Ray Bradbury's Birthday

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born ninety-four years ago today.

Even now, two years after he passed away, the fascination with his life and work continues. In a few weeks' time, a second volume of literary biography will be published: Ray Bradbury Unbound by Jon Eller. Shortly after, the second volume of The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: a Critical Edition will appear. The successful tribute volume Shadow Show is being developed into a comic-book series. Film composer John Massari has developed his Ray Bradbury Theater music into a symphonic suite. Dramatic Publishing is expanding its list of Bradbury-authored theatre plays with Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Illustrated Bradbury. And this week, the Indianapolis Public Library inaugurated an annual Ray Bradbury Lecture in conjunction with Indiana University's Center for Ray Bradbury Studies.

I think that deserves a round of applause!

Comic-Book Series: Ray Bradbury Tribute SHADOW SHOW

Comics publisher IDW has announced a five-issue series of comic books based on the Shadow Show anthology.

The original anthology, edited by Mort Castle and Ray Bradbury's biographer Sam Weller, was created as a tribute to Bradbury, and included stories from leading fantasists such as Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison.

The new comic will adapt a selection of the anthology's stories, including those by Gaiman, Ellison, Joe Hill and Alice Hoffman.

Full details are on IDW's web page, here.

Charles Yu

Charles Yu is the author of the new short story collection Sorry Please Thank You and the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

He is also a contributor to the Bradbury tribute volume Shadow Show, with his short story "Earth (a Gift Shop)", which is influenced by Bradbury's classic story "There Will Come Soft Rains".

In a recent interview, Yu spoke about his involvement with Shadow Show, and about Bradbury's fiction:

I was asked to submit something for the anthology by Sam Weller and Mort Castle, who put together the anthology. I was seriously daunted by the list of contributors they had rounded up, and I still am. Deciding what to write was very nerve-wracking – I kept thinking, “Ray Bradbury is going to read this story.” That’s a lot of pressure! And I heard from Sam that Mr. Bradbury did read it (at least I think he did), and enjoyed it. That was a quite a feeling. Pride and relief. Pri-lief. It’s like being in-shamed, but the opposite.
Oh, and yes, I love The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes. In terms of stories, “The Veldt” is one of my favorites, but there are so many.

You can read the full interview at Wired.

Shadow Show Reviewed

The most perceptive review yet of the tribute volume Shadow Show appeared this week in the Los Angeles Review of Books. SF and fantasy scholar Gary K. Wolfe - whose best known essay on Bradbury established the "frontier myth" reading of The Martian Chronicles - has written a lengthy review which not only evaluates the book itself but uses it as an opportunity to gauge Bradbury's literary influence.

Wolfe writes:

Few would consider [Harlan] Ellison and Bradbury as close siblings in any literary or stylistic sense, but [...] there’s some of the genetic material of those old pulp classics in both writers.

But such are the mysteries of literary DNA. Those old retroviruses can express themselves in unexpected ways generations later, and Bradbury was a carrier. He may have read Eudora Welty and Willa Cather and imported some of their stylistic grace into genre fiction, but by the same token he passed along some of the imaginative energy of Brackett or Henry Kuttner to the writers who followed him.

Wolfe then explores each story in the anthology in turn, considering the extent and nature of Bradbury's influence. One of his key points is that nearly every contributor to the book refers in their afterword  to discovering Bradbury at an early age, and nearly every one references Bradbury stories that were originally published prior to 1962. That was the year Something Wicked This Way Comes was published, and it seems to mark a changeover point at which Bradbury switched from "becoming Ray Bradbury" to "being Ray Bradbury", Wolfe observes, consciously echoing Jon Eller's recent biographical volume Becoming Ray Bradbury.

Shadow Show has received a lot of reviews, but many of them have been cursory and lacking in awareness of what the book truly demonstrates. Wolfe, I think, has got it spot on. I haven't read all the stories in the book yet, but his review prompts me to get on with it!

Gary K. Wolfe's full review can be read here.

Birthday Specials - 4

Meanwhile, in New York on the exact date of Ray Bradbury's birthday, there will be a celebratory launch of Shadow Show, the book of stories in tribute to Ray Bradbury. The book's actually been out for a while, but there's no harm in launching it one more time!

Full details here.


...And on the same day, in California, a double bill of Bradbury movies on the big screen: Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Details are here.

UPDATE:

 ...And at 2pm on Saturday 26th August in Florence, Alabama, Terry Pace's Pillar of Fire will be saluting Ray's life and legacy with a special showing of three first-class television adaptations of his work -- Piper Laurie and Roberts Blossom in the Twilight Zone chiller "The Burning Man" (1985), James Whitmore in The Ray Bradbury Theater SF fable "The Toynbee Convector" (1990) and Fred Gwynne in the American Playhouse classic "Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby is a Friend of Mine. The venue is the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, 350 N. Wood Ave., Florence, Alabam.

Shadow Show and F451

Shadow Show, the short story anthology in honour of Ray Bradbury is now out. I have a copy, but haven't had time to read it properly yet, just dip in here and there. Eventually I will get round to reviewing it. Meanwhile, there are other reviews out there to help you decide whether it is for you. This one from Ryan Britt at Tor.com gives a good overview from someone who has actually read it. The book was never intended to be a memorial to Bradbury, having been planned for months or years prior to Ray's recent death - but it looks as if it will serve as timely commemoration of the man and his writing. Those who don't know the history of the volume might be surprised to see that there is an introduction by Bradbury himself.

Journalist and political commentator Paul Street has written a long article relating Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 to our modern world. Much of what he writes is familiar: Bradbury's apparent prescience in his use of immersive TV systems, loss of literacy and increasing personal isolation through (for example) personal earphones. However, he makes a number of less familiar extrapolations, and manages to link in Facebook and other "evils" of the modern world. You may not agree with everything he writes, but it's a good piece. Read it here.

Shadow Show

Mort Castle, co-editor of the forthcoming Bradbury tribute volume, recently posted some more information about Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury:

Editor Sam Weller and I (and Ray!) are pleased with what people are saying about Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury. The book will be released July 17 in the William Morrow edition and around that time in the Gauntlet Press/Borderlands editions.

"Great new tales of imagination in the Bradbury tradition." -- Hugh Hefner

“There is no more fitting tribute to my friend Ray Bradbury than a compilation of wonderful short stories!  Ray is a champion of libraries and one of America’s most inventive teller of tales.   I cherish many happy times engrossed in his stories.  This anthology reflects the high imagination, visionary ideas, and fantastic writing that Ray is loved and known for around the world.”--Laura Bush

"Ray Bradbury is without a doubt, one of this, or any century's greatest and most imaginative writers.  SHADOW SHOW, a book of truly great stories, is the perfect tribute to America's master storyteller." --Stan Lee

"SHADOW SHOW is a treasure-trove for Ray Bradbury enthusiasts as for all readers who are drawn to richly imaginative, deftly plotted, startlingly original and unsettling short fiction.  No one who knows their darkly fantastic fiction would be surprised to see such renowned names here as Ramsey Campbell, Harlan Ellison, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, and Kelly Link; but it is something of a surprise to see Dave Eggers, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Dan Chaon, Bonnie Jo Campbell, and Julia Keller  in this gathering, all of them Ray Bradbury admirers, and all so gifted.  The tributes to Ray Bradbury that follow each of the stories are particularly interesting, often heartwarming and inspiring." --Joyce Carol Oates

The information appeared on the Shocklines message board.