Don't get me wrong: I love The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 as much as anyone, but to me Bradbury means more as a horror writer and also even as a crime writer.I read Bradbury's noirish crime novel Death Is a Lonely Business in my teens two or three times almost in a row. I just loved it. I loved the atmosphere oozing from every page of the book. (Gotta admit, though, that I couldn't get through the sequel, A Graveyard for Lunatics.)
And his Something Wicked This Way Comes is a very scary and atmospheric novel, not to mention Bradbury's nasty horror stories. For some reason or another these resonate with me more than Bradbury's actually pretty sentimental science fiction.
By the way, here's an old 25-minute documentary on Bradbury.
And, oh, it came to me I might do a post on some Finnish Bradbury covers, but not now.
Less-sentimental sf: "To the Future"
ReplyDeleteIt ain't "The October Game," perhaps his strongest suspense story, but it's pretty grim and noirishly doomed.
I'm not sure if I've read that one.
ReplyDeleteI too discovered Bradbury through his horror writing. It was the summer of 1975, I was eleven and a half, and I borrowed this horror anthology from the local library. Among the stories were THE SCREAMING WOMAN and THE MAN UPSTAIRS. A little later, and another horror anthology (companion piece to the first one, actually) and lo and behold - THE SMILING PEOPLE, THE SMALL ASSASSIN, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN and THE PLAYGROUND. Of course I was hooked.
ReplyDeleteLET'S ALL CONTANCE, the 3rd part in the Elmo Crumley trilogy is not very good, I'm afraid. I made it through on sheer willpower.