The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0451451341 ISBN 13: 9780451451347

Publisher: Ace, 1991

Synopsis

Celebrating the achievements of fantasy and science fiction master Ray Bradbury, this anthology includes stories by Gregory Benford, Orson Scott Card, F. Paul Wilson, and Richard Matheson, as well as by Bradbury himself

About this title

Reviews

This latest project by ubiquitous anthologist Greenberg gathers 21 original stories in homage to Ray Bradbury, along with a cloying introduction by co-editor Nolan, a brief appreciation of Bradbury by Isaac Asimov, and a story and a memoir by Bradbury himself. Far too many of these tales are direct sequels to or spin-offs from such Bradbury classics as Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. James Kisner's "May 2000: The Tombstones" is an uninspired rerun of "Mars Is Heaven!" and even reliable writers Roberta Lannes and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro offer dull follow-ups to better, older tales. Nor do the lesser-known names excel: Bruce Francis's "The Inheritance" is bloated and vague, while Norman Corwin's "The Muse" is nothing more than an adoring fan letter to Bradbury. The few entries that rise above the rest do so because the authors have retained their own characteristic styles while invoking the Bradbury canon. Gregory Benford's "Centigrade 233" is an effective variation on Fahrenheit 451 , Ed Gorman's "The Wind from Midnight" is a touching view of the sad world of carnival freaks, and Charles L. Grant's "One Life, in an Hourglass" offers a genuine chill at the end. Though a few tales are worthy salutes to the master, Bradbury's work has inspired many stories superior to those gathered here.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A sheaf of 23 original stories in tribute to Ray Bradbury's 50 years in fantasy and science fiction. Among the more celebrated authors that were gathered to honor Bradbury's 350 editions in 30 countries around the world are Isaac Asimov (with a tribute), Orson Scott Card, Gregory Benford, Charles L. Grant, Richard Matheson, F. Paul Wilson, Norman Corwin, Robert Sheckley, the late Charles Beaumont and his son Christopher Beaumont (his debut short story)--and Bradbury himself, who offers ``The Troll,'' a lost story (but one of his best!) from 1950 that Bradbury repolished for Nolan. He also contributes a moving if muzzy, modestly voiced memoir about his early writing (``...I was advancing from terrible into awful, on my way to mediocre''). This is a gleeful crew, each writer linking his story in some way to Bradbury tales or characters. Nolan's wife Cameron Nolan offers ``The Awakening,'' a solid work about the sexual awakening of Douglas Spaulding of Dandelion Wine, while Nolan himself offers a wildly entertaining parody, ``The Dandelion Chronicles'' (``The Waukegan crowd sighed, gasped, choked, cried out, the look of the great dream-colored climbing strawberry rocket in their round Illinois eyes...''). The longest work of devotion here, and perhaps the most powerful, is Orson Scott Card's ``Feed the Baby of Love,'' tying Dandelion Wine's 1928 time period to the present. Robert Sheckley's ``The Other Mars'' is a witty updating of what spacemen might find on a Bradburyized Mars today, oddly still a place of mythic fantasy. Christopher Beaumont's ``The Man with the Power Tie'' tells of the son of the psychiatrist in Bradbury's ``The Man in the Rorschach Shirt,'' who finds himself wearing a horrible tie that soaks up luck and energy. First-rate in every way, stories, editing, and as an act of love. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A stellar array of authors including Orson Scott Card, Gregory Benford, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Charles L. Grant contribute stories in honor of sf grandmaster Bradbury's 50-year (and still counting) career in imaginative fiction. From James Kisner's eerie sequel to Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven" ("May 2000: The Tombstones") to editor Nolan's own affectionate spoof of the Bradbury opus ("The Dandelion Chronicles"), this collection of 22 original stories plus a tribute by Isaac Asimov exhibits the lasting effect of one man on a half-century of literature. The stories themselves are generally of high quality. The literary tribute is becoming a popular theme for short story collections--and this volume is one of the better examples. Recommended for large sf collections.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ace
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451451341
• ISBN 13: 9780451451347
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Nolan William F., Greenberg Martin H.