Two Years On

 It's now two years to the day since Ray Bradbury died.

Interest in his work continues, and has perhaps even intensified. Coming soon are:

• the second volume of The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition, 1943-1944;
• the second volume of Jon Eller's literary biography Ray Bradbury Unbound; and
• the fourth issue of The New Ray Bradbury Review. 

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Disney is planning its second attempt to film Something Wicked This Way Comes with Seth Grahame-Smith as writer-director. And in just over a week, BBC Radio 4 will be topping and tailing its season of SF dramas with two new productions based on The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles.

In the last year we have seen academic texts about Bradbury's works:

• About the Arizona and Mars connections - Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars;
• About one of his most enduring novels - Critical Insights: Fahrenheit 451. 

Finally, we have seen Bradbury's office contents shipped to the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies for preservation future study, and the sale of the Bradbury house on Los Angeles' Cheviot Drive.
A time of change, to be sure.

Onward!

Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars...in Arizona

Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars is a new book edited by Gloria McMillan (University of Arizona and Pima Community College, Tucson). Yesterday, McMillan appeared on Tucson public television to discuss the book. You can view the TV show below - the Bradbury book is the headline of the programme, and then the first full report after the news summary.

The accompanying web page refers to the book as "kaleidoscopic", because of the many facets of Bradbury that it tries to bring out. The book's subtitle claims for it "biographical, anthropological, literary, scientific and other perspectives", which does indeed sound multi-faceted. So far, I have only dipped into the book, more or less at random, but at some point I will post a review of it.

The original call for submissions to the book mentioned the Arizona connection, suggesting that the book would be "keyed to the fact that Ray Bradbury spent a formative teen year in Tucson, Arizona, that impressed his young mind, largely shaping his metaphorical Mars" and it is precisely this aspect that Arizona's AZ Illustrated picks up on here, leading off with the scientific view of Mars.

Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars

Just released from McFarland is a new book of essays on Ray Bradbury's work. Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars, edited by Gloria McMillan, started out with the intention of re-assessing Bradbury as an author with strong Arizona connections, but the book has turned out to have a broader scope.

The essays cover various topic areas: some are biographical, some scientific, some anthopological, some literary. Of particular interest to me are a couple of chapters that deal with the TV adaptation of The Martian Chronicles. Although this is one of the weaker adaptations of Bradbury, it remains one of the best known, and therefore needs some critical scrutiny.

I haven't yet read the book - I only discovered this week that it was actually available via Amazon, much earlier than had originally been advertised. I may write a longer review later, if I find time. On the face of it, though, it's a useful and up-to-date collection of essays. Contributing authors include Jon Eller, Marleen Barr and Grace Dillon. The full table of contents is on the publisher's page, here.