{"id":1290,"date":"2017-07-14T14:19:16","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T18:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=1290"},"modified":"2017-07-14T14:19:16","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T18:19:16","slug":"ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury \u2013 An American Original \u2013 Part 2 \u2013 The Short Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first part of this post, I\u2019ve given a little background on how I became introduced to Ray Bradbury\u2019s stories.\u00a0 After detailing Dandelion Wine, I feel talking about his shorter works is the next order of business.\u00a0 I own a collection of these called \u201cThe Stories of Ray Bradbury\u201d which includes what Bradbury considered his best 100 short stories.\u00a0 I went through these today and picked out my favorites.\u00a0 I feel it\u2019s necessary to qualify that statement.\u00a0 There are more than a few of Bradbury\u2019s best stories that have become components of the longer work Dandelion Wine.\u00a0 Since I\u2019ve already reviewed that work I\u2019ve left these short stories out of this selection process.<\/p>\n

Here are my selections for the best of the best in the same order as they appear in the book:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Crowd<\/li>\n
  2. The Scythe<\/li>\n
  3. The City<\/li>\n
  4. There Was an Old Woman<\/li>\n
  5. There Will Come Soft Rains<\/li>\n
  6. The Veldt<\/li>\n
  7. A Sound of Thunder<\/li>\n
  8. Invisible Boy<\/li>\n
  9. The Fog Horn<\/li>\n
  10. Hail and Farewell<\/li>\n
  11. The Great Wide World Over There<\/li>\n
  12. Skeleton<\/li>\n
  13. The Man Upstairs<\/li>\n
  14. The Jar<\/li>\n
  15. Touched with Fire<\/li>\n
  16. The Town Where No One Got Off<\/li>\n
  17. Boys! Grow Giant Mushrooms in Your<\/em> Cellar!<\/li>\n
  18. The One Who Waits<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now here\u2019s the thing.\u00a0 I could easily have added double this number.\u00a0 Almost all the stories are good.\u00a0 But these are the ones I especially like.\u00a0 So, this selection probably says more about me than it does about Bradbury\u2019s best of the best.\u00a0 But that can be said about any critic\u2019s choices.<\/p>\n

    An interesting fact I discovered after making this list is that there are at least three stories in this list which I don\u2019t think have any SF&F content in them whatsoever.\u00a0 They are just studies in human nature.\u00a0 And yet they appear on this list.\u00a0 Which I take to mean that Bradbury finds people interesting and knows how to make them interesting to his readers.\u00a0 Now, that may not seem remarkable, but look at the people writing at the same time as Bradbury.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take Isaac Asimov.\u00a0 If you read Asimov\u2019s long or short fiction what you will find is that he is a purveyor of ideas.\u00a0 But his characters, even his protagonists are ciphers.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t any emotional content worth mentioning.\u00a0 And that even counts the scenes where the action is dependent on an emotional response from one of his characters.\u00a0 He could just as well have been describing billiard balls ricocheting around a pool table.\u00a0 You might even see the psychological logic of the emotional response but you won\u2019t experience empathy or interest in the character as a human being because of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a plot device.<\/p>\n

    This was why Bradbury was different back then.\u00a0 He wrote people in SF&F stories as if they actually were people.\u00a0 Better writers back then were also doing this to some extent.\u00a0 Heinlein\u2019s characters displayed more individuality than the average and this is one of the reasons why he is still enjoyed.\u00a0 But Bradbury brought this to a much higher level.<\/p>\n

    What else can be definitely said about Bradbury\u2019s stories?\u00a0 I would say that he almost exclusively deals in the foreground of the picture.\u00a0 By that I mean that his subjects are almost always face to face.\u00a0 If Arthur C. Clarke were describing a nuclear holocaust you would see it from orbit.\u00a0 You would see the ballistic paths of the ICBMs and you would be at the top of the parabola when one missile starts to descend.\u00a0 And you would see the individual nuclear ignitions across the face of the globe like some fireworks display.\u00a0 That\u2019s not Bradbury.\u00a0 With him you\u2019ll see the aftermath of a suburban home on the edge of the kill zone.\u00a0 You\u2019ll see the toaster in the kitchen and you\u2019ll see the shadows of the family imprinted onto the side of the house facing the gamma ray flash.<\/p>\n

    Even when Bradbury does write a story of aliens invading earth you are not going to get War of the Worlds.\u00a0 You\u2019ll get that same suburban neighborhood with husbands and housewives and little Jimmy working on his hobby in the basement.<\/p>\n

    So now I\u2019ve said a bunch of words about Bradbury\u2019s short fiction.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for hard-core technical sf or even just plain old amusing space opera do not stop at Bradbury.\u00a0 Move right along.\u00a0 There\u2019s none of that here.\u00a0 But if you want to delve into the mysterious world within a world that is the human soul take a trip with him.\u00a0 It might strike a resonant chord.\u00a0 Or it might not.\u00a0 Either way you\u2019ll learn something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In the first part of this post, I\u2019ve given a little background on how I became introduced to Ray Bradbury\u2019s stories.\u00a0 After detailing Dandelion Wine,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237,4,242],"tags":[266,68,200,92,199,38,44,265,59],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-arthur-c-clarke","tag-book-review","tag-fantasy","tag-heinlein","tag-ray-bradbury-bradbury","tag-review","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","tag-urban-fantasy"],"yoast_head":"\nRay Bradbury \u2013 An American Original \u2013 Part 2 \u2013 The Short Stories - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ray Bradbury \u2013 An American Original \u2013 Part 2 \u2013 The Short Stories - Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the first part of this post, I\u2019ve given a little background on how I became introduced to Ray Bradbury\u2019s stories.\u00a0 After detailing Dandelion Wine,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-07-14T18:19:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"photog\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\"},\"headline\":\"Ray Bradbury \u2013 An American Original \u2013 Part 2 \u2013 The Short Stories\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-07-14T18:19:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-07-14T18:19:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/ray-bradbury-an-american-original-part-2-the-short-stories\/\"},\"wordCount\":798,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Arthur C Clarke\",\"book review\",\"fantasy\",\"Heinlein\",\"Ray Bradbury. 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