Extollager
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 9,224
I would like readers to compile here a list of the Ray Bradbury stories that they really like. I think many of us feel that Bradbury is an uneven writer; some of this stories, perhaps usually early ones, are favorites, while we don't care for some of his others. Hit or miss. (NB By "stories" I mean any of his fiction, including novels.)
Put another way, what would be in our ideal Bradbury collection, drawn from throughout his career? The book may be imagined as a very large one or even as having more than one volume. For convenience' sake, I will refer to this imaginary book (in one or more volumes) as The Essential Ray Bradbury, since I don't think a book of that title actually exists, but that gets across something of what I have in mind. But don't take "essential" too literally, since I want this to be inclusive of lots and lots of favorites.
I'm going to do the easy part first and assume there would be wide agreement that the entire contents of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451 would belong in such a book. However, I don't see the familiar paperback edition of The October Country thus. Some individual stories would make the cut, for sure. But I personally could do without "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse." Perhaps some commenters will contend for it.
And that's an object of this thread, to get discussion going about individual Bradbury stories too, because I think that when nominations get going, we could have some interesting differences of opinion.
So I'm suggesting two agenda items as this thread begins:
(a) Nominations taken from any of his books -- please specify which book (or one might want to urge inclusion of the entire book), and
(b) nominations of particular stories from The October Country. Sooner or later, though, I hope people will chime in with what they would keep from The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy, etc.
I haven't mentioned Dandelion Wine because... I haven't read it yet!
Put another way, what would be in our ideal Bradbury collection, drawn from throughout his career? The book may be imagined as a very large one or even as having more than one volume. For convenience' sake, I will refer to this imaginary book (in one or more volumes) as The Essential Ray Bradbury, since I don't think a book of that title actually exists, but that gets across something of what I have in mind. But don't take "essential" too literally, since I want this to be inclusive of lots and lots of favorites.
I'm going to do the easy part first and assume there would be wide agreement that the entire contents of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451 would belong in such a book. However, I don't see the familiar paperback edition of The October Country thus. Some individual stories would make the cut, for sure. But I personally could do without "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse." Perhaps some commenters will contend for it.
And that's an object of this thread, to get discussion going about individual Bradbury stories too, because I think that when nominations get going, we could have some interesting differences of opinion.
So I'm suggesting two agenda items as this thread begins:
(a) Nominations taken from any of his books -- please specify which book (or one might want to urge inclusion of the entire book), and
(b) nominations of particular stories from The October Country. Sooner or later, though, I hope people will chime in with what they would keep from The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy, etc.
I haven't mentioned Dandelion Wine because... I haven't read it yet!
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