Bradbury 100 - Celebrating the Life and Work of American Writer Ray Bradbury

In this episode, I look at the relationship between two greats of genre fiction: Ray Bradbury and his friend Leigh Brackett.

Brackett is perhaps best remembered today as one of the screenwriters of STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - but long before that she co-wrote THE BIG SLEEP and RIO BRAVO for Howard Hawks. Earlier still, she was a prolific writer of science fiction and crime fiction. And, crucially for this podcast: she was Ray Bradbury's mentor during the early years of his professional career.

For more on Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury, check out the show notes at: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2025/02/new-podcast-episode-ray-bradbury-and.html

Here's another new episode of my Bradbury 100 podcast. This time, I look at the early years of Ray Bradbury's professional career, which saw him not only mastering the craft of short story writing and putting together his first book, but branching out into media - in particular, getting his stories and scripts onto national radio shows such as CBS's SUSPENSE.

Over a span of a dozen years, Suspense produced no fewer than eleven shows based on Bradbury stories, with some of the stories being produced multiple times. I argue that this early media presence - which included a number of stories previously unpublished - helped cement Bradbury's growing popularity and reputation.

I have a playlist of full versions of all of Bradbury's SUSPENSE episodes in the shownotes on my website at https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2025/01/ray-bradbury-on-radio-suspense.html

A few weeks ago, there was a new episode of The Simpsons which was entirely based on the works of Ray Bradbury. "Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes" is not the first time Ray has been referenced by the show. In fact, the number of Bradbury allusions across all of The Simpsons (i.e. on TV, in comics, and in books) now totals: thirteen.

In this episode I detail them all!

Many of them are represented by audio clips. But there are a few gags which are purely visual, including the comic-book and book appearances, and so I'll present some of those on my website. Check out the show notes at: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2024/12/ray-bradbury-and-simpsons.html

"Lazarus Come Forth" (1944) is one of a handful of early Ray Bradbury stories to have slipped into the public domain. It's also one of two Bradbury stories set on board a "morgue ship" - a space ship that cleans up after space battles, collecting dead astronauts to (presumably) bring them back home for proper burial or cremation.

In this episode, I bring you the background behind the story, and a complete reading of it.

Enjoy!

For more episodes of Bradbury 100, check out my website at www.bradburymedia.co.uk

As well as writing his famous novels and short stories, Ray Bradbury wrote extensively for the stage. In this episode I explore Ray Bradbury as playwright, looking at his one-act plays and his full-llength adaptations of his own novels.

You can find the full shownotes on my blog, here: https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2024/11/new-podcast-episode-ray-bradbury-on.html

This is the audio from my 2024 livestreamed version of the podcast, which went out over Facebook and Youtube.

If you want the full effect, you can find the VIDEO recording of the livestream on YouTube, at: https://youtube.com/live/SBGtfPQZYBw

Ray Bradbury's first-ever book, DARK CARNIVAL (1947) has been re-published. For the first time, it is available in paperback and ebook editions.

In this episode I go through the story behind Dark Carnival, and review the new editions.

For more information, check out the show notes at https://bradburymedia.blogspot.com/2024/03/new-bradbury-100-episode-dark-carnival.html

In my occasional series of "Chronological Bradbury" episodes, we reach the year 1942. This was Ray Bradbury's first full year as a professional writer, and the year he broke through to two of the leading science fiction and fantasy pulp magazines: Astounding Science Fiction, and Weird Tales. So it's an important year, although he only published two stories in that year.

For full shownotes, visit my website: www.bradburymedia.co.uk

For Christmas this year, I bring you a bumper double-length episode of Bradbury 100!

Member of the "Science Fiction Book Club" Facebook group provided questions about Ray Bradbury for me to answer. So this whole episode is given over to my ponderings on some terrific questions.

For more details, check the full show notes at www.bradburymedia.co.uk

In this new episode of Bradbury 100, I explore FUTURIA FANTASIA - the fanzine that Ray Bradbury produced when he was a teenage science fiction fan.

The first issue of Futuria Fantasia, published when Ray was eighteen years old, catches him just before he heads off to New York for the first-ever World Science Fiction Convention. In that first issue, he is very much focused on "Tecnhnocracy", a movement which promised to turn science fiction into political reality.

For more information, check out the shownotes at www.bradburymedia.co.uk