1housefulofpaper
Autumn is is Ray Bradbury season.
His first published short story collection was a collection of horror stories, I think all originally published in Weird Tales. In a two-part essay in Wormwood from 2005, the late Joel Lane argued for Bradbury's centrality in 20th-century American horror and weird fiction:
"The simplicity of these tales reflects a fundamental change in the prevailing tone of Weird Tales fiction during the 1940s: a shift from the arcane to the local and familiar. Writers such as Bradbury, Bloch, Wellman and Derleth evoked the darkness of the American heartland and the human heart, rather than the darkness of distant planets and monstrous entities. This kind of horror fiction was closely allied to the evolving folklore of urbanisation and migration, rather than to ancient myths and traditions. It was a key literary element of the obscure patchwork of regional secrets and rumours now termed 'Americana'.
"Bradbury was the most innovatory practitioner of this new, quieter weird fiction. He was the least tied to conventional notions of the supernatural"...."The terrors of his fiction are those of alienation and loss, not those of creatures from beyond."
That first collection, Dark Carnival, was not reprinted (apart from a limited edition in 2001) as Bradbury felt he had developed as a writer since those stories were written. Some stories were dropped, many rewritten, and some new ones added the create a "replacement" collection, The October Country.
But - if you're in the UK, the story isn't so simple. Bradbury and/or his UK publishers had a habit of tinkering with the contents and titles of his earlier collections (and novels constructed out of short stories - "fix ups" as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls them - like The Martian Chronicles (aka The Silver Locusts and The Illustrated Man).
Dark Carnival was issued in abridged form in the UK, and at some point A UK-only collection entitled The Small Assassin came out, sharing a lot of stories with The October Country but including material that wasn't in the UK Dark Carnival and that wouldn't be reprinted in the States until years later.
There's also just a lot of overlap in story collections generally, especially from about the 1980s onwards.
Anyway, I had a rummage about and tried to find all my Ray Bradbury books. Annoyingly two or three currently elude me, including the Folio Society edition of The Martian Chronicles.
I'll start with the late-70's Panther UK paperbacks. These are very evocative for me, although as I wasn't reading horror back then I didn't pick up a new copy of The Small Assassin. The copy shown was a charity shop find.
The big, career-spanning collection from the early '80s. I believe it's the same story selection as the Everyman hardback Stories of Ray Bradbury.
And this is the late "fix-up" about an ordinary human whose family are all supernatural beings. Shades of The Munsters and The Addams Family, and Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, but these stories started being written back in the 1940s.
The US paperback reprints the original cover art, which is by Charles Addams himself and illustrated one of the stories that comprise the "fix-up", on its original magazine publication.
The next three books are late-career works, three linked, noir-ish novels published between
1985 and 2002. They are examples of what Bradbury does quite often, taking a fictionalised alter-ego through a version of Bradbury's own life history. Here, he's a young screenwriter in '50s Hollywood. A Graveyard for Lunatics also features a fictionalised version of Ray Harryhausen. That's a US edition of Let's All Kill Constance. I assume there was a UK edition...
Early '70s UK paperbacks, charity shop finds.
And these, I believe are both 'fix-ups' from stories where Bradbury revisits his childhood. I haven't read these yet. US edition of Dandelion Wine from Forbidden Planet.
A 1960s New English Library edition of The Small Assassin and 70's Juvenile novella The Halloween Tree. As Joel Lane notes, this is around the time critics were calling Bradbury's work "enchanting", but "great weird fiction is not about enchantment. It's about disenchantment".
Poor Ray's not always well served when it comes to cover illustrations... (apparently A Medicine for Melancholy is another book where the US and UK differ, to the extent that the corresponding UK short story collection has different contents and a different title. It's The Day it Rained Forever, but I don't own a copy of this one. This US A Medicine for Melancholy is from the 1960s.
US hardcover of The October Country is also from Forbidden Planet. Just a shame it's such an ugly cover...
The Folio Society edition of Something Wicked This Way Comes , with decorated slip-case.
The Folio Society edition of Fahrenheit 451.
The Folio Society edition of The Illustrated Man.
If I stumble across them, I'll add:
The Folio Society edition of The Martian Chronicles
Green Shadows, White Whale - another book I have yet to read, and another where only the US edition seemed to be available, and only in London (Waterstones, Piccadilly, this time). It's another fictionalised autobiography, this one concerned with Bradbury's time in Ireland working with John Huston on Moby-Dick.
His first published short story collection was a collection of horror stories, I think all originally published in Weird Tales. In a two-part essay in Wormwood from 2005, the late Joel Lane argued for Bradbury's centrality in 20th-century American horror and weird fiction:
"The simplicity of these tales reflects a fundamental change in the prevailing tone of Weird Tales fiction during the 1940s: a shift from the arcane to the local and familiar. Writers such as Bradbury, Bloch, Wellman and Derleth evoked the darkness of the American heartland and the human heart, rather than the darkness of distant planets and monstrous entities. This kind of horror fiction was closely allied to the evolving folklore of urbanisation and migration, rather than to ancient myths and traditions. It was a key literary element of the obscure patchwork of regional secrets and rumours now termed 'Americana'.
"Bradbury was the most innovatory practitioner of this new, quieter weird fiction. He was the least tied to conventional notions of the supernatural"...."The terrors of his fiction are those of alienation and loss, not those of creatures from beyond."
That first collection, Dark Carnival, was not reprinted (apart from a limited edition in 2001) as Bradbury felt he had developed as a writer since those stories were written. Some stories were dropped, many rewritten, and some new ones added the create a "replacement" collection, The October Country.
But - if you're in the UK, the story isn't so simple. Bradbury and/or his UK publishers had a habit of tinkering with the contents and titles of his earlier collections (and novels constructed out of short stories - "fix ups" as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls them - like The Martian Chronicles (aka The Silver Locusts and The Illustrated Man).
Dark Carnival was issued in abridged form in the UK, and at some point A UK-only collection entitled The Small Assassin came out, sharing a lot of stories with The October Country but including material that wasn't in the UK Dark Carnival and that wouldn't be reprinted in the States until years later.
There's also just a lot of overlap in story collections generally, especially from about the 1980s onwards.
Anyway, I had a rummage about and tried to find all my Ray Bradbury books. Annoyingly two or three currently elude me, including the Folio Society edition of The Martian Chronicles.
I'll start with the late-70's Panther UK paperbacks. These are very evocative for me, although as I wasn't reading horror back then I didn't pick up a new copy of The Small Assassin. The copy shown was a charity shop find.
The big, career-spanning collection from the early '80s. I believe it's the same story selection as the Everyman hardback Stories of Ray Bradbury.
And this is the late "fix-up" about an ordinary human whose family are all supernatural beings. Shades of The Munsters and The Addams Family, and Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, but these stories started being written back in the 1940s.
The US paperback reprints the original cover art, which is by Charles Addams himself and illustrated one of the stories that comprise the "fix-up", on its original magazine publication.
The next three books are late-career works, three linked, noir-ish novels published between
1985 and 2002. They are examples of what Bradbury does quite often, taking a fictionalised alter-ego through a version of Bradbury's own life history. Here, he's a young screenwriter in '50s Hollywood. A Graveyard for Lunatics also features a fictionalised version of Ray Harryhausen. That's a US edition of Let's All Kill Constance. I assume there was a UK edition...
Early '70s UK paperbacks, charity shop finds.
And these, I believe are both 'fix-ups' from stories where Bradbury revisits his childhood. I haven't read these yet. US edition of Dandelion Wine from Forbidden Planet.
A 1960s New English Library edition of The Small Assassin and 70's Juvenile novella The Halloween Tree. As Joel Lane notes, this is around the time critics were calling Bradbury's work "enchanting", but "great weird fiction is not about enchantment. It's about disenchantment".
Poor Ray's not always well served when it comes to cover illustrations... (apparently A Medicine for Melancholy is another book where the US and UK differ, to the extent that the corresponding UK short story collection has different contents and a different title. It's The Day it Rained Forever, but I don't own a copy of this one. This US A Medicine for Melancholy is from the 1960s.
US hardcover of The October Country is also from Forbidden Planet. Just a shame it's such an ugly cover...
The Folio Society edition of Something Wicked This Way Comes , with decorated slip-case.
The Folio Society edition of Fahrenheit 451.
The Folio Society edition of The Illustrated Man.
If I stumble across them, I'll add:
The Folio Society edition of The Martian Chronicles
Green Shadows, White Whale - another book I have yet to read, and another where only the US edition seemed to be available, and only in London (Waterstones, Piccadilly, this time). It's another fictionalised autobiography, this one concerned with Bradbury's time in Ireland working with John Huston on Moby-Dick.
2alaudacorax
The Kindle is a very mixed blessing. Short story collections are a problem with it: it’s so easy to forget you are reading them—forget everything about them, in fact.
I’ve been meaning, ‘recently’, to catch up on Ray Bradbury. I had—well, a feeling rather than a memory—that I read some of his stuff long, long ago—perhaps fifty years ago, home town public library days; but nothing was left other than vaguest feelings that I’d read Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles and that I liked his stuff.
So I decided to make a start with The October Country, read about a third of the stories ... and then completely forgot about it until I saw this thread. When I checked my catalogue and found that I started reading it in August, 2017!
Kindle really is no substitute for a proper, physical book lying on your coffee table.
I’ve been meaning, ‘recently’, to catch up on Ray Bradbury. I had—well, a feeling rather than a memory—that I read some of his stuff long, long ago—perhaps fifty years ago, home town public library days; but nothing was left other than vaguest feelings that I’d read Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles and that I liked his stuff.
So I decided to make a start with The October Country, read about a third of the stories ... and then completely forgot about it until I saw this thread. When I checked my catalogue and found that I started reading it in August, 2017!
Kindle really is no substitute for a proper, physical book lying on your coffee table.
3alaudacorax
>2 alaudacorax:
Of course, it would help if I stuck to one collection at a time and put it in 'Currently reading', rather than fifteen or more scattered here, there or nowhere in collections.
Of course, it would help if I stuck to one collection at a time and put it in 'Currently reading', rather than fifteen or more scattered here, there or nowhere in collections.
4alaudacorax
I've been looking at his bibliographies online. Collector's dream or collector's nightmare? It would certainly seem to be a bit of a puzzler to collect all of his fiction.
Incidentally, why is autumn Ray Bradbury season?
Incidentally, why is autumn Ray Bradbury season?
5alaudacorax
>2 alaudacorax:
And the irony is that they really are rather brilliant short stories. I don't know how I came to forget about the collection. I accidentally read another four when I was looking at the book this morning and one of them, 'Touched with Fire', I'm sure was one of the most unusual combinations of terrifying and blackly funny I've ever come across.
Reading them and looking back through some of the others, I have to wonder about the mental health of a man with an imagination like that. He looks quite jolly in a lot of his photos.
Anyway, I have plumbing to do ...
And the irony is that they really are rather brilliant short stories. I don't know how I came to forget about the collection. I accidentally read another four when I was looking at the book this morning and one of them, 'Touched with Fire', I'm sure was one of the most unusual combinations of terrifying and blackly funny I've ever come across.
Reading them and looking back through some of the others, I have to wonder about the mental health of a man with an imagination like that. He looks quite jolly in a lot of his photos.
Anyway, I have plumbing to do ...
6pgmcc
>1 housefulofpaper: Wow! That is one comprehensive post about Ray Bradbury. I have the two volume collection of his short stories, and have a number of his better known SF stories, which I have read.
However, no discussion about Ray Bradbury would be complete without the song from his adoring fans. Watch and listen HERE!
However, no discussion about Ray Bradbury would be complete without the song from his adoring fans. Watch and listen HERE!
7housefulofpaper
Why did I say autumn is "Ray Bradbury season"? There are book titles that specifically refer to the season - The October Country, The Halloween Tree. Then his stories often have a wistful or elegiac tone. The horror stories (many of which could better be classed as dark fantasy), but also the science fiction, and the fictionalised memoirs of childhood: the end of summer and the end of childhood as some pretty obvious symbolism. Of course there's the opposing life force of the eternal child. Death and Rebirth. The Northern European Winter Festival (which, properly, should run from Halloween right through to St Valentine's Day, I'm sure I read somewhere. I'll vote for that!).
It's an identification that has been around a long time, I'm sure. I wrote that almost without thinking about it, I just "knew it". As an example, the Joel Lane piece I quoted is titled "The October Revolution: Ray Bradbury's Existential Paradigm for the Horror Genre".
>6 pgmcc:
Good grief!
It's an identification that has been around a long time, I'm sure. I wrote that almost without thinking about it, I just "knew it". As an example, the Joel Lane piece I quoted is titled "The October Revolution: Ray Bradbury's Existential Paradigm for the Horror Genre".
>6 pgmcc:
Good grief!
9alaudacorax
>1 housefulofpaper: - I believe it's the same story selection as the Everyman hardback Stories of Ray Bradbury.
That's still available and at a very reasonable price, seems to have a hell of a lot of content, and I've found good reviews of the physical quality of the edition. Couldn't resist, could I? Ordered a copy. Probably superfluous to say I've been really impressed by the quality—and range—of some of the stories in The October Country (still haven't finished it).
That's still available and at a very reasonable price, seems to have a hell of a lot of content, and I've found good reviews of the physical quality of the edition. Couldn't resist, could I? Ordered a copy. Probably superfluous to say I've been really impressed by the quality—and range—of some of the stories in The October Country (still haven't finished it).
10alaudacorax
>6 pgmcc:
I have lived in very different worlds. I've been trying to imagine my old headmaster and English teacher watching that clip. They would probably have never recovered. Apoplexy all round. Got to admit my jaw rather dropped, too.
I have lived in very different worlds. I've been trying to imagine my old headmaster and English teacher watching that clip. They would probably have never recovered. Apoplexy all round. Got to admit my jaw rather dropped, too.
11pgmcc
>10 alaudacorax: & >7 housefulofpaper:
It does pack a punch.
In relation to The Halloween Tree I have, on and off, looked for a reasonably priced copy for a number of years. I gave up the other day and bought the Kindle version. :-(
It does pack a punch.
In relation to The Halloween Tree I have, on and off, looked for a reasonably priced copy for a number of years. I gave up the other day and bought the Kindle version. :-(
12housefulofpaper
>11 pgmcc:
I think my copy came from my local Oxfam bookshop.
For many years I regularly turned up treasures there. Partly, but not wholly, because Brian Stableford and David Langford (both Reading residents) donated books to it.
I think my copy came from my local Oxfam bookshop.
For many years I regularly turned up treasures there. Partly, but not wholly, because Brian Stableford and David Langford (both Reading residents) donated books to it.
13pgmcc
>12 housefulofpaper: Two great book sources for Oxfam. I suspect David would get hounded with review copies.
14housefulofpaper
I suppose this was inevitable. New purchases.
Farewell Summer comes between Dandelion Wine and Summer Morning, Summer Night. I see the Librarything "Series" includes Something Wicked This Way Comes All four books are set in Green Town, which is a fictionalised version of Waukegan, Illinois, which is where Bradbury was born.
And "the collected crime stories"? It's a genre he tried his hand at in the early days of his career but apparently didn't feel comfortable with. Nevertheless some of the stories here were included in book form from the '50s onwards. Also, they're not all "straight" crime stories, some even being outright horror/supernatural tales (e.g. "The Small Assassin"). Oh, and it's not a comprehensive collection, as the introduction refers to an earlier collection of crime stories, and going online I see that collection included stories that Bradbury had sort of disowned, but they were reprinted because of the rights situation - but only once, and only in paperback.
So yes, going back to >4 alaudacorax:...dream or nightmare? (and, on a connected note, when I looked on Amazon for his books in print, I found that a US university press has started reprinting all Bradbury's stories in proper academic variorum editions - naturally, at academic publishing prices).
Farewell Summer comes between Dandelion Wine and Summer Morning, Summer Night. I see the Librarything "Series" includes Something Wicked This Way Comes All four books are set in Green Town, which is a fictionalised version of Waukegan, Illinois, which is where Bradbury was born.
And "the collected crime stories"? It's a genre he tried his hand at in the early days of his career but apparently didn't feel comfortable with. Nevertheless some of the stories here were included in book form from the '50s onwards. Also, they're not all "straight" crime stories, some even being outright horror/supernatural tales (e.g. "The Small Assassin"). Oh, and it's not a comprehensive collection, as the introduction refers to an earlier collection of crime stories, and going online I see that collection included stories that Bradbury had sort of disowned, but they were reprinted because of the rights situation - but only once, and only in paperback.
So yes, going back to >4 alaudacorax:...dream or nightmare? (and, on a connected note, when I looked on Amazon for his books in print, I found that a US university press has started reprinting all Bradbury's stories in proper academic variorum editions - naturally, at academic publishing prices).
15alaudacorax
>14 housefulofpaper:
'The Small Assassin' was one of those stories I read two or three days back when I described them as rather brilliant. It was rather slippery to keep a grip on; and it's got a bit more so now you've told me—to my surprise—that it was classified as a crime story.Is it a tale of the supernatural or of some sort of collective delusion? Logic tells you that the doctor's going to the electric chair or whatever. You've now got me wondering if he actually did kill all three, somehow.
'The Small Assassin' was one of those stories I read two or three days back when I described them as rather brilliant. It was rather slippery to keep a grip on; and it's got a bit more so now you've told me—to my surprise—that it was classified as a crime story.
16housefulofpaper
>15 alaudacorax:
I don't know how many of the stories in Killer, Come Back to Me are "straight" crime stories and how any are more typical of Bradbury's output, but with enough of a crime, suspense or detection element to enable him to place them with a crime-themed pulp magazine. The back cover blurb warns the reader against expecting anything too ordinary.
I tend to (perhaps naively) accept a story at face value when other "unreliable narrator" readings are possible, but I think "The Small Assassin" is supposed to be read that way. There's an interview where Bradbury says his memory goes right back to birth, and the small assassin is a kind of self-portrait.
I don't know how many of the stories in Killer, Come Back to Me are "straight" crime stories and how any are more typical of Bradbury's output, but with enough of a crime, suspense or detection element to enable him to place them with a crime-themed pulp magazine. The back cover blurb warns the reader against expecting anything too ordinary.
I tend to (perhaps naively) accept a story at face value when other "unreliable narrator" readings are possible, but I think "The Small Assassin" is supposed to be read that way. There's an interview where Bradbury says his memory goes right back to birth, and the small assassin is a kind of self-portrait.
17housefulofpaper
And this arrived today..
18housefulofpaper
>17 housefulofpaper:
I didn't realise until I added the book on here, but seeing other uploaded covers of the same edition - the front cover illustration is printed out of register. It's not supposed to cover the author name, and there isn't supposed to be a white band at the bottom.
I didn't realise until I added the book on here, but seeing other uploaded covers of the same edition - the front cover illustration is printed out of register. It's not supposed to cover the author name, and there isn't supposed to be a white band at the bottom.
19alaudacorax
>18 housefulofpaper:
Perhaps that means it's worth £1000s & £1000s, like those stamps with a flaw on them?
Perhaps that means it's worth £1000s & £1000s, like those stamps with a flaw on them?
20alaudacorax
>9 alaudacorax:
The Stories of Ray Bradbury turned up yesterday and I'm pleased to have it—a hefty treasure chest of stories. I have to admit, though, after this thread, I find the cover criminally underwhelming.
With all due respect to the late Mr Bradbury, that's just plain boring compared to the general run of images above.
ETA - There's not even anything weird in the background ... first thing I checked when it arrived.
The Stories of Ray Bradbury turned up yesterday and I'm pleased to have it—a hefty treasure chest of stories. I have to admit, though, after this thread, I find the cover criminally underwhelming.
With all due respect to the late Mr Bradbury, that's just plain boring compared to the general run of images above.
ETA - There's not even anything weird in the background ... first thing I checked when it arrived.
21pgmcc
The Everyman editions are lovely books, but I have to agree, their cover pictures do not do much justice to the content.
22housefulofpaper
>20 alaudacorax:
I think I prefer Everyman's original non-pictorial covers ("original" here meaning their early '90s relaunch) to the current house style, which has lost much of that austerely dignified air but doesn't have a great deal of visual appeal (just author photos awkwardly positioned around that black block containing their name).
Mind you, in this case at least it's the Ray Bradbury I recognise from media appearances in the '70s to the '90s...who on Earth is the young chap in the bowtie, on the back cover of The Day it Rained Forever?
Edited to add re >19 alaudacorax:...the slight knowledge I've picked up about second hand and antiquarian books tells me that, alas, this book isn't going to make my fortune.
I think I prefer Everyman's original non-pictorial covers ("original" here meaning their early '90s relaunch) to the current house style, which has lost much of that austerely dignified air but doesn't have a great deal of visual appeal (just author photos awkwardly positioned around that black block containing their name).
Mind you, in this case at least it's the Ray Bradbury I recognise from media appearances in the '70s to the '90s...who on Earth is the young chap in the bowtie, on the back cover of The Day it Rained Forever?
Edited to add re >19 alaudacorax:...the slight knowledge I've picked up about second hand and antiquarian books tells me that, alas, this book isn't going to make my fortune.
23housefulofpaper
My Folio Society The Martian Chronicles has been located.
The cover design and interior illustrations emphasise the stories' (this book being another "fix up" rather than a true novel) pulp SF origins over the elegiac tone of the stories.
They're by Mick Brownfield who used to do a lot of pastiche '50's pop culture illustrations for the likes of Radio Times.
I could swear that cover is midnight blue rather than solid black in real life...
The cover design and interior illustrations emphasise the stories' (this book being another "fix up" rather than a true novel) pulp SF origins over the elegiac tone of the stories.
They're by Mick Brownfield who used to do a lot of pastiche '50's pop culture illustrations for the likes of Radio Times.
I could swear that cover is midnight blue rather than solid black in real life...
24alaudacorax
Bradbury is currently at the top of the Scary Stories for the Season list. I'll be interested to see who eventually ends at the top.
