Book Review: The Bradbury Chronicles ed. by W. F. Nolan

The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury edited by William F. Nolan and Martin H. Greenberg

Twenty-two authors paid tribute to Ray Bradbury in 1991 by contributing stories to this collection. Most are inspired by or extensions of other Bradbury stories, like The Martian Chronicles or Fahrenheit 451. Some even try to ape his style, with mixed results. I enjoyed the volume, though there are only a few standouts: Bradbury's own contribution "The Troll," about a bridge warden who meets up with a skeptic; Gregory Benford's "Centigrade 233," about another dystopian reason to burn books; and Orson Scott Card's "Feed the Baby of Love," about someone coming to a little Illinois town for winsome self-discovery. One or two stories were too dark for my taste (and one had a surprising amount of R-rated language), but the good definitely outweighs the bad here.

Recommended for Bradbury fans.

Book Review: The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Vol. 2

The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Vol. 2

In memory of Ray Bradbury, who died June 5, 2012...we miss you!

The Ray Bradbury Chronicles is a series of authorized adaptations of Bradbury's short stories into comic book format. This volume adapts seven stories, three from The Marian Chronicles and four random stories. The stories are adapted by famous comic book artists like Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame) with introductions by Bradbury (mostly describing the inspiration for the stories). The comics bring the stories to life but none are so outstanding as to be "must reads." Though, in my book, any excuse to read more Ray Bradbury is a good excuse.

The book also includes an introduction by Ray Bradbury. He describes how he collected comic strips from the newspapers in his youth and once sent a fan letter to Harold Foster, creator and illustrator of Prince Valiant. At thirty-two years old, he was hired by Universal Studios and credits his ease with screenwriting to his history of comics. He easily pictured the scripts as storyboards, the graphical way filmmakers plan out shots for films. His interest in comics definitely paid off for Bradbury!