Weird Fiction discussion

Best known for his two science fiction classics, I'm really happy we're getting to read this more obscure work by Ray Bradbury for May.

It may surprise some to know that Ray Bradbury was even more of a Weird Fiction writer by volume of output than Science Fiction. I have previously written about some of Bradbury's Weird output under the Discussions--Authors of Weird Fiction tab in this group (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...). Besides the 26 Weird Tales story titles I list there, he wrote a number of novels that can be classified as Weird. This "poll winner", our next group read, is the one that intrigues me most.

We start reading this Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Best Novel (2002) and World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2002) on May 1. For Kindle readers, it's just $4.99. There are a lot of inexpensive used books available for our hard text only readers. Get your copy now so that you can join us on Mayday.

From what I understand, this is a bit of a problem book for Bradbury fans. I haven't read it, just about it, but from what I gather it's a short story collection in a similar way as The Martian Chronicles is, despite the fact, as I just mentioned, that it was up for awards as a novel. The stories are linked by all having the same characters in them, yet it's not coherent enough, for many, to be called a novel, despite the fact that Bradbury wrote new (2001) linking work for the book's stories. Many of the stories were originally published as those 1940s Weird Tales stories I referred to in the thread last message.

[Edit: I am mistaken. Only one story in the novel was previously published in Weird Tales: "The Traveller" from the March 1946 issue.]

This month's group read book, because it was mostly written in the 1940s, meets the Classic component of the Weird definition. The fact that many readers classify it as fantasy (276), half as many as horror (123), and half as many again as science fiction (65) is a key clue that what we really have is a Weird Fiction work.

Now, how well did Bradbury link these stories to make them into a cohesive whole? Let's find out for ourselves!

I hope everyone likes our group's new look for the month. The masthead is taken from the hardcover dustjacket of the book. I actually ordered that particular copy over a week ago and it is almost here. It was a few cents less expensive to go that route than it was to order it via Kindle for $4.99, believe it or not.

The portrait photo is a picture I hadn't seen before. It's of a young Ray Bradbury. I imagine he was in this photo about the age he was when writing most of the stories of the book.

Many people may not know this, but there used to be an excellent television show titled "The Ray Bradbury Theater." According to Wikipedia, it was "an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992." One can watch shows from it for free on Roku's free science fiction channel. The shows are a lot like Twilight Zone, only they have a harder horror edge to them in my opinion. They definitely are in the genre of Weird and are surprisingly good. Many of the shows are based on his short stories, some of which I presume we are about to read.

I have so far seen only the first episode. It's about a man with a very needy wife, shall we say, who gets an opportunity to clone himself so that the wife can be with the clone while he gets to do some things he feels he's been missing out on. Leslie Nielsen was one of the three key actors in this particular episode. He did a fantastic job! Given how misogynistic the set-up was, I sure didn't predict the twists. Thoroughly entertaining, even for ladies. The second show starred William Shatner. I look forward to seeing that one soon.

Anyhow, I hope some Bradbury fans join us this month. We're in for a Weird treat.

Wikipedia provides a surprisingly good overview of exactly what is contained in the book and where it came from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_th.... I can see myself looking up these six original stories, if available online free somewhere, just to read what was written originally. I am surprised the book is so strongly tied into the TV series The Addams Family and that the book cover artist (featured also in our masthead this month) was named Addams. Full disclosure: Illinois is my home state. So this book is really exciting for me.

Yay! I'm looking forward to this, sorry to have disappeared for a while! I will be dipping and out as teaching etc has taken over so even in lockdown I don't have much reading-for-pleasure time, but I hope I'll be able to lurk in the forums and read what other people think at least.

I will be reading this since I was able to get an ebook from the library. I am looking forward to the discussion too since I am a big Ray Bradbury fan.

I started it last night. Despite having many chapters, it seems pretty short.

I also lived in Illinois for a while. Five years in Urbana.

I typed "from dust returned" into the search box so I could add this to my "currently reading" list and this is what popped up: Anyone Can Paint Their Nails Because Gender is Imaginary Everything is Meaningless Love is a Myth Sex is Gross We All Die Alone and Our Stupid Bodies Will Soon Return to the Dust from Whence They Came.

OK? Two of those words do match.

That is so bizarre, Ed!

This book certainly fits the category weird. It's a different from the other Bradbury works I've read up to now.

Agreed, Rosemarie. Except for his The Martian Chronicles. Did you ever read that one? I'm seeing some formatting and stylistic similarities to that old book in the way he's making these disparate short stories fit into a novel. He did a smooth job with Martian, but he's even more polished in this latter fix-up.

I have read The Martian Chronicles and can see how the different stories blend together to become more like a traditional novel.
I'm about a third of the way through the book so far.
I wonder what is going to happen to Timothy?