Re-Unite Bradbury's Hugo Award with his Manuscripts!

It took fifty years for Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic novel of book-burning firemen, to be formally honoured by the science fiction community. The first Hugo Awards - voted for by members of the World Science Fiction Convention - were given in 1953 (covering the year 1952), too early for Fahrenheit to be in consideration. They weren't given again until 1955, by which time it was too late for Fahrenheit. But in 2004 the "missing year" of 1954 was finally covered with the "Retro Hugos", an opportunity for Convention-goers to select the best works of 1953 for special awards.

Ray's Retro-Hugo is currently up for auction, along with more than 400 other artefacts offered by the Bradbury estate. The starting bid was $5000. Unfortunately, this is beyond what the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, which holds (in original or digitised form) many manuscripts related to Fahrenheit 451, could afford to spend. So I would like to make a simple proposition to put the Hugo back with the manuscripts:

Bid-to-donate.

Is there someone out there who could bid for the Retro-Hugo, and donate it to the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University?

If this idea appeals to you, please visit the web site of Nate D. Sanders Auctions of Los Angeles (link below); or email auction@natedsanders.com; or phone 310 440-2982. The auction instructions and registration pages of the website explain the online, phone, and mail bidding process.

The bidding period runs until 5:00 p.m. PDT on Thursday, September 25th, 2014. The Bradbury Hugo Award is lot number 293 in the Bradbury online auction catalog. Here's a direct link:

http://natedsanders.com/Ray_Bradbury_s_Hugo_Award_for___Fahrenheit_451____-LOT31626.aspx

Bradbury "Ice Cream Suit" Event in California

If you are near Pomona, California, in mid-October, here's a unique event: a screening of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, with a panel on the making of the film. It's to support Pomona Public Library.

The film was scripted by Ray Bradbury, based on his short story and play, and was directed for Disney by Stuart Gordon - a director better known for his work in the horror genre. Gordon will be on the discussion panel, along with two of the film's stars: Joe Mantegna and Edward James Olmos.

And if that weren't enough, the panel will be joined by Bradbury's authorised biographer Sam Weller, and chaired by organiser of Los Angeles' Ray Bradbury Week, Steven Paul Leiva.

Full details of the 12th October event are here.

Auction for the Ray Bradbury Estate

After Ray Bradbury's death in 2012, it naturally took a while for his estate to be distributed. As I have reported previously, the bulk of his papers and correspondence, and most of his office contents, found their way to the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies in Indianapolis; and his Cheviot Hills home was sold earlier this year. But Ray's house was also full of personal effects and possessions, including a great deal of artwork - and these remaining objects are now up for auction.

The full catalogue for the auction is online, and the auction house appears to be open to online bidding. There are hundreds of lots, ranging from rough sketches by Bradbury collaborators such as Joe Mugnaini, through to the commemorative plaque for Ray's Hollywood star. Even if you don't intend to bid on anything, the catalogue is fascinating to browse through, and in most cases includes quite detailed photos of the lots. View the catalogue here.

Bradbury Unbound

Jon Eller's second volume on the life and writing of Ray Bradbury - Ray Bradbury Unbound - is due out in a few days. In addition to his recent blog post for Biographile, Jon has written one for Locus, the science-fiction news magazine. Here, he talks about the discoveries made in researching the book, and the creative challenge of documenting a career in a limited number of pages. The Locus blog is here.

I had the privilege of reading some of the book while Jon was finalising it, and it is a thorough piece of work which captures the whirlwind of Bradbury at his peak, following the successes of Fahrenheit 451 and his film work for Moby Dick and leading into the 1960s.

Ray Bradbury Unbound is available for pre-order in all the usual places: click here to order on Amazon (US); click here to order on Amazon (UK); click here to order from the publisher.

Asteroid 9766 Bradbury

On 24th February 1992, an average-sized asteroid was discovered by Spacewatch observers at the Kitt's Peak Observatory, and designated 1992 DZ2. Eight and a half years later it was given a name: 9766 Bradbury.

Dr Jeffrey Larsen of the Spacewatch Project and the University of Arizona wrote to Ray Bradbury to tell him of this astronomical re-naming. He provided technical details of the asteroid's orbit, and more graspable information such as its size (three to nine kilometres in diameter) and distance from the Sun (2.45 astronomical units). Dr Larsen also informed Ray that the asteroid had not been observed for its physical composition, and thanked Ray "for inspiring me in my youth" through his writing.

Ray immediately faxed Dr Larsen back, exclaiming "Holy Magoly!" He thanked Larsen for "this wonderful baptism" and felt sure that this would earn respect from his four daughters.

Ray Bradbury had been similarly honoured by the Apollo 15 astronauts, who named a crater on the Moon as "Dandelion Crater" in 1971. Shortly after his death, he was astronomically honoured once more, when the Curiosity landing site on Mars was named as "Bradbury Landing".

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.

Bradbury Wins Retro Hugo

The problem with awards is that they don't always go to the right people. The Hugo Awards - decided on a ballot of the year's World Science Fiction Convention membership - have a way of correcting for this: the Retro Hugos, typically given for overlooked works... but many years after the event.

At this year's Loncon3 convention, the Retro Hugos have been given for the year 1939. This, of course, is long before most of the convention's members were born. But it has given Ray Bradbury a second opportunity to have his works considered for recognition.

Bradbury was on the ballot in two categories:

"Best Short Story" - his amateur story "Hollerbochen's Dilemma" lost out to Arthur C. Clarke's "How We Went To Mars". Perhaps the UK location of this year's Worldcon helped Clarke to win this category...

"Best Fan Writer" - Ray won in this category, where the award is not given for a specific named work, but for a general body of work. Of course, in the late 1930s Bradbury was contributing to a number of fan publications, and was producing his own fanzine, Futuria Fantasia.

I find it quite amusing that Ray Bradbury should win as "best fan writer", particularly since back in 1939 he attended the very first World Science Fiction Convention in New York.

Full details of the Retro Hugo ballot can be found at Tor.com.

Harlan Ellison story dedicated to Ray Bradbury

Harlan Ellison, who turned 80 just a few weeks ago, has a new short story in the online Subterranean Press Magazine. Titled "He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes", the story alludes to both  Conan Doyle's "The Red-Headed League" and Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". The story is also dedicated to the memory of Bradbury. Read the story here.

Harlan is also one of the latest additions to the Archive of American Television's oral history programme, with a video interview conducted in early 2013, covering most of the steps in Ellison's screenwriting career. Interviews in this series are usually continuous and chronological, but for some reason this one has been broken into short, top-and-tailed segments. While this has created some fun sections, it doesn't seem quite as carefully controlled as the rest of the series, and the sense of chronology is sometimes lost - as when Harlan talks about The Twilight Zone from the 1980s in between his comments on the 1960s series Ripcord and The Flying Nun. You can watch the interview here.

KALEIDOSCOPE returns...

Following hot on the heels of Brian Sibley's radio dramatisation of Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope" (as part of The Illustrated Man for Radio 4's Dangerous Visions season), the archive radio channel BBC Radio 4Extra is today broadcasting a 1991 production of the same story. 4Extra's web page thinks it's a new production, but it isn't.

"Kaleidoscope" is a classic SF short story, in which a group of astronauts find themselves flung aimlessly through space when their spaceship is destroyed; each one of them faces a slow, isolated death. As I have noted elsewhere, the premise seems to have inspired part of John Carpenter's movie Dark Star and Alfonso Cuaron's recent Gravity.

This 1991 radio adaptation is unusual, because the script is by Bradbury himself. It's a modified version of his stage play, and based on his own original short story. It was only the second BBC production to have used a Bradbury script (the first was Leviathan '99, which I reviewed here.).

The 1991 "Kaleidoscope" was directed by Hamish Wilson, who later co-produced the Bradbury series Tales of the Bizarre. It was also the first BBC production to use digital sampling technology in a drama production: they used a Synclavier to create the complex soundscape.

As with most BBC Radio broadcasts, the show will be available for streaming on the web for seven days, and should be accessible from anywhere in the world. Here's a direct link to the web page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0499l5n

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Today is also the 91st birthday of science fiction writer, critic and historian James Gunn. I met Jim last year, as I recounted in this blog post.  He's still going strong, and last year published a well-received novel, Transcendental.