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Author Topic:   Story Classifications (UNDER CONSTRUCTION!)
dandelion
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posted 01-30-2002 03:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Although his books are always found in the Science Fiction section, with even his non-SF titles lumped under that label, the short fiction of Ray Bradbury generally falls into several categories, which I here attempt to classify under headings. These categories refer mainly to setting, somewhat to mood and atmosphere, and a little to theme. To avoid repetition, each story appears under only one heading although some might fit under several. Classifying mainly by theme (cruelty of children, first love, loneliness and isolation, end of the world) would require a different set of categories. Another whole category set would be by season. Out of over 300 stories, perhaps a half-dozen have a real winter atmosphere and only two or three deal with Christmas. Opinions are welcome for the difficult to categorize. Bradbury's own statements range from about a third of his work being Science Fiction to "Fahrenheit 451" being his only real Science Fiction title. Quite possibly the Mars and Venus stories properly belong under the Fantasy heading but are classified as Science Fiction on this list. Martian stories are denoted "Mars MC" (included in the most recent edition of "The Martian Chronicles" I have, dated 1985--in more recent editions, the stories are the same but the dates have been changed--) and "Mars non-MC" (Martian stories not in "The Martian Chronicles.") The stories are dated, for anyone seeking "trends" in his work.

Science Fiction
Setting Classifications
FE--Future on Earth
TT--Time Travel
Mars MC--Mars, included in "The Martian Chronicles"
Mars non-MC--Mars, not included in "The Martian Chronicles"
Venus
PNMV--Planet other than Earth, Mars, or Venus
OS--Outer space
Includes realistic fantasy and magic in a futuristic setting.
-- The Piper (1943) (Mars non-MC)
-- Subterfuge (1943) (FE; Earth invaded by Venus)
-- Promotion to Satellite (1943) (FE, Space Travel)
-- And Then-the Silence
[vt The Silence] (1944) (PNMV)
-- King of the Gray Spaces
[vt R Is for Rocket] (1943)
-- October 2026: The Million-Year Picnic (1946) (Mars MC)
-- Rocket Summer (1947) (FE; very interesting companion to "The Rocket" and flip side of "The Toynbee Convector")
-- Zero Hour (1947) (FE; invasion from other planet or dimension)
-- The Irritated People (1947) (FE)
-- Tomorrow's Child
[vt The Shape of Things] (1948) (FE)
-- June 2001: --And the Moon Be Still as Bright (1948) (Mars MC)
-- August 1999: The Earth Men (1948) (Mars MC)
-- April 2026: The Long Years
[vt Dwellers in Silence] (1948) (Mars MC)
-- April 2000: The Third Expedition
[vt Mars Is Heaven!; Welcome, Brothers] (1948) (Mars MC)
-- Referent (1948)[as Brett Sterling]
-- The Visitor (1948) (Mars non-MC)
-- November 2005: The Off Season (1948) (Mars MC)
-- Asleep in Armageddon
[vt Perchance to Dream] (1948)
-- The Man (1949) (PNMV)
-- December 2005: The Silent Towns (1949) (Mars MC)
-- Marionettes, Inc. (1949) (FE)
-- The Concrete Mixer (1949) (Mars non-MC; Earth invaded by Mars)
-- I, Mars
[vt Night Call, Collect] (1949) (Mars non-MC)
-- The One Who Waits (1949) (Mars non-MC)
-- Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed
[vt The Naming of Names] (1949) (Mars non-MC)
-- Kaleidoscope (1949) (OS)
-- September 2005: The Martian
[vt Impossible] (1949) (Mars MC)
-- August 1999: The Summer Night
[vt The Spring Night] (1949) (Mars MC)
-- February 1999: Ylla
[vt I'll Not Look for Wine] (1950) (Mars MC)
-- Punishment Without Crime (1950) (FE; Illinois)
-- April 2005: Usher II
[vt Carnival of Madness] (1950) (Mars MC)
-- December 2001: The Green Morning (1950) (Mars MC)
-- August 2002: Night Meeting (1950) (Mars MC)
-- January 1999: Rocket Summer (1950) (Mars MC)
-- March 2000: The Taxpayer (1950) (Mars MC)
-- August 2001: The Settlers (1950) (Mars MC)
-- February 2002: The Locusts (1950) (Mars MC)
-- October 2002: The Shore (1950) (Mars MC)
-- February 2003: Interim (1950) (different than in "Dark Carnival") (Mars MC)
-- April 2003: The Musicians (1950) (Mars MC)
-- 2004-2005: The Naming of Names (1950) (different than "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed") (Mars MC)
-- August 2005: The Old Ones (1950) (Mars MC)
-- November 2005: The Luggage Store (1950) (Mars MC)
-- November 2005: The Watchers (1950) (Mars MC)
-- The Fox and the Forest
[vt To the Future] (1950) (TT; Mexico)
-- Forever and the Earth (1950) (FE, TT, OS)
-- June 2003: Way in the Middle of the Air (1950) (Mars MC)
-- The City
[vt Purpose] (1950) (PNMV)
-- The Long Rain
[vt Death-by-Rain] (1950) (Venus)
-- The Veldt
[vt The World the Children Made] (1950) (FE)
-- No Particular Night or Morning (1951) (OS)
-- The Rocket Man (1951) (FE)
-- The Other Foot (1951) (Mars non-MC)
-- The Fire Balloons
[vt In This Sign...] (1951) (Mars non-MC. It does appear in some editions and the movie.)
-- Here There Be Tygers (1951) (PNMV)
-- A Sound of Thunder (1952) (FE, TT)
-- The Gift (1952) (OS)
-- The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) (OS)
-- Time in Thy Flight (1953) (TT)
-- All Summer in a Day (1954) (Venus)
-- The Strawberry Window (1954) (Mars non-MC)
-- Icarus Montgolfier Wright (1956) (FE traveling to Mars)
-- The End of the Beginning
[vt Next Stop: The Stars] (1956) (FE)

Day-After-Tomorrow Science Fiction
A category mainly to distinguish end of the world/nuclear holocaust/book burning stories from tales of time and space, although, granted, space travel has happened more often than nuclear war. Some, such as "The Murderer," have already caught up with or passed the "day-after-tomorrow" label. (What I'd really like to see happen is for "Fahrenheit 451" to be collected with all the other destruction of art and literature stories, translated into the Afghan language, and sent to replenish the ravaged libraries of Afghanistan.)
-- Gabriel's Horn (1943) with Henry Hasse (FE)
-- August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) (non-Mars MC--In "The Martian Chronicles," but set on Earth)
-- The Highway (1950)[as Leonard Spalding] (FE; Probably South America but would go well in a collection with Mexico)
-- The Year 2150 A. D. (1950) (FE)
-- The Fireman (1951) (FE)
-- The Pedestrian (1951) (FE)
-- Embroidery (1951) (FE)
-- A Piece of Wood (1952)
-- The Smile (1952)
-- The Murderer (1953) (FE)
-- The Garbage Collector (1953) (FE)
-- The Meadow (1953) (FE)

Fantasy
Loosely classified, October Country/Horror "Weird Tales"; includes Dark Fantasy and magic in contemporary American, Irish, and Mexican settings, magic in historical settings, allegory and fable in pseudo-historical settings, and action set in fantasy surroundings.
-- Hollerbochen's Dilemma (1938)
(Bradbury's FIRST published story, ANYWHERE, PERIOD. It's delightful to be able to report, NOT Science Fiction, though it DOES qualify as Fantasy in a modern-day or near-future setting.)
-- Hollerbochen Comes Back (1938)
(Haven't read it, but should qualify as Fantasy, especially if the main character can return at all after the first story!)
-- The Pendulum (1939)
-- Pendulum (1941) with Henry Hasse
-- The Candle (1942)
-- The Wind (1943)
-- The Crowd (1943)
-- The Scythe (1943)
-- Doodad (1943)
-- The Ducker (1943)
-- The Sea Shell (1944)
-- Reunion (1944)
-- There Was an Old Woman (1944)
-- Bang! You're Dead! (1944)
-- The Poems (1945)
-- The Dead Man (1945)
-- Skeleton (1945)
-- The Watchers (1945)
-- The Traveller (1946)
-- Her Eyes, Her Lips, Her Limbs (1946)[as William Elliott]
-- Lorelei of the Red Mist (1946) with Leigh Brackett (PNMV; of all I've read, this comes the closest to "high fantasy")
-- Homecoming (1946)
-- The Creatures That Time Forgot
[vt Frost and Fire] (1946) (PNMV)
-- The Man Upstairs (1947)
-- Interim (1947)
-- The Emissary (1947)
-- Uncle Einar (1947)
-- The Black Ferris (1948)
-- Pillar of Fire (1948)
-- The Undead Die (1948) with E. Everett Evans
-- Fever Dream (1948)
-- The Exiles
[vt The Mad Wizards of Mars] (1949) (Set on Mars but belongs much more in this category. See also "The Blue Bottle.")
-- The Blue Bottle
[vt Death-Wish] (1950) (Mars non-MC)
-- Prologue: The Illustrated Man (1951)
-- Bridge-passages, Untitled: The Illustrated Man (1951)
-- Epilogue: The Illustrated Man (1951)
-- The Fog Horn
[vt The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms] (1951)
-- The April Witch
[vt The Wandering Witch] (1952)
-- The Playground (1953)
-- A Scent of Sarsaparilla (1953)
-- Marvels and Miracles--Pass It On! (1955) (TT)
-- The Dragon (1955)
-- The Sunset Harp
[vt The Shoreline at Sunset] (1959)
-- Death and the Maiden (1960)
-- Nightmare Carousel (1962)

Mystery and Detective Fiction
-- The Long Night (1944)
-- The Trunk Lady (1944)
-- I'm Not So Dumb! (1945)
-- Hell's Half-Hour (1945)
-- The Long Way Home (1945)

Real or Unreal?
Difficult category for subjective stories with one main character--did it really happen (fantasy), was it all in the person's mind (psychology), or some combination, as of magic having effect through peoples' own beliefs?
-- Luana the Living (1940) (India)

The Irish Stories
A world unto themselves; Saints preserve us! Irish magic and ghost stories go under those categories with their setting noted.
-- The First Night of Lent (1956)
-- The Great Collision of Monday Last (1958)
-- A Wild Night in Galway (1959)
-- The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge
[vt The Beggar on the Dublin Bridge] (1961)

Strictly Psychological
Non-magic in contemporary American, "non-Heber Finn" Irish, and Mexican settings, giving insight into the human condition, including darker/heavier "Dandelion Wine" stories.
-- The Lake (1944) (--which Bradbury has called his "first really good story"--NOT Science Fiction.)
-- The Jar (1944)
-- The Big Black and White Game (1945) (His first story to gain national recognition--NOT Science Fiction!)
-- Invisible Boy (1945)
-- The Miracles of Jamie (1946)
-- The Electrocution (1946)[as William Elliot]
-- The Small Assassin (1946)
-- The Cistern (1947)
-- El Dia de Muerte (1947) (Mexico)
-- The Next in Line (1947) (Mexico)
-- Jack-in-the-Box (1947)
-- The October Game (1948)
-- Powerhouse (1948)
-- End of Summer (1948)
-- The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl
[vt Touch and Go] (1948)
-- The Whole Town's Sleeping (1950)
-- Season of Disbelief (1950)
-- The Last Night of the World (1951)
-- The Green Machine (1951)
-- These Things Happen
[vt A Story of Love] (1951)
-- The Screaming Woman (1951)
-- The Great Wide World Over There
[vt Cora and the Great Wide World] (1952)
-- The Tombling Day (1952)
-- A Flight of Ravens (1952)
-- Sun and Shadow (1953) (Mexico or South America)
-- Hail and Farewell (1953)
-- And So Died Riabouchinska (1953)
-- And the Rock Cried Out
[vt The Millionth Murder] (1953) (Probably South America but would go well in a collection with Mexico)
-- The Dwarf (1954)
-- Interval in Sunlight (1954) (Mexico)
-- The Watchful Poker Chip
[vt The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse] (1954)
-- Touched with Fire
[vt Shopping for Death] (1954)
-- At Midnight, In the Month of June (1954)
-- The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone (1954)
-- The Picasso Summer
[vt In a Season of Calm Weather] (1957)
-- The Day It Rained Forever (1957)
-- The Tarot Witch (1957)
-- Almost the End of the World (1957)
-- The Town Where No One Got Off (1958)
-- The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
[vt The Magic White Suit] (1958)
-- The Best of All Possible Worlds (1960)
-- Some Live Like Lazarus
[vt Very Late in the Evening] (1960)

Nostalgic (set in the past) or Sentimental (set in the present) Fiction
"Green Town" and "Dandelion Wine"-type stories set 1920 and after, relatively lighter/sweeter in tone if not necessarily in action. (For instance, "Calling Mexico," although someone dies at the end, is less grim than some in which everyone lives.)
-- One Timeless Spring (1946)
-- The Night (1946)
-- The Great Fire (1949)
-- The Window
[vt The Long Distance Telephone Call; Calling Mexico] (1950) (Set in 1920s Illinois but would belong in a collection with Mexico)
-- The Lawns of Summer (1952)
-- Love Contest (1952)[as Leonard Douglas]
-- Dandelion Wine (1953)
-- Dinner at Dawn (1954)
-- They Knew What They Wanted (1954)
-- The Swan (1954)
-- The Time Machine
[vt The Last, the Very Last] (1955)
-- The Trolley (1955)
-- The Sound of Summer Running
[vt Summer in the Air] (1956)
-- Illumination (1957)
-- The Leave-Taking
[vt Good-By, Grandma] (1957)
-- The Happiness Machine (1957)
-- Green Wine for Dreaming (1957)
-- Statues (1957)
-- Magic!
[vt Exorcism] (1957)
-- Dandelion Wine (Contains eighteen untitled "bridge-passages" which are not complete stories.) (1957)
-- And the Sailor, Home from the Sea
[vt Forever Voyage] (1960)

Historical Fiction
Non-fantasy in a realistic setting before 1920.
-- The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind (1953) (China)
-- The Drummer Boy of Shiloh (1960)

Stories I either haven't read or must at least look at again before classifying
-- How to Run a Successful Ghost Agency (1939)
-- Don't Get Technatal (1939)[as Ron Reynolds]
-- Gold (1939)
-- The Record (1939) with Forrest J. Ackerman
-- The Maiden of Jirbu (1940) with Bob Tucker
-- Tale of the Tortletwitch (1940)[as Guy Amory]
-- The Flight of the Good Ship Clarissa (1940)[anon.]
-- The Piper (1940)
-- The Last Man (1940)
-- It's Not the Heat, It's the Hu-- (1940)
-- The Tale of the Terrible Typer (1940)
-- Genie Trouble (1940)
-- How Am I Today, Doctor? (1941)
-- The Trouble With Humans is People (1941)
-- Tale of the Mangledomvritch (1941)
-- To Make a Long, Long Story Much, Much Shorter (1941)
-- Eat, Drink and Be Wary (1942)
-- And Watch the Fountains (1943)
-- The Monster Maker (1944)
-- I, Rocket (1944)
-- Killer, Come Back to Me! (1944)
-- Yesterday I Lived! (1944)
-- Morgue Ship (1944)
-- Half-Pint Homicide (1944)
-- It Burns Me Up! (1944)
-- Undersea Guardians (1944)
-- Four-Way Funeral (1944)
-- Lazarus Come Forth (1944)
-- The Tombstone (1945)
-- Skeleton (1945) (different than in "Dark Carnival")
-- Dead Men Rise Up Never (1945)
-- Corpse-Carnival (1945)[as D. R. Banat]
-- Final Victim (1946) with Henry Hasse -- The Smiling People (1946)
-- Defense Mech (1946)
-- Rocket Skin (1946)
-- Chrysalis (1946)
-- Let's Play "Poison" (1946)
-- The Coffin
[vt Wake for the Living] (1947)
-- The Handler (1947)
-- I See You Never (1947)
-- The Maiden (1947)
-- The Night Sets (1947)
-- Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1947)
-- The Candy Skull (1948)
-- Jonah of the Jove-Run (1948) (Mars non-MC)
-- The Square Pegs (1948) (PNMV)
-- The Women (1948)
-- The Lonely Ones (1949) (Mars non-MC)
-- Changeling (1949)
-- Holiday (1949)
-- A Blade of Grass (1949) (FE)
-- All on a Summer's Night (1950)
-- Payment in Full (1950)
-- The Rocket
[vt Outcast of the Stars] (1950)
-- Miss Bidwell
[vt A Faraway Guitar] (1950)
-- The Illustrated Man (1950)
-- The Bonfire (1950)
-- The Pumpernickel (1951)
-- A Little Journey (1951) (FE, OS)
-- The Wilderness (1952)
-- The Secret (1952)
-- En La Noche
[vt Torrid Sacrifice] (1952)
-- The Flying Machine (1953) (China)
-- Bullet With a Name (1953)
-- The Marriage Mender (1954)
-- The Little Mice
[vt The Mice] (1955)
-- The Time of Going Away (1956)
-- The Headpiece (1958)
-- A Medicine for Melancholy (1959)
-- The Illustrated Woman (1961)
-- With Smiles as Wide as Summer (1961)
-- A Miracle of Rare Device (1962)

-- Perhaps We Are Going Away (1962)
-- Tyrannosaurus Rex
[vt The Prehistoric Producer] (1962)
-- Getting Through Sunday Somehow
[vt Tread Lightly to the Music] (1962) (Ireland)
-- Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!
[vt Come Into My Cellar] (1962)
-- The Machineries of Joy (1962)
-- Long After Midnight
[vt The Long-After-Midnight Girl] (1962)
-- To the Chicago Abyss (1963)
The Anthem Sprinters
[vt The Queen's Own Evaders] (1963)
Bright Phoenix (1963)
A Clear View of an Irish Mist (1963)
The Life Work of Juan Diaz (1963) (Mexico)
The Vacation (1963)
The Cold Wind and the Warm (1964)
Heavy-Set (1964)
The Kilemanjaro Device
[vt The Kilimanjaro Machine] (1965)
Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's Is a Friend of Mine
[vt The Best of Times] (1966)
The Blue Flag of John Folk (1966)
The Dragon Danced at Midnight
[vt The Year the Glop-Monster Won the Golden Lion at Cannes] (1966)
The Man in the Rorschach Shirt (1966)
The Lost City of Mars (1967) (Mars non-MC)
Downwind from Gettysberg (1969)
The Haunting of the New (1969)
Henry the Ninth
[vt A Final Sceptre, a Lasting Crown] (1969) (England)
I Sing the Body Electric!
[vt The Beautiful One Is Here] (1969)
The Inspired Chicken Motel
[vt The Inspired Chicken Bungalow Court] (1969)
The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place (1969)
Yes, We'll Gather at the River (1969)
The Messiah (1971)
The Utterly Perfect Murder
[vt My Perfect Murder] (1971)
Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)
McGillahee's Brat (1972) (Ireland)
The Parrot Who Met Papa (1972)
Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You! (1973)
The Wish (1973)
The Better Part of Wisdom (1976) (Ireland)
The Burning Man (1976)
Darling Adolf (1976)
Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds (1976)
G.B.S.-Mark V (1976)
Gotcha! (1978)
The Aqueduct (1979)
Farewell Summer (1980)
The Last Circus (1980)
A Touch of Petulance (1980)
Colonel Stonesteel's Genuine Home-Made Truly Egyptian Mummy (1981)
The Love Affair (1982) (Mars non-MC)
Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up? (1983)
Banshee (1984) (Ireland)
The Enemy in the Wheat (1984)
At Midnight, in the Month of June (1988)
Bless Me Father, for I Have Sinned (1988)
By the Numbers! (1988)
Come, and Bring Constance! (1988)
I Suppose You Are Wondering Why We Are Here? (1988)
Junior (1988)
Lafayette Farewell (1988)
The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair (1988)
Long Division (1988)
On the Orient, North (1988) (France)
One Night in Your Life (1988)
One for His Lordship, and One for the Road! (1988)
Promises, Promises (1988)
The Thing at the Top of the Stairs (1988)
The Toynbee Convector (1988)
Trapdoor (1988)
West of October (1988)
The Troll (1991)
From the Dust Returned (1994)
Last Rites (1994)
Unterseeboot Doktor (1994)
Another Fine Mess (1995)
Dorian in Excelsis (1995)
Once More Legato (1995)
Quicker than the Eye (1995)
The Witch Door (1995)
The Finnegan (1996)
That Woman on the Lawn (1996)
Driving Blind (1997)
Mr. Pale (1997) (OS; Death on way to Mars)
The Offering (1997)
Pilgrimage (1999)
The Laurel & Hardy Alpha Centauri Farewell Tour (2000)
Quid Pro Quo (2000)
Overkill (2000)
Fore! (2001)
First Day (2002)
After the Ball (2002)
In Memoriam (2002)
Tete-a-Tete (2002)
The Nineteenth (2002)
Beasts (2002)
Autumn Afternoon (2002)
Where All Is Emptiness There Is Room to Move (2002)
One-Woman Show (2002)
Leftovers (2002)
One More for the Road (2002)
Tangerine (2002)
My Son, Max (2002)
The F. Scott/Tolstoy/Ahab Accumulator (2002)
Well, What Do You Have to Say for Yourself? (2002)
Diane de Foret (2002)
The Cricket on the Hearth (2002)

[This message has been edited by dandelion (edited 07-11-2003).]

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douglasSP
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posted 01-30-2002 08:16 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for douglasSP   Click Here to Email douglasSP     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!!! Give us time!!!

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positronic
Junior Member
posted 03-12-2002 05:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for positronic   Click Here to Email positronic     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I Sing the Body Electric!
[vt The Beautiful One Is Here] (1969)

Now, I KNOW this isn't right. At least if "The Beautiful One Is Here" you're referring to is the one contained in the book FROM THE DUST RETURNED. However, off the top of my head, I recall that one alternate title of "I Sing the Body Electric!" is "The Electric Grandmother" (or something very close to that).

Hmm, I have to say I find your categorizations a bit odd (but then, maybe you'd find mine odd as well). I would probably divide Bradbury's stories into three rough categories, "Science-Fantasy", "Dark Fantasy", and "Realist", and then further subdivide them by common setting, like Mars, Marionettes Inc., The Family, Green Town, Mexican tales, Irish stories, etc. Of course, not all stories would fall into the subcategories, and some stories might fall into more than one category, like "Usher II" which would fit both the "Science-Fantasy" or "Dark Fantasy" categories. I suppose you could also create a "hard-boiled" subcategory for the detective stories under "Realist".

It's nice to see some of the commonly-related stories collected together in book form, as in GREEN WATER, WHITE WHALE and the recent FROM THE DUST RETURNED (after all, isn't that how Ray got started, with THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES?) -- I think there are enough leftover Mars stories for a good start on a MARTIAN CHRONICLES II, and it would be nice to see the Mexican stories all in one volume. I keep thinking Ray could write a novel around the few existing Marionettes Inc. stories, too.

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dandelion
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posted 03-13-2002 03:01 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Add that to the growing "Different Material, Same Title," with "Interim," "The Naming of Names," and "Skeleton."

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crumley
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posted 04-14-2002 10:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for crumley   Click Here to Email crumley     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Are you still working on this, Dandelion? It's an ambitious undertaking, to say the least! I'm sure we could all come up with our own categories and sub-categories; the only real problem are the many stories that overlap several categories, and those that defy classification altogether. The most striking thing about your list for me is that there are scores of stories I have not read (and in many cases had not heard of). Many are not available in the collections we all know (GOLDEN APPLES, ILL.MAN, BODY ELECTRIC etc. etc...) Perhaps for the lesser-known/ uncollected stories on your list, you could include info. about where they first appeared, or where they were reprinted (if at all).

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dandelion
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posted 04-15-2002 03:20 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
"The only real problem are the many stories that overlap several categories, and those that defy classification altogether."

You said it, that's one thing giving me problems, the other is just being busy doing other things. Rare/hard to find titles ought to be listed under the deceptively titled thread "Complete Story Listings."

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Mr. Dark
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posted 05-18-2002 11:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mr. Dark   Click Here to Email Mr. Dark     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Very cool work, Dandelion. I'm humbled and impressed.

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dandelion
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posted 05-19-2002 12:27 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks. I still have to add any not-previously-published stories from "One More for the Road," plus, under "Complete Story Listings," note which "uncollected" stories are collected in the new book.

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uncle
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posted 05-19-2002 01:42 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for uncle     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'd like to poke around up in your attic! You've been up nights, wonderful effort, If you will pardon the phrase, you have set out the buffet let the feast or refeast begin! I am pleased that Mr Bradbury has continued to pour out his vinyard soul so freely for so long. He is obviously not letting dust gather in his corners. Thanks for keeping track of a moving target, Dandelion you are doing a great job.

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crumley
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posted 05-20-2002 08:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for crumley   Click Here to Email crumley     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
And well done to you, uncle - you're an eloquent mixer of metaphors!
(I mean that as a compliment!)

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Greg Miller
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posted 01-12-2003 02:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Greg Miller   Click Here to Email Greg Miller     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Martian stories not in 'The Martian Chronicles' (also posted in another category about this)

Here are a few NOT included in 'The Martian Chronicles' that could serve as the foundation for a Martian Collection:

"The One Who Waits" from 'The Machineries of Joy.'
"The Man" from 'The Illustrated Man'
"The Exiles" from 'R is for Rocket'
"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" from 'A Medicine for Melancholy'
"Forever and the Earth"
"Icarus Montgolfier Wright" from 'A Medicine for Melancholy' (the destination of Icarus is Mars)
"The Strawberry Window" from 'A Medicine for Melancholy'
"The Blue Bottle"
"The Visitor," from 'The Illustrated Man'
"The Concrete Mixer" from 'The Illustrated Man' (not exactly about Mars, but about Martians invading Earth)
"Mr. Pale" from 'Driving Blind' (Death on his way to Mars)
"The Lost City of Mars"

(And a few stories that, though not about Mars specifically, would fit in with a collection of this type: "The Rocket," "The Gift")

-Greg

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dandelion
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posted 01-17-2003 01:22 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks, Greg, I've just finished classifying all outer space and other planet stories WHERE I KNOW THE SETTING. As you can see, there are about 50 stories I haven't even read (not counting new ones in "One More for the Road") and easily half that many I need to read or at least look at again before being able to classify as to type and setting. A lot of these early stories--uncollected, in many cases unanthologized, and certainly unread--certainly SOUND "spacey." So anyone wanting to get even JUST all the Martian stories has their work cut out for them, let alone ALL Mars/Venus/other planets/outer space stories, but this is good for a start!

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dandelion
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posted 01-17-2003 05:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Okay, guys...here's my plan of how to go about lighting this candle. There are so many space stories they need to go in three volumes--trying to cram them all into one would just bust bindings. When all three are ready to go,
FIRST--the publisher should reissue a nice, new, hardcover edition of "The Martian Chronicles." NO CHANGES should be made to the current standard edition except the story dates (which have been changed by the publisher) and some additional material such as a new foreword and afterword, perhaps bringing in some of the latest Mars explorations. You don't want to mess with the classic work itself--Mr. Bradbury has serious issues with this and has been known to become a bit testy when not approached correctly.
SECOND--A second hardcover, nicely matched to the first, containing ALL the Mars and closely-related-to-Mars space stories should appear, titled "Martian Chronicles II: Onward to Mars." (Everything has two titles like that now--like those "Star Wars" movies.) If Mr. Bradbury would format it like "The Martian Chronicles" and add some "bridge-passages" or "vignettes" as in "The Martian Chronicles" and other collections, this would form an exciting NEW WORK!
THIRD--another hardcover volume, nicely matched to these two, should be issued, containing all the Venus and other outer space and space alien stories, which might or might not be tied together in some way. This would also be exciting as it could include all the early non-Mars space stories, many of which have never seen print after their original magazine appearances, making this another exciting NEW COLLECTION!
At the proper interval after hardcover appearance, all three of these should be issued in paperback. How does this sound?

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lmskipper
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posted 01-17-2003 06:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for lmskipper   Click Here to Email lmskipper     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This sounds excellent to me. I'd love to have a set such as this. Maybe the set could also be named...

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Mr. Dark
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posted 01-17-2003 07:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mr. Dark   Click Here to Email Mr. Dark     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
"Onward from Dandelion" ?

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Nard Kordell
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posted 01-17-2003 11:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Nard Kordell   Click Here to Email Nard Kordell     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It may be a legal nightmare about copyrights and $$. Unfortunately.

William F. Nolan may be a good one to talk about this, too.

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dandelion
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posted 01-18-2003 12:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Trade Requests:

Besides anthologies, another way rare early stories come available is through vintage issues of pulp magazines, which come up on eBay all the time. With this in mind, I thought maybe someone here might have some of the stories mentioned. I'll list early (pre-1970) stories I don't have in any form, followed by those I do, and perhaps we can arrange to trade photocopies of our copies:

Stories of which I have no copies (not even of any kind)
Hollerbochen's Dilemma
Hollerbochen Comes Back
How to Run a Successful Ghost Agency
Don't Get Technatal
Gold
The Record
The Maiden of Jirbu
Tale of the Tortletwitch
The Piper (1940 version)
The Flight of the Good Ship Clarissa
The Last Man
It's Not the Heat, It's the Hu--
The Tale of the Terrible Typer
Genie Trouble
How Am I Today, Doctor?
The Trouble With Humans is People
Tale of the Mangledomvritch
To Make a Long, Long Story Much, Much Shorter
Eat, Drink and Be Wary
And Watch the Fountains
The Monster Maker
I, Rocket (1944)
Killer, Come Back to Me!
Morgue Ship
Lazarus Come Forth
Undersea Guardians
Skeleton (1945 version)
Final Victim (with Henry Hasse)
Defense Mech
Rocket Skin
Lorelei of the Red Mist
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
The Undead Die (with E. Everett Evans)
Changeling
The Lonely Ones
Holiday
All on a Summer's Night
Payment in Full
The Bonfire
The Year 2150 A. D.
The Fireman (Had it; not sure I still do)
A Little Journey
Love Contest*
The Secret
Bullet With a Name
They Knew What They Wanted*
Massinello Pietro
The Blue Flag of John Folk
The Hour of Ghosts*

*These were in well-known publications and I can easily obtain copies.

Stories I have in the form of anthology appearances, original magazine appearances, or magazine reprints.  Numbers following are the number of photocopied pages (1 page per copy for magazines, 2 for books) it would take to copy each story.)
The Pendulum
Pendulum (These two, together, 8)
Luana the Living (5)
The Candle (7)
The Piper (1943 version) (9)
Gabriel's Horn (with Henry Hasse) (10)
Subterfuge (5)
Promotion to Satellite (7)
Doodad (Book boxed up for now)
The Ducker (7)
And Then--The Silence (3)
Her Eyes, Her Lips, Her Limbs* (1)
Rocket Summer (1947 version) (8)
The Irritated People (13)
Jonah of the Jove-Run (10)
The Square Pegs (7)
A Blade of Grass (5)
Miss Bidwell (A Far-Away Guitar) (5)
Marvels and Miracles--Pass It On!* (4)
Bright Phoenix* (4)
*Microfilm copies. "Marvels and Miracles" I'd almost surely have to redo, and the other two may or may not make readable reproductions.  Of the rest, some are fragile, but all should copy well.

Of course, as I get a chance to review these, I'll enter their classifications.

[This message has been edited by dandelion (edited 01-20-2003).]

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dandelion
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posted 01-18-2003 06:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Rhetorical questions and hairsplitting regarding categories here: stories set with beings living on an asteroid count as planet stories (PNMV) although an asteroid isn't strictly a planet. I'm putting "post-apocalyptic" (stories of survival or lack of it after a nuclear holocaust) in the "Day After Tomorrow" category, but we usually classify "post-apocalyptic" stories as being published after the detonation of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. So what do you call stories about near-total world destruction through war published before that date? Pre-post-apocalyptic? Since H. G. Wells published "The War of the Worlds" in 1898 and lived till 1946, wonder what he'd have to say on this. For myself, I'm grouping such stories under the "Day-After-Tomorrow" heading.

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Nard Kordell
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posted 01-18-2003 08:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Nard Kordell   Click Here to Email Nard Kordell     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The above lists are ...wonderful. Can anything really be left out? Well, I have one small note. Not a short story, but...betcha you never heard of this poetry book title by Ray....

Twin Hieroglyphs That Swim the River Dust

click on: http://moesbooks.com/cgi-bin/moe455/17820.html

[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 01-18-2003).]

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Green Shadow
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posted 01-18-2003 09:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Green Shadow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wow, that's a new one to me. Do you know what's in the table of contents. Does anyone own this? The cost is too high for me.

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dandelion
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posted 01-19-2003 01:54 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here, for your delectation, are tables of contents to three of Ray's rare small press publications:

The Love Affair. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, Dec '82, 25pp, hc.
"The Love Affair." (One of our missing Martian short stories!)
"The Growing into Me" (poem)
"How I Became a Writer" (poem)

This Attic Where the Meadow Greens. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1979 [Mar '80], 45pp, hc. All poems.
"Abandon in Place." First published Los Angeles Times May 20 '79.
"This Attic Where the Meadow Greens"
"Poem Written at Noon While Passing Through a Small Town in Upper Illinois on June 25, 1978"
"Melville: A Requiem and a Warning." First published Calypsolog Dec '79.
"The Shakespeare Banquet, The Kipling Feast." First published Fade In Win '79.
"Shakespeare the Father, Freud the Son." First published Los Angeles Times Book Review Oct 7 '79.
"A Miracle of Popes, All with One Face!"
"The Bike Repairmen." First published Northridge, CA: Santa Susana Press, 1978 (broadside).
"If Peaches Could Be Painters"
"Once the Years Were Numerous and the Funerals Few"

Twin Hieroglyphs That Swim the River Dust. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, Jul '78, 30pp, hc. All poems.
"Rekindlement: A Celebration." First published Los Angeles Times Book Review Oct 30 '77.
"Twin Hieroglyphs That Swim the River Dust"
"Mouse: A Definition"
"Kitty Hawk: Unrecorded Test Flight"
"The Attic Thing"
"The Soul's Midnight: Thoughts at 3:00 a.m."

The above poems may have appeared somewhere else since, though they were NOT all in the so-called "Complete Poems" published several years after the small volumes. The only poems in that were previously published in the mainstream hardcover collections, making it a pretty sorry excuse for "Complete." "They Have Not Seen The Stars" is supposed to be more complete but I don't have it and don't know if it includes everything. Anyone who does have it want to check for all these?

[This message has been edited by dandelion (edited 01-19-2003).]

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Green Shadow
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posted 01-19-2003 10:02 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Green Shadow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks, D. I looked in my copy and many of the poems (not all) you cited were there.

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dandelion
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posted 01-20-2003 08:56 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Since "They Have Not Seen the Stars" is one of the very few whose contents are not listed at www.locusmag.com, perhaps you could go through its table of contents again and just note which of the above poems are NOT in it. This could form the basis of an "Uncollected Poems" list.

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Green Shadow
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posted 01-20-2003 09:31 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Green Shadow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Sure. I'll try to list them this evening.

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Green Shadow
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posted 01-20-2003 09:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Green Shadow     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
D,
I just went through the contents, and the ones I couldn't find (unless I missed them) were:

The Growing Into Me
How I Became a Writer
The Soul's Midnight: Thoughts at 3 A.M.
The Attic Thing
Mouse: A Definition
Twin Hieroglyphs That Swim the River Dust
Rekindlement: A Celebration
Kittyhawk: Unrecorded Test Flight

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dandelion
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posted 10-15-2003 04:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Moving this up for a query on characteristics of Ray's work. This list does not really cover themes, but does indicate settings as far as time and place, so should be of some help.

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dandelion
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posted 07-25-2004 06:11 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dandelion   Click Here to Email dandelion     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Still open for trade requests. The only one I've obtained since making this list is "The Undead Die."

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