Long After Midnight - Softcover

Ray Bradbury

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553228676 ISBN 13: 9780553228670

Publisher: Bantam Books, 1982

Synopsis

Two drifters caught in the backwash of space wander from city to dead city, sifting the rubble for the fabled Blue Bottle of Mars-and find in it two different, equally entrancing, dooms... A young boy in Green Town, Illinois, does not marry-yet marries-his beloved eighth-grade teacher... In the hell of a Manhattan July night, Will Morgan is offered a possibly Mephistophelean proposal by which he might gain a perfect love and a magical immunity... A jealous husband who orders an exact replica of his unfaithful wife from an android manufacturing company (purpose: murder) runs afoul of the compassionate new "live robot" law... At forty-eight, seized with an overwhelming desire to settle an old score, a man journeys back into the past under the spell of his "utterly perfect, incredibly delightful idea," only to recoil in stunned disbelief when he confronts, at last, his former tormentor... Bradbury's imaginative field is boundless. In this book, his stories carry us from the cozy familiarity of the small-town America we lived in in Dandelion Wine to the frozen desert and double moon that have been part of our interior landscape since The Martian Chronicles. His characters range from the "ordinary"-a rookie cop, an unhappy wife on vacation in Mexico, an old parish priest hearing confession-to the quite extraordinary: the parrot to whom Ernest Hemingway confided the plot of his last, greatest, never-put-down-on-paper novel, and a woman who, in New York City in the summer of 1974, hangs out a sign reading "Melissa Toad, Witch." Fantastic or conventional, chillingly suspenseful or hauntingly nostalgic, each of these stories has that aura of the unexpected combined with the special ring of absolute rightness that is brilliantly, uniquely Bradbury. Track List for Long After Midnight: Disc 1 "The Blue Bottle"-Track 1 "One Timeless Spring"-Track 10 "The Parrot Who Met Papa"-Track 16 Disc 2 "The Burning Man"-Track 2 "A Piece of Wood"-Track 9 "The Messiah"-Track 13 "G.B.S.-Mark V"-Track 21 Disc 3 "The Utterly Perfect Murder"-Track 3 "Punishment Without Crime"-Track 11 "Getting Through Sunday Somehow"-Track 19 Disc 4 "Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds"-Track 1 "Interval in Sunlight"-Track 11 Disc 5 "A Story of Love"-Track 9 "The Wish"-Track 17 Disc 6 "Forever and the Earth"-Track 2 "The Better Part of Wisdom"-Track 17 Disc 7 "Darling Adolf"-Track 4 "The Miracles of Jamie"-Track 17 Disc 8 "The October Game"-Track 1 "The Pumpernickel"-Track 8 "Long After Midnight"-Track 11 "Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!"-Track 16

About this title

About the Author:

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Among his best-known works are The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451.

Michael Prichard has recorded well over five hundred audiobooks and was named one of SmartMoney magazine's Top Ten Golden Voices. His numerous awards and accolades include an Audie Award and several AudioFile Earphones Awards.

From Publishers Weekly:

This quirky collection of short stories by master storyteller Bradbury provides a fascinating kaleidoscope of his work up to the 1970s. While it inevitably includes tales of science fiction and fantasy including Martians transmuting into Christ figures, deserted worlds, and witches in New York, readers will also be surprised to find a mixture of mainstream fiction. Bradbury includes stories paying homage to Ernest Hemingway ("The Parrot Who Met Papa") and George Bernard Shaw ("G.B.S.-Mark V"). Michael Prichard performs many of the stories well, with competent pacing, tone, and distinct voices. However, throughout a good deal of Prichard's readings, there's an underlying restraint--at times, it even sounds if he's clenching his jaw. Still, the collection will provide fans with some great stories from several different genres. (Aug.) (c)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0553228676
• ISBN 13: 9780553228670
• Binding: Paperback