Ray Bradbury News Tidbit

Ray Radlein · Post by **Ray Radlein** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 12:17 am

Ray Bradbury is has gotten his own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Wheee!

Meganeguard · Post by **Meganeguard** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 7:18 am

and there was much rejoicing, yeaaaaaaa. . .
but seriously though that is great

Maccabee · Post by **Maccabee** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 9:48 am

I approve.

Maccabee

LordNicodareus · Post by **LordNicodareus** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 9:56 am

And we are so glad you do, Maccabe,
sw33t, Ray Bradbury Kicks @$$!!

Czhorat · Post by **Czhorat** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:04 am

I approve as well. It's very nice to see a writer get the kind of public recognition that usually seems reserved for actors and actresses.

I'd love it if New York had a one-city, one-book event. Too few people seem to share things they've read these days.

Speaking of which, what're YOU all reading now? I'm 2/3 of the way through Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt.

Nireena · Post by **Nireena** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:09 am

Good to see a classic scifi writer getting the recognition he deserves.

I'm currently reading The Initiate Brother by Sean Russell. Very reminiscent of Shogun by James Clavell, only with more of a mystical element to it.

LordNicodareus · Post by **LordNicodareus** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:14 am

Well, I happen to be reading the Illuminatus trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Really makes you think, and also, it's amazing all the stuff you can do with the number 23....

Khavren · Post by **Khavren** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:27 am

I'm reading through the Ender's series, after a post on this board brought my attention to the possibility of a movie.

Nullset · Post by **Nullset** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:33 am

Currently reading?

Just finished rereading The Fifth Elephant. Working on another go-through of Mostly Harmless, thanks to the events in the current storyline. Remembering why it drove me nuts the first time arround, writing Fenchurch out like that, without even a funny footnote.

Should be working on?

Woe is I, a book about English grammar for non-English majors. Black House, which I've had on loan from a friend for far too long.

Should be writing?

A short story, or "choose your fate" narative based on some characters bouncing about my skull for years. Have trouble getting past the "why the hell should I bother" phase.

LordNicodareus · Post by **LordNicodareus** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:37 am

Yeah, Douglas Adams went a little darker when he wrote Mostly Harmless. It was a good book, and I had to read the ending about 3 times before I got it all completely, but still, I think it was a rather fitting ending to one of the strangest trilogies ever written.
"Now the world has gone to Bed,
Darkness has engulfed my head,
I can see by Infared,
How I hate the night."
Marvin the Android

KingLeon · Post by **KingLeon** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:43 am

Right now, I'm writing not reading... Just a story about a postal worker who ends up as a werewolf after meeting up with a member of the criminal gang of lycantropes known as the Pack that holds his city in fear, and that he and a group of misfit supers, freaks, secret agents and magic-users must rid the city of those evil werewolves... Or something like that.

[ This Message was edited by: KingLeon on 2002-04-02 11:43 ]

Meganeguard · Post by **Meganeguard** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 1:59 pm

I am reading Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase

Muttley · Post by **Muttley** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 2:14 pm

Nice to have some mainstream recognition, though I'm not a great Bradbury fan.

Reading: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (the collection includes All You Zombies and - And He Built A Crooked House, two of Heinleins best shorts); Shadow of the Hegemon; and Landscape Detective (non-fic, about taking short walks around the English countryside and determining, by observation and map reading, the history behind what you see). I love maps, and this book gives me some new ideas to play with. But I already knew that the whole of the English landscape is man-made, in the sense that it is the product of mans influence on the primal forest that was once ubiquitous.

Regards,
Muttley

EWHPTIV · Post by **EWHPTIV** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 8:30 pm

Hot damn! I've been a Bradbury fan for years, ever since falling in love with The Machineries of Joy, all those many years ago...'course, now I'm reminded of all the books of his I haven't read, like The October Country and I Sing the Body Electric...ah, well. Time enough for that, one rainy week.

Currently I'm reading a mess of books...A Separate Peace, which I picked up at a half-price bookstore somewhere and am enjoying, up to page 53, at least...The Queen's Conjurer, by some bloke or other, about John Dee and his mystical machinations in the court of Elizabeth I...The Art of War, because who knows when I'll have to invade Canada?...a textbook on linguistics, ostensibly as research for a comic I'm doing, but I'm actually getting into it...a collection of Avram Davidson short stories, because Neil Gaiman said so on his weblog, and I'm an impressionable person...and, lastly, a book containing about a dozen different versions of Harlan Ellison's script for The City on the Edge of Forever, along with one massive essay by Ellison himself, explaining exactly why Gene Roddenberry is a bastard

Shrimp the Wimp · Post by **Shrimp the Wimp** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:05 pm

Well, I'm re-reading Asimov's excellent Foundation series. I was introduced to Asimov (and fiction as a whole, for that matter) during my first year of high school. Before then all I read were textbooks and robot hobbyist books. I started with some of his sort story collections, then the robot and galactic empire novels, and ended up reading half the Foundation novels out of order before realizing my mistake.

During this, my first year of college, I am reading the Foundation series again. Begining from Prelude to Foundation. This time, I'm going to do it right.

BTW, ever since high school I've idolized Isaac Asimov in a very childish way. I consider him my hero. hehe.

IICV · Post by **IICV** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:11 pm

I'm reading Uncle Johns's Great Big Bathroom Reader.

Stop looking at me like that. It's very interesting. For instance, "dead enemy soldiers" translated into Bureaucratic would be "decomissioned agressor quantum".

Edit: Feh. It's too late to be posting...

[ This Message was edited by: IICV on 2002-04-02 23:14 ]

Ray Radlein · Post by **Ray Radlein** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:12 pm

On 2002-04-02 23:05, Shrimp the Wimp wrote:
Well, I'm re-reading Asimov's excellent Foundation series. I was introduced to Asimov (and fiction as a whole, for that matter) during my first year of high school. Before then all I read were textbooks and robot hobbyist books. I started with some of his sort story collections, then the robot and galactic empire novels, and ended up reading half the Foundation novels out of order before realizing my mistake.

During this, my first year of college, I am reading the Foundation series again. Begining from Prelude to Foundation. This time, I'm going to do it right.

There are a great many people who believe that the correct sequence to use when reading the Foundation novels is: Foundation, then Foundation and Empire, then Second Foundation, and then stop (this is not unlike the correct sequence for reading Clarke's "Rama" books, which almost universally considered to be: Read Rendezvous With Rama).

Roscoe · Post by **Roscoe** » Tue Apr 02, 2002 11:58 pm

I am one of those people.

It's similar to Anne Rice fiction. When the Queen is Dead, you stop.

(that's Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned)

Nullset · Post by **Nullset** » Wed Apr 03, 2002 11:13 am

Interestingly, the "image" that comes to me most strongly when thinking about Foundation never occurs in any of the stories. The painting that was produced for Forwards the Foundation, with Hari Seldon holding the Prime Radiant and Trantor sprawling beneath him, is burned into my brain.

There's a new book out by someone I'd never heard of, using Asimov's psychohistory as a basis. Sounded interesting, but since its still in hardback I think I'll wait. Anyone read it or heard a reaction to this?

SteveB · Post by **SteveB** » Wed Apr 03, 2002 12:05 pm

On 2002-04-02 23:58, Roscoe wrote:
I am one of those people.

It's similar to Anne Rice fiction. When the Queen is Dead, you stop.

(that's Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned)

(This is all edit, since I sent it when there was a problem and all that went through was the quote; hope I can remember what I said)

Interview with the Vampire approached being Literature with a capital L. It's probably the best book ever written featuring a vampire as a main character, and certainly the best book not written by Bram Stoker ever written about a vampire.

Anne Rice wrote it because she had to. It poured out of her. She didn't think of herself as a vampire novelist, or a horror novelist. She did want to be a writer, but this book wasn't planned so much as it was born.

Then her next two books flopped, and her publisher kept saying, "What about another vampire book?"

The Vampire Lestat was written to be a best-seller, and all the books that have followed are the same. They are tailored to a perceived audience. She has accepted the image of Vampire Queen, and dresses in black and acts goth-y at signings.

There's nothing wrong with these books. They're pretty good as best-seller cannon fodder goes. Better than Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele, for my money. Lately, she has gotten extremely lazy, and lost whatever vision she once possessed, and the last two are three are pretty bad. I wouldn't have read Blood and Gold if I hadn't been paid to review it, and it was awful. But I don't really think the 2nd and 3rd books of the series are all that much better than most of them.

Steve Bolhafner

[ This Message was edited by: SteveB on 2002-04-03 14:46 ]