Eclipse Science Fiction Special: The Best of Ray Bradbury

Eclipse Science Fiction Special: The Best of Ray Bradbury

By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm

On August 21, the United States will see a total solar eclipse. In the Missouri area, it will be the first one to be seen in over 400 years. Libraries and stores have been selling eclipse glasses (Remember to wear those when looking at the sky) and have been lending telescopes for over a year. In De Soto, Missouri we are particularly looking forward to it, where it will be one of the longest durations, over two minutes. In fact, authorities anticipate over 50,000 visitors to our area alone. Schools are being closed across the county and drivers are warned to watch the traffic that day.

Maybe many minds will turn towards their favorite science fiction or science fact authors and wonder about traveling to the stars. Well I am no different and this blog entry belongs solely to the works of my favorite science fiction author, Ray Bradbury (1920 -2012).

While Bradbury himself detested the label science fiction for his works, many of his novels and short stories carry the sense of wonder, curiosity, and thoughts about the worlds above and the world around. This list includes 18 short stories and two novels. Not all of these are straight science fiction, some more lie in the realm of fantasy and some horror, but they all carry whimsy, wonder, imagination, and the questions of “What if?” Of course as always, there may be spoilers. And if you know of any I’ve missed or would like to tell me your favorite Science Fiction authors and their works, please let me know here or on Facebook.

20. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)- This was my first experience with Ray Bradbury’s memorable writing, because I saw and loved the 1983 Disney film and read the book shortly thereafter in Middle School.

A strange carnival appears close to Halloween leaving the two young protagonists, Will Holloway and Jim Nightshade confused.  (“There are no carnivals after Labor Day.”) But this is not your average carnival; it is Dark and Cooger’s Pandemonium Carnival.

Many people ride these strange rides and experience the odd exhibits to get their deepest desires fulfilled, but things often go awry. A teacher longing for her lost youth becomes a little girl. A lightning rod salesman always selling things becomes a part of the electric light show. Above all, the Carnival has a merry-go-round which travels in reverse and makes the rider younger with each turn.

The Carnival becomes a truly frightening place with its settings of rides and other things that claim to give people what they want but like any demonic force preys on the poor victims’ weakness. The Carnival’s residents are a memorably creepy bunch from Mr. Cooger who changes from a large muscular thug to a sadistic little kid, to the Dust Witch who seems to have second sight and pops up in the oddest places including, in one memorable frightening scene, over the boys’ houses.

Then of course there is Mr. Dark, the sinister satanic owner of the Carnival whose very presence causes the Reader a tremendous chill. (In the movie, Jonathan Pryce gives one of the best performances of his career playing the sinister Dark to perfection to suggest not only horror but a charm that lures his victims before they realize it’s too late.)

Will and Jim have problems of their own: Jim feels mocked because he has no father and feels out of place with his mother and her constant boyfriends. Will is embarrassed by his older father, Charles Holloway the town librarian, who is often mistaken for Will’s grandfather. So the two boys, especially the darker-tempered Jim, become the perfect targets for the carnival’s denizens.

Ultimately the book becomes a battle of good vs. evil as Dark tries to tempt the boys while Will’s father fights for them. (Another memorable performance from the movie by Jason Robards who is able to stand up to Dark’s plots with his gruff but kind-hearted manner). Dark and Holloway’s one-on-one battles are the highlights of the book as the two stand on opposite sides fighting for the boys’ souls.

The next four stories come from Bradbury’s memorable anthology, The Martian Chronicles (1950) which besides giving a wonderful original look at the Red Planet, it’s former residents, and the Earth people who move there, it becomes an allegorical story comparing the colonizing of Mars with the European’s colonization of the Americas. The book portrays all of the high points of those who conquer: defeating the locals with disease (in this case chicken pox), the naming of areas after Earth people having no respect for those who lived before, and the systematic way in which Mars (and the Americas) were colonized. First the male explorers arrived, then the settlers looking for work and sending for their wives and children, then the people who built the cities and made the laws and regulations, until the Old World is no longer recognizable.

19. “Ylla”- This is the story of the first expedition to Mars but is not told from the astronauts’ point of view. Instead it is a romance told from the point of view of Mrs. Ylla K., a Martian. This story offers an original take on the idea of space travel telling it from the point of view of the aliens, showing that they are just as frightened, curious, and suspicious about us as we would be of them. It also has a memorable lead in Mrs. K, who dreams of a better life for herself.

Ylla is a bored Martian housewife in an unhappy marriage with a husband who spends his time playing his musical books. (“Quietly she wished he might one day again spend as much time holding and touching her like a little harp as he did his incredible books.”) Some nights she has dreams of a man from the Third Planet, the Blue Planet Earth communicating with her telepathically. The Earth Man, Nathaniel York and she strike up a friendship in her dreams, at which her husband scoffs. (“The Third Planet is incapable of sustaining life. Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”)

 As Ylla’s dreams become more romantic and she becomes more longing for Nathaniel York. She describes her dreams of kissing York, sings a song he teaches her telepathically, and listens to his invitation to go with her to Earth. Her husband, Yll, becomes more jealous and paranoid until one day he goes hunting. Ylla hears a shot from her husband’s weapon, and in the sad final passage beginning to forget York and his song.

18.  “The Earth Men-“ The story of the second Mars expedition is a lot less romantic and moving and favors more black comedy. John Williams and his crew knock on the door of a Martian announcing that they have arrived from Earth. The telepathic Martians are unimpressed and keep sending the Earth astronauts from one person to another. It’s hilarious to read the pompous Buzz Lightyear-like Captain Williams go from introducing himself with pride and bombast expecting cheers and fanfares to being bored and tired of mentioning his name over and over.

The Martians send the astronauts to Mr. Xxx and a banquet that appears to be in their honor. However when the banquet guests argue about whether people from Earth travel from their spirits out of their bodies, whether Earth is a place only of seas or solely of jungles, not to mention the glassy eyes on the guests make Williams realize the truth: The Martians believe that Williams is insane and now he is in a mental asylum.

Some of the creepier bits in this story show how insanity manifests in the telepathic Martians by making their hallucinations appear before others. (So the Martians believe Williams’ crew and rocket aren’t real and are products of his hallucinations.) The crew sees a Martian with a blue flame in the form of a woman emerge from his tongue and a woman transforming from a pillar, to a statue, to a staff back into a woman. There is also suspense when Mr. Xxx reveals his cure for Williams’ insanity: euthanasia and even after Williams is killed and the other crew members and the rocket don’t disappear like Xxx thought they would, he goes insane as well.

17. “Mars is Heaven” AKA “The Third Expedition”- Well for exploring Mars, the third time is definitely not the charm. But it is one of Bradbury’s most memorable short stories in the Martian Chronicles as well as in his own career, simply because the Martians create the best weapon to thwart their visitors.

When Captain Black and his crew arrive on Mars, they are surprised to fly over a small town that could have come from their Earth childhoods. Everything from the smallest geraniums to the house styles, to the music playing inside such as “Beautiful Ohio” could have come from Earth itself. Black and his crew discuss various theories: Had Williams, York and the other crews settled Mars without telling anyone? (Of course the preceding stories tell otherwise, but they didn’t know that.) Had Space Travel been invented long before anyone ever knew about it and to keep the homesick Earthlings from going insane, the experts convinced them they are still on Earth? Had a Martian civilization evolved with the exact same technology and names as the Earthlings? Have they traveled through time or in an alternate universe?

All theories eventually fly away when one of the crew members, Lusting, encounters his deceased grandparents who not only are aware that they are on Mars but know that they are dead. (So is this Heaven? No, this is Mars, to paraphrase the movie, Field of Dreams.) The rest of Black’s crew reunite with deceased friends, relatives, and loved ones leaving their Captain alone to guard the ship. Then Black’s deceased older brother and parents arrive to take him to his childhood home.

The experience is perfect, thinks Black, too perfect. But as anyone knows there is always a catch to perfection and remember as we know from the previous stories, the Martians are telepathic and are able to read the Earthlings’ thoughts and memories. Rather than give away the ending, I will just say it shows that underneath this beautiful setting there is a dark undercurrent of creatures that know how to capture their enemies without firing a single first shot.

16. “Usher II” –Well after three tries, the Earthlings finally settle Mars after the Fourth Expedition (in the story “-And the Moon Be Still As Bright”). This story is not about that, it is about the after-effects of so-called civilization, what happens when as Bradbury describes after “the sophisticates come to Mars.”

The people that come to make laws, rules, regulations, planning people’s lives and what they read, watch, eat, and listen to. Bradbury writes, “They began to instruct and push the very people who had come to Mars to get away from being instructed and pushed around. And it was inevitable that some of these people pushed back.”

One of these people who pushed back is William Stendahl, an eccentric millionaire and fan of Edgar Allen Poe who fled to Mars to get away from the censorship of fantasy, science fiction, and horror literature. (This world without such tales is also explored in Bradbury’s story, “The Exiles” which is higher up on this list).

“There was always a minority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves, afraid of shadows of themselves,” says the erudite bombastic Stendahl. “……Once Upon a Time became No More! And they spread the ashes of the Phantom Rickshaw with the rubble of the Land of OZ, they fileted the bones of Glinda the Good and Ozma and shattered Polychrome in a spectroscope and served Jack Pumpkinhead with meringue at the Biologists’ Ball. The Beanstalk died in a bramble of red tape. Sleeping Beauty awoke to the kiss of the scientists and expired at the fatal puncture of his syringe. And they made Alice drink something from a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no longer cry, ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ and they gave the Looking Glass one hammer blow to smash it and every Red King and Oyster away!”

To prevent such a thing from happening to his new home of Mars, Stendahl invites an official Mr. Garrett from the Investigator of Moral Climates and his colleagues to his newly built home Usher II (which is recreated down to the last detail as an exact replica of the mansion from Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher.”). With the help of Stendahl’s assistant, former horror actor Pikes, and some robots, Stendahl is able to get even with Garrett and his cronies by planning very Poe-esque endings for them.

One is stuffed up a chimney by an orangutan ala “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Another is tied to a pit while a pendulum is slowly lowered to their doom reminiscent of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Another is chained to a wall while Stendahl bricks him inside like “The Cask of Amontillado.” (While his victim is whimpering, Stendahl hilariously tells him “I’m being ironic. Don’t interrupt a man when he is in the midst of being ironic. It’s not polite!”)

Stendahl reveals the reason that he performed such deeds to the confused censors who were unfamiliar with what was going to happen to them, “Because you burned Poe’s books without really reading them! You took other people’s advice that they needed burning! Otherwise you would have realized what I was going to do to you when we came down here a moment ago! Ignorance is fatal!”

This story shows the crimes of not only burning books, but not reading them in the first place and the victories, no matter how morbid they may seem, of those who have the imagination to stand up to those who would silence them.

The next six short stories on this list all deal with space travel as well though only one is to Mars. Bradbury also explored the people who live on Venus and a uniquely terraformed planet. He also shows how space travel affects the astronauts themselves and how it’s not all adventure and excitement: Some of it is hard and dull and requires great sacrifice from those who are traveling and those who are left behind.(Note: Not all are to be found in R is for Rocket, three of them are. This book just presents many of Bradbury's space travel stories.)

15. “Dark They Were And Golden Eyed” (1949) - This story surprisingly is not in The Martian Chronicles. (It actually can be found in the short story collections, Medicine for Melancholy and S is for Space.) But it does carry a lot of similar themes to The Martian Chronicles particularly comparing the colonization of Mars with the colonization of the Americas. In this case, the story could be an allegory of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. (An English settlement that disappeared but most believe they intermarried with the local tribes). Rather than suspenseful or frightening like the Chronicles stories, this one features aliens who are more thoughtful and tender-hearted to the visitors.

The Bitterings are among several Earth settlers who flee to Mars to get away from an upcoming atomic war. When the war happens on Earth, they destroy their rockets without any intention of returning. They decide to name various areas out of the places they left behind (such as New New York, Rockefeller Range, Washington Mountain etc.) to retain some link to their former world.

However once they make the decision to remain on Mars forever, Henry and Cora Bittering notice some peculiarities around their new Martian farm. Their cow has grown a third horn. Carrots and flowers have changed color. Is it just them or have their children and the other townspeople grown taller and have darker skin and golden eyes?

Suddenly, the children and the other townspeople start speaking in the old Martian language such as “Iorrt” for Earth and “Utha” for Father and using the old Martian terms for the locations. The children even want to call themselves Martian names such as their son, “Dan” who wishes to change his name to “Linnl.”

 Cora takes the transformation in stride, but not Henry. He eats only the Earth food from the Deep Freeze they brought and continues to build a rocket to hopefully return home when the time comes. Ultimately, the Martian heat becomes too difficult for him to work and he too begins to be seduced by the beautiful land. The final scene of the Bittering family shows them completely transformed into Martians wondering about these strange homes that the “Earth people built and wonder where they have gone.”

Five years later, victors from the atomic war come to rescue the Earth people but only find a tribe of friendly Martians. They wonder where the Earth people had gone but surmise that they may have been wiped out by a plague. No matter, thinks the Captain, he can start settling again thinking of Earth names for the Red Planet to a confused lieutenant. The lieutenant’s reaction implies that the Martian transformation will happen once again; showing that maybe going native isn’t all that bad on Mars if it means that the natives can coexist and feel a stronger connection to the land.

14. “All Summer In A Day”(1954)- Besides Mars, Bradbury also turned his attention to Venus in a few of his stories. One “The Long Rain” shows a group of astronauts running through the endless rains so they can find a Sun Dome, tiny houses which provide warmth and relief. This better story shows the impact of living on a planet of endless rain does to schoolchildren.

Most of the children in Margot’s class have very pale hair and faces because the rain washed all the color out and have clothes that smell consistently like mildew. They are impatiently waiting for the time when the sun appears in the sky for one hour which happens every seven years. The kids’ excitement for this event is similar to that of most children on Christmas or during a rare astronomical event-like oh say a total solar eclipse. Unfortunately, because Margot’s arrived from Earth five years ago, she has more memories of the sun than the other kids. The other children in her class are jealous and as kids will often do, bully her. The clannishness of children is shown most prominently when the kids cruelly lock Margot in a closet before the sun appears.

The children and their teacher experience the beauty, energy, and heat of the sun’s rays. The Reader feels this experience of longing and satisfaction when they see it for the first time in years and for many of the younger children the first time that they can remember. This moment fills the children with pleasure that comes with summertime innocence as they play out in the sun until the rain starts again. Suddenly, filled with remorse the children let Margot out who misses the sun in her closet prison.

The sun almost becomes symbolic of their innocence and kindness and only when it’s gone do they remember their previous cruelty.

13. “Here There Be Tygers” (1951)-There are many that believe the Earth is alive. Some have noted spots where it appears that the planet is breathing. Of course many early mythologies portray the Earth as a Goddess often called “Grandmother, “Gaia,” “Danu,” and many other names. In this beautiful descriptive story, Bradbury takes the idea of a living feminine planet literally and shows a planet that is not only welcoming to visitors but that will defend herself if need be.

A group of astronauts led by Captain Forester had arrived on a planet from a solar system distant from our own. They are one of many crews that have hopped from planet to planet pillaging and destroying the natural habitats. Forester and most of his men have had enough of it and see a planet that is lush and greener than any picnic ground, winds that can make the men fly, and water that tastes as sweet as fine wine. The Planet’s description is evocative and beautiful making the Reader want to visit her just to pay respect to this lovely world.

However all is not paradise on this planet as anthropologist-mineralist, Chatterton plans to drill the inside of the planet to reform it. The Planet becomes furious and fights back creating a tar pit that sends the Drill sinking into the depths. When Chatterton becomes paranoid fearing the monsters and tigers on the planet, he hears the howling of big cats in the distance. To prevent Chatterton from releasing an A-Bomb onto the Planet, she makes her point clear by creating one of the tigers to kill Chatterton. (She did warn him after all.)

Forester reluctantly leaves The Planet ready to report to Earth that it is dangerous and hostile so no one can destroy it. When Forester and his men fly away, they see a planet filled with monsters, cyclones, and volcanoes, Forester realizes that in leaving they made the Planet mad.

“When Chatterton treated her badly, she warned him a few times and then when he tried to ruin her beauty, eliminated him,” Forester says. “She wanted to be loved, like every woman, for herself, not for her wealth. So now after she had offered everything, we turn our backs. She’s the woman scorned. She let us go, yes, but we can never come back. She’ll be waiting for us with those.” He indicates the chaos underneath.

 However, one crew member Driscoll, remains to live in the world of green fields, sweet water, flying winds, and beautiful women created just for him.

12. “No Particular Night or Morning” (1951) –While most Science Fiction stories focus on the excitement and adventure of traveling through space, the thrill of traveling through the stars and visiting the unique worlds and aliens, this story focuses on another aspect to space travel. Traveling through the stars would be like traveling through any other terrain which never changes: monotonous, dull, and hypnotic, making one bored and listless. This would probably be even more intense in space when the endless nightscape makes it difficult to tell what time it is or even if it’s day or night.

These feelings are captured by Hitchcock, an astronaut who seems to be slowly losing touch with reality. He lives an almost Nihilistic existence doubting everything around him. He doesn’t believe that the point of light billions of miles away from their ship is Earth (or that he ever came from there). He doesn’t believe that the flashing lights are meteors. This doubt increases to Hitchcock’s own existence when he tells his friend,

Clemens that while living on Earth, Hitchcock had a story published and couldn’t believe that the name on the byline was his.

The ennui and constant questioning consumes Hitchcock until one night he just exits the ship succumbing to his insanity. One of the men reports his eerie final words as “No more spaceship now. Never was any. No people. No people in all the universe. Never were any. No planets. No stars…..No hands. I haven’t any hands anymore. Never had any. No feet. Never had any. Can’t prove it. No body. Never have any. No lips. No face. No head. Nothing. Only space. Only space. Only the gap.” For Clemens, he hopes that his friend somehow found some release from his nothingness and found some sort of peace in his world of “Nothing on top, nothing on the bottom, a lot of empty nothing between, and Hitchcock falling into the middle of the nothing, on his to no particular night and no particular morning.”

11. “R is For Rocket”(1943)- “R is for Rocket” is about the difference being a kid and wanting something and being an adult and either getting it or not getting it. For Chris and Ralph, it’s the chance to be rocket men.

Every Saturday the two friends watch the rockets take off and dream about the day when they will ride them, not believing that they will ever get the chance. They even have plans on their 21^st birthdays to get drunk and swear that they could have made it.

However, Chris is visited by a representative from the Astronaut Board to let him know that he has been selected to join their astronaut’s program. Chris is extremely happy, but he also realizes that his childhood is over.

In this futuristic world when parents have children at age 10 (like Chris’ mother), where children are briefed and analyzed by psychiatric boards and given various tests to determine assessments, childhood innocence is at a minimum. The only innocent things that Chris and his friends can hold onto are those far away dreams that are symbolized by the rockets flying into space and into the stars.

As Chris accepts his selection to the Astronaut Board, he realizes that he stands apart from the other children his age, especially his best friend Ralph who will soon be adopted by his mother. Those children who are still looking through the fence and dreaming.

He knows that what was once a thought of adventure will soon be something that is a job with all of the limitations and advantages that come with it, that come with adulthood. While Chris embraces this journey into adulthood and his future, he is aware that he is giving up the boy he used to be to become a man.

10. “The Rocket Man” (1953)-Many of these stories in one way or another show some of the difficulties of being an astronaut, but none show the negative aspects stronger than this story told from the point of view of a Rocket Man’s son.

This is also one of Bradbury’s most famous stories because it was the inspiration for Elton John’s hit of the same name and possibly the enigmatic character “Major Tom” from David Bowie’s “A Space Oddity” and “Ashes to Ashes” and Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom (Coming Home)”

Doug’s father is a Rocket Man who returns to his wife and son for three days after three months traveling in space. While Doug enjoys his father’s returns and the time that they spend together, he also notices how the return affects both of his parents. His mother often gives her husband far away looks acting like he’s not there. She saves certain chores like mowing the lawn and gardening for her husband so he will be busy when he’s home, too busy to look up at the stars.

Then there’s Doug’s father who spends the first half of his returns talking and having fun with his family and keeping his eyes firmly on the ground. Then always half-way through his returns, he begins to look up at the stars as though looking for his next destination.

In one of the most moving conversations in this story, Doug’s father tells his son to never be a Rocket Man, “When you’re out there, you want to be here and when you’re here you want to be out there. Don’t start that. Don’t let it get a hold of you.”

This story tells what a lifetime of adventure does to the family left behind that they can’t count on a spouse and parent who’s never around while they are experiencing these new worlds and forgetting about their family and home planet. It’s almost a comfort for Doug’s mother to pretend that her husband is dead and the person who returns is just a fragment of a memory that can’t hurt as much.

However this thought brings no comfort when her husband dies in space on a ship that burned up in the sun. This leaves his widow and son in a nocturnal existence, because they cannot bear to look at the sun in the space that killed him, the outer space that he preferred rather than the Earth that he left.

We leave outer space now, to turn to four of Bradbury’s best dark fantasy/horror stories. While two of them do possess some science fiction aspects, the focus is more on the terror felt by the characters than the sense of futuristic or interplanetary wonder. These four stories explore some of the darker aspects of humanity both in adults and in children and seen through eyes that often appear innocent but are really anything but.(As before, not all of these are in The Illustrated Men. Two are, this book presents many of Bradbury's dark fantasy/horror stories)

9. “The October Game” (1950)- Halloween is probably the best setting for a spooky story and Bradbury reveals the fear of that time, but not fear of ghosts, goblins, and witches. Instead, it is the fear that is found in a typical suburban home from a typical suburban husband and father. This story also reveals that we never know what goes on inside the heads of our neighbors, people that we think we know and how they can mentally make their homes a living Hell.

From the beginning of the story, Mich Wilder is already established as a pretty unstable character, worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. He is in an unhappy marriage with his wife, Louise because he believes that she plays minds games with him (such as going inside different rooms just so they can’t be in the same room together). He hates Louise but does not want to divorce her, because it “would make her too happy.”.

He also looks in despair at his daughter, Marion who is a blond copy of his wife and does not resemble him at all. He feels guilty for never giving Marion a father’s love only disappointment because she wasn’t a boy. Instead he plays the role of loving father while spoiling Marion, such as hosting a Halloween party for her. Inside he is seething and planning for a way to really hurt Louise without killing her so he can prolong her suffering.

On Halloween night, Mich invites the neighborhood to play the game “Tomb of the Witch” (AKA “Dead Man’s Brains”). The game normally takes place in the dark and the host passes around a bowl of grapes and says that they are “the witch’s” eyes, then a plate of chicken insides saying they are “the innards” and so on and so forth inviting the guests to feel the body parts of the “witch.”

However in this version of the game, tension mounts and the story becomes more suspenseful as Louise notices that Marion isn’t with them. As Mich continues to play the game, Louise becomes more frantic calling for her daughter. Some suggest looking for her around the house and others suggest turning on the lights to see if she’s hiding in the cellar.

Louise panicked by what she is afraid she might see and what may have happened to Marion begs them not to turn on the lights. Then, in one of Bradbury’s best closing lines: “Some idiot turned on the lights.” (I’ll leave you to guess what they see, but I imagine it’s not pretty.)

8. “And So Died Riabouchinska” (1953)- Most ventriloquist dummies are creepy to people. Usually like Goosebumps’ Slappy or The Twilight Zone’s Caesar, they are usually the villains encouraging their owners to commit crimes. (And who hasn’t wondered what was in the head of Charlie McCarthy being carried around by Edgar Bergan all those years?) Bradbury takes the idea of a creepy ventriloquist dummy but does something completely different with her.

Fabian, a ventriloquist, is questioned by a Detective Krovitch for the murder of man named Ockham. After observing the behaviors of Fabian’s wife Alyce and his assistant “sitting where the husband should be” and the almost tender loving way that Fabian speaks to his dummy, Riabouchinska, Krovitch comes to some interesting truths. Alyce and Fabian had a troubled marriage for years because Alyce was jealous of Fabian’s affection for his dummy so she turned to the assistant for comfort.

Fabian is a very sinister character as he reveals Riabouchinska comes from somewhere in his heart or head and is almost a separate being, but that she belongs solely to him. He is

like a controlling jealous abusive lover with his doll. After researching Fabian’s history, Krovitch discovered that Fabian once had a previous assistant, Ria, who bore more than a strong resemblance to Riabouchinska.

The story has very creepy undertones as Fabian recalls his anger when Ria “disappeared” and his former dummy Sweet William taunted him with creating an artificial form of Ria, suggesting that Fabian may have multiple personalities. However the climax of the story suggests something completely different. As Fabian wraps up his story and say that Ockham was nothing to do with him, a sweet feminine remorseful voice emerges from Riabouchinska’s box to say that Ockham had blackmailed Fabian.

Riabouchinska, possibly possessed by the spirit of Ria (who may have been murdered by Fabian though that is never officially said), reveals herself as the true protagonist of the story. Despite Fabian’s insistence that she can’t hear, see, or feel anything and that “she is nothing but a stick of wood,” Riabouchinska reveals Fabian’s murder of Ockham and how she can no longer “live this way.” Riabouchinska’s voice leaves Fabian’s throat, fleeing her abusive relationship, as Krovitch reads him his rights.

7.“Zero Hour” (1947)- Adults can be cruel, Bradbury has already established that in the last two stories. But in this and the next story, he shows that kids can be cruel as well. In this very suspenseful story, children can especially be cruel when parents lack the imagination and belief that their children could be a threat and that sometimes their supposed imaginary friends can be real and very disturbing. If this story sounds familiar, it is because it was the inspiration for the TV series, The Invaders.

On a beautiful peaceful day, after war has ended on Earth forever, Mrs. Mary Morris watches her daughter, Mink play outside with her friends a strange game called “Invasion.” Mink constantly talks about a friend named “Drill,” who Mink says wants to use impressionable children and their imagination to create an inter-dimensional portal. What a clever game, Mrs. Morris thinks, children have great imaginations. Oh, and isn’t it interesting that her friends’ children are also talking about “Drill” and this “Invasion” game in New York and Boston as well?

At 5:00, Zero Hour, sounds of explosions rock the neighborhood and Mrs. Morris realizes that all of the thoughts that she put away because of grown-up logic cannot save her or her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Morris realize too late that the “Invasion” isn’t a game, it’s real.

Mink and her new friend, Drill, are willing to destroy her parents based on her child-like hatred of them who create the rules for her such as forcing her to take baths or assigning bed times. To Mink, Drill, more important than her parents, will make her a Queen and destroy “those tall silly dictators” who hovered over her.

6.  “The Veldt” (1950)-Sometimes kids don’t need an alien invasion to be destructive and cruel, sometimes they just need a good imagination and a room that creates mental images. This story, “The Veldt” not only warns about the inner darkness that lies in children but has some almost frightening relevance these days with children who are addicted to using their Smart phones, spend more time with friends via the Internet and Social Media than with the people in front of them, and have short attention spans.

Lydia and George Hadley have noticed that the children’s nursery continuously shows images of bloody and violent African lions devouring some unknown things to their delight. The Hadleys are worried about the violent scenes that their children, Wendy and Peter (significantly named for characters in Peter Pan) have conjured up when the nursery was supposed to produce a variety of images on the walls. You walk into the room and it creates images of characters like Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin and his lamp, the Cow jumping over the moon and so on. Sounds interesting but as we know anything that sounds technological and fascinating has a catch in Science Fiction Land.

The African veldt and the bloodthirsty lions keep appearing, frightening the parents. George and Lydia first suggest their children use some variety, but when the children refuse, George suggests that they turn off their technology and live “a carefree one-for-all existence.”

At this Peter becomes hysterical and says “I don’t want to anything but look and listen and smell, what else is there to do?” He then becomes threatening, warning his father that he’d better not consider turning off the technologically advanced (read: Smart) house, especially the nursery.

Not only are George and Lydia frightened, but so is their friend, psychologist David McLean. One look at the African veldt in the nursery and he instantly suggests that the house be locked down and the children go to him for examination. Not only is McLean concerned about the children’s’ welfare but the welfare of their parents especially as they tried to be suddenly firm after spoiling them for so long.

“Where before they had a Santa Claus, now they have a Scrooge,” McLean says, “Children prefer Santas. You’ve let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children’s affections. This room is their mother and father far more important than their real parents. And now you want to come along and shut it off. No wonder there’s hatred here.”

McLean never realizes until the very end just how true his words actually are. After George turns off the house and his whiny children beg for one more minute in the nursery, he relents which proves to be a huge mistake. The children trick their parents into entering the nursery, and in one unforgettable awful but descriptive moment, lock them inside with the now-real lions. The final horrible scene shows the transfixed children watching the lions eating their parents, with no more emotion or remorse than if they were watching a violent television program.

The next two stories come from a series of stories that Bradbury wrote about the Elliots, an eccentric family living in the fictional Green Town, Illinois. The Elliots, based on the works of Ed Gorey and Charles Addams, are an odd clan of immortal creatures with special powers. One can see the future, another can fly, another can astral project into other people’s bodies while she sleeps and so on. While Bradbury wrote about the Elliots on and off in various anthologies for many years, they finally got the chance to star in a book of their own in 2001 with From the Dust Returned.

In this book, Bradbury combined all the previous Elliot stories with some slight revisions and created some new ones. The book showcases not only the Elliots’ various abilities, but reveals them to be a family with strong ties to each other and a fear of the outside world that comes crashing down to destroy them.

5. “Uncle Einar”  (1947; Revision 2001)-Uncle Einar seems to have a very enviable talent: He can fly. He was born with a pair of large green wings that no shirt or coat could cover. However, he used to be quite adaptable. While he could not fly during the day so as not to be seen, he flew at night. Bradbury’s descriptions of Einar flying through the cool night air and using his depth perception to avoid obstacles like telephone poles and trees are wonderful making the Reader long for a pair of green wings for themselves.

However, Einar fell the way most young men do: He got drunk. After a raucous evening, Einar hits a telephone pole sending him falling to the ground. This fall proves to be both good and bad for him. It is good because he meets the sweet Brunilla Wexley who would later become his wife. When she first meets him she says “Oh a man in a camp tent.” Then when he unfurls his wings, she hilariously and nonchalantly says, “Oh a man with wings.” Her lack of fear and surprise at Einar’s oddity impresses him instantly.

It is also bad news for Einar because the fall causes him to lose his depth perception and he is unable to fly at night and won’t fly during the day because he will be spotted.

 Instead he only uses his flying skills to fetch Brunilla’s laundry and his large wings to

fan his children in the heat. The Reader can sympathize with his sorrow at losing his wonderful talent like an athlete reliving his glory days after his best years are over.

However it is Einar’s children (stepchildren in the 2001 revision so he and Brunilla were not married as long), that provide the key to get Einar out of his depression. When they go kite flying, Einar has a brilliant solution to his problem: He ties their kite strings to his belt and is able to fly during the day with his children pulling on the string!

The most beautiful and heartwarming moment is at the end when others compliment the children on their wonderfully intricate kite. The children respond with pride: “Our father made it.”

4. “The April Witch” AKA “The Wandering Witch” (1951; Revision 2001)-The most fascinating character in the strange Elliot family is no doubt Cecy. The 17-year-old daughter of the main family is often called “The Sleeper” or “The Wanderer” because she sleeps through a good portion of the day. However while she sleeps, her soul does not. Instead it travels inside plants, animals, people, even the wind. She experiences many thoughts and feelings remotely through others’ eyes.

While this sounds like a very interesting ability, Cecy like Einar is aware of its limitations and these upset her. Because she can only gain experience remotely through another person’s eyes, she cannot do many of the things that normal girls her age do like go to school, go dancing, or most importantly fall in love. So Cecy declares to her parents, “I want to fall in love.” You can’t, her parents warn her, if you marry a mortal you will lose your abilities do you want that? That however seems to not always be the case since Uncle Einar suffered no such issue when he married Brunilla. However the 2001 revision fixes that discontinuity by making Brunilla and her children distant relatives of the Elliots.

The rebellious spirited Cecy considers this and realizes that if she can’t be in love herself, she will be in love through someone else. She chooses to fly inside the mind of Ann Leary, a 19-year-old girl who just had a fight with her boyfriend, Tom. Through Ann’s head, Cecy gets to go dancing and experience the exhilaration of first love.

The date that Ann/Cecy experiences is romantic, but sad as Cecy longs to speak to Tom with her own voice and to have him see her for herself. At the end of the date, in a touching moment Ann gives Tom Cecy’s address. It is purposely unclear whether  Cecy is speaking through her, or Ann recognizes how lonely Cecy is and does it herself.

The final moments have Cecy realizing that yes, she would risk everything even her special abilities for a chance to be with Tom again. She says that she wouldn’t have to travel or a need to travel inside other beings. “I would only be with him,” she declares. In one of the final stories in From the Dust Returned, an older Tom does appear in Green Town and Cecy encounters him in an unusual way that gives a very decisive and unique ending to their romance.

From the Elliots we come to two of Ray Bradbury’s most frequently anthologized stories and there is a reason: these stories are very good, in fact they are the best. They present the best of Bradbury’s imagination and connections to science fiction by featuring time travel and space travel.

However as seen with the other stories on this list, he takes these concepts and makes something new with them. With his story on time travel, he stops to consider all the consequences and how even the smallest actions have dire results. In space travel, he writes of an escape from a world of reality and makes another world a refuge of fantasy-literally.

3.“A Sound of Thunder” (1952)- Besides “The Rocket Man,” this is probably Bradbury’s most well-known short story. Academic papers have been written on the climax. Many people are aware of the term, “The Butterfly Effect,” in which the smallest actions during time travel could lead to more catastrophic events later. Of course the movie The Butterfly Effect, starring Ashton Kutcher also lent its inspiration from this concept offering other possibilities to this theory.

The story begins as a simple adventure tale much like the Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard in which big game hunters go looking for the ultimate thrill, however this adds the ingredient of time travel. The Safari hunters travel to the prehistoric past to kill a dinosaur.

Travis, the Safari Guide and Lesperance his assistant explain all the complex rules that involve Time Travel. Any violations and Time Travel Safari Inc. loses its government grant so they take it very seriously. The Travelers are only to step on the above-ground path that had been placed by the Guides beforehand. They are only supposed to kill the dinosaurs that are marked because they were already destined to die already either by natural causes or by acts of nature, such as a tree falling onto them. They are not supposed to know the results of the hunt because that would be a paradox and their Time Travel machines do not permit them meeting themselves and above all, most importantly they are not to step anywhere the Guides tell them to avoid.

This confuses Eckels and Travis explains the consequences of stepping on a mouse. If that mouse dies, then the future families of the mouse dies, then a fox dies from want of the lack of mice, and so on and so forth until one day a hungry caveman goes looking for a saber tooth tiger or a wild boar but can’t find any. “The cave man please note is not

just any expendable man, no. He is an entire future civilization,” Travis says. “From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons and thus onward to a civilization…..Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print like a Grand Canyon across Eternity.”

Unfortunately, this advice proves moot when Eckels becomes overwhelmed by the sight of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Frightened by the size and power of the creature that he came to shoot, the cowardly whiny Eckels steps off the path. When they return to the Present, Eckels keeps simpering that he hadn’t done anything wrong to a furious Travis who is about ready to shoot Eckels for the damage that he had done.

When they arrive, they find that the Present had indeed been altered and not for the better. The Time Travel Safari sign, spelled properly before, is completely misspelled suggesting a country, possibly a world, devoid of education and intellect. Before the Safari, the United States celebrated the election of a kind honest President-elect. After they return, the U.S. is now celebrating the election of a man who earlier was described as “an anti-everything man for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual” suggesting that this is a time stream that never heard of Adolf Hitler and had just elected the new model. Eckels looks down at his shoe and sees the source of his trouble: a dead butterfly.

“A Sound of Thunder” is a brilliant tale that suggests that all the rules that people make for traveling through time can never truly be met when human nature is involved. People by nature are nervous, panicky, and will break rules sometimes accidentally and that sometimes it’s better not to tempt fate by traveling to the past at all.

2. “The Exiles” AKA ”The Mad Wizards of Mars” (1950)-This is the best short story that Bradbury wrote because it explores a love of reading and books. It not only shows the imagination of the average reader, but it also explores the bond between the authors and their creations. They often feel like a benevolent god (sometimes malevolent if they have to kill them off) or a loving parent to a group of wayward children. This story shows not only that closeness that authors feel towards their characters, but how that bond can transcend beyond the authors’ deaths.

We once again revisit the future from the short story, “Usher II” in which fantasy, science fiction, and horror books have been outlawed and a Mars that has become a haven for book lovers.  But instead of a dedicated and somewhat crazed fan protecting the works of literature with his robotic mad house, Mars is inhabited by various characters from literature. The Weird Sisters from Macbeth, Oberon and Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ozma complete with the Emerald City from The OZ books, The Red Death from “The Masque of the Red Death,” Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol and many others are all under the watchful eyes of their authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and other authors protect them from the burn piles.

Poe explains that the burnings and the outlawing of books summoned the authors from Death. “I only know that our worlds and our creations called us and we tried to save them, and the only saving thing that we could do was wait out the century here on Mars, hoping Earth might outweigh itself with these scientists and their doubtings,” Poe says to Dickens.

However as protective as the authors are to their creations, they can’t stop the Earth from coming to them. A group of astronauts arrive on Mars with 200 books, but not to read them. They are the last of the books to be burned. The Authors and their Characters fight with the only weapons that they have. Using imagination and superstition, they curse the Earth Men with nightmares, black magic, and spells of which the astronauts are unaware and unprepared to fight. The dark magic manages to kill two of the Earth Men and blind another one, but does not stop them from landing on the planet.

 Poe, Shakespeare, Bierce, and Blackwood are ready to fight them to the last man er character. Dickens however remains noncommittedly insisting that “(his) stories were burned by mistake and that (his) master works contain none of their nonsense.” Even without Dickens, the others plan to use their characters however to attack.

Unfortunately, as the astronauts burn the final books, the authors and their characters disappear. It is almost graphic to read as the pages are being torn to hear the characters screaming as though they were being ripped from their insides.

However, there is a slight glimmer of hope as one of the astronauts sees the Emerald City for a faint moment suggesting that maybe imagination is not dead in these men, only lying dormant waiting to be rediscovered one day.

“The Exiles” is a brilliant story, Bradbury’s best short story. It explores the importance of knowledge, wonder, and imagination that can be found through reading. It also makes a perfect segue into what is undoubtedly Bradbury’s greatest work ever…

1. Fahrenheit 451 (1953)-Bradbury’s greatest work not only demonstrates how much society depends upon the knowledge and imagination that is found on books, but the terrors of a society that lives without them.

Through the eyes of Fireman Guy Montag, Bradbury reveals that the Fireman’s job is to burn any books that they see. Montag takes pride in his work saying the “kerosene is like perfume to him,” believing that he is the latest in a long line of Firemen since Benjamin Franklin burned the pro-British books before the Revolutionary War. Without books and checking references, it is easy for authorities to manipulate historic events by saying the Firemen have been in place since 1790 and not for the past sixty years. The authorities can also manipulate the present such as when they show a man being shot down on television even though he is still alive and on the run.

Montag does not question anything about his life, his job as a Fireman, or his marriage to Mildred, a flighty drug-addicted couch potato who feels that the people on her wall screen are her “family,” closer to her than her husband. Then he meets Clarisse McClellan, a girl who proudly describes herself as “17 and crazy.” She tells him how she notices things that other people do not like expressions on others’ faces, the grass and plants that young people don’t see because they speed by them, and the rain on her face and dew in the morning. She also isn’t afraid to ask personal deep questions like “Are you happy?” and whether Montag actually reads the books that he burns. Montag is shaken and confused, taken out of the stupor of his life.

Montag is further shaken when during a routine burning, a woman strikes a match and burns to death rather than let them take her books. He also meets Professor Faber who hides his books and does not make waves for fear of being discovered, but recognizes the transformative power that reading holds for him. People like the woman, Clarisse, and Faber are characters who are able to recognize how important reading is to them and how books provide knowledge, thoughts, escape from a dour reality, and above all allows people to see and question things that are outside of the norm.  Through them, Montag becomes aware that “there is a man behind each book and a thought.”

He secretly takes one of the books home with him and reveals to a confused Mildred that he had been hoarding books without reading them. Then he begins to read and becomes aware how false and shallow his life really is. Furious with the self-involved dialogue between Mildred and her friends, he reads out loud a poem to them. He then goes from being the Firemen’s Employee of the Month to Public Enemy #1 when Mildred and her friends turn him in.

Montag goes on the run and meets a very fascinating group of Human Books. These are people who become books by memorizing them line by line and page by page. Then they burn the books themselves, so as to leave nothing behind. The Human Books are aware that “they are not important,” that the ideas and thoughts that they carry in their heads are important. The ideas and thoughts are being saved by these brave people and transferred orally, so when society ends, the Human Books will be able to teach and help others start over again.

Some of the most revealing chapters occur when Montag’s employer, Captain Beatty suspicious that Montag may be hiding books admits the true history of the Book Burners. They did not begin with a government edict or laws that encouraged censorship. The censorship started with the people slowly getting shorter attention spans because of faster films, digested books, shorter articles, schools that discouraged independent thought, a job outlook that encouraged rote movement, and a society that encouraged fast driving, violent games, and instant gratification.

“Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery, there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more,” Beatty says gleefully of the world around him.

After the decline of knowledge and intelligence came the various groups that sought to ban books and learning, various religious and ethnic groups offended with how books portray them and sought to remove anything offensive from the works. “Authors full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did,” Beatty says. “Magazines became a nice blend of tapioca. Books the damned snobbish critics said were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said….There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”

Through his history, Beatty shows that sometimes in society, the government doesn’t need to push censorship laws. Sometimes the people do it for them. The Firemen burning books were simply the end result of many decades of a less educated and angrier society. This society did not lose their right to read. They gave it away and only people like Montag, Clarisse, Faber, the Woman, and the Human Books are aware of what was lost and are also aware of what can return again.