury’s Martian Stories in Media Adaptation" is smack in the middle of the volume. There is one other paper specifically about Bradbury, from Eric Rabkin, and also a transcript of a roundtable discussion between Bradbury, Fred Pohl and George Slusser. I'm sure there will many other passing references to Bradbury, as my recollection of the conference is that his name came up again and again.

The volume is quite expensive (40USD for a softcover version), but this is an academic volume and they tend to be pricey. Release date according to the publisher is now May 2011. (I notice that Amazon still shows the original release date, and also has a higher price than McFarland publishers!)



I see that Harlan Ellison has been nominated for a Nebula Award from SFWA (the SF and Fantasy Writers of America) for his short story "How Interesting: a Tiny Man". The story was first published in February last year in Realms of Fantasy magazine, copies of which can be ordered from the magazine's own website.

Ellison is no stranger to the Nebulas. He was the first ever recipient in the Short Story category, for "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman" in 1965. His last Nebula win was 1977's "Jeffty is Five". His most recent nomination (before "Tiny Man") was in 2003 for "Good-Bye To All That".

"How Interesting: a Tiny Man" is a beautifully clear piece of writing, but is deceptively more complex than it appears on first reading.

New Bottles, Vintage Wine...

The long-running audio drama version of The Twilight Zone will shortly feature a dramatisation of "I Sing the Body Electric!", the only episode of the original TV series to be scripted by Ray Bradbury. According to the TZ Radio Drama blog, Dennis Etchison has written the new version to take into account not just the original episode, but some of Bradbury's ideas which didn't make it to screen.

"I Sing..." is actually one of the strangest items in Bradbury's back catalogue. The short story is quite well known - from the eponymous short story collection first published in 1969 - but not many people know that the story first saw light of day as the Twilight Zone episode, which Bradbury scripted c.1960. This puts "I Sing..." in the same category as The Halloween Tree and Something Wicked This Way Comes: a Bradbury media creation which only later became a literary text.


Here's an item to file under "wish I'd been there" heading: on 17 March in Fresno, California, there was a two-day symposium on Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The event tied in with the Big Read campaign. The event was moderated by writer and academic Howard V. Hendrix, who I met in 2008 at the Eaton Conference where we both presenting papers on Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Fresno seems quite keen on F451...


It looks as if the ghastly cover of The Stories of Ray Bradbury, in print in hardcover from Knopf since 1980, is soon to vanish, replaced by this new cover with the Everyman label. As far as I know, this is all that's changed about the book, apart from (possibly) a new introduction. The publisher's page for this new edition is here.

To tie in with the new edition, the Wall Street Journal has a new interview with Ray.