Don’t sleep on the lesser-known works produced by his wondrous imagination.
In the latest issue of National Review magazine, I survey Library of America’s recent two-volume collection of Ray Bradbury’s stories. While it does not include all of the more than 400 stories Bradbury wrote, the works contained within — including Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine; the short-story anthologies The Illustrated Man and The October Country; and a sampling of other stories — “suffice to provide a taste of Bradbury’s work,” as I wrote.
I have been a fan of Bradbury since I encountered the haunting post-apocalyptic smart-home short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” in a grade-school English class. Even so, there were many stories in the two Library of America volumes that I had not encountered before. I touched on some of them in my essay. But others I did not have the space to reference. Here I want to plug a few that I was delighted to discover for the first time, and that may not always get the attention they deserve. In no particular order:
“The Concrete Mixer”
Alien invasion of Earth had been practically done to death as a topic even by Bradbury’s time. So leave it to him to find a clever spin on the idea. “The Concrete Mixer” focuses on the Martian Ettil, who is dragooned into an invasion force against his will. He is convinced that such an invasion is doomed because Earthmen have read too much fiction in which they defeat alien invaders. He ends up correct . . . but not for the reason you might think (and not for that reason, either).
“Marionettes, Inc.”
This story imagines a future in which people can (illegally) purchase full-service plastic duplicates of themselves who can do for the owner what the owner doesn’t feel like doing, to be safely hidden when not in use. The main character of this story uses his “marionette” to have some personal time away from his wife, and urges his friend to do the same. But what’s stopping wives from getting their own doubles? And what happens when a double starts resenting being cooped up all the time when not in use — and enjoying the life of his original a little too much?
“The Scythe”
I am an absolute sucker for a highly specific kind of story: in which someone has to perform a seemingly mundane task that may or may not have immense, world-changing significance. Season Two of the TV series LOST has something like this; the short story “The Great Clock” by Langdon Jones (available in the excellent sci-fi anthology The Time Traveler’s Almanac) also counts; and “The Scythe” does as well. A well-stocked farm first seems like a relief for the destitute family that chances upon it. But the family’s father soon discovers that the daily harvesting of wheat he must undertake is more than a mere agricultural labor. (Hint: Think of who else is famously known for using a scythe . . .)
“The Crowd”
Perhaps presaging the paranoid fantasias of Philip K. Dick, “The Crowd” focuses on a man who realizes that the same group of people shows up first at every car accident in his town, and he begins to wonder if there is some larger conspiracy to it. (There is.)
“Frost and Fire”
This story imagines a civilization on an alien planet whose conditions are so harsh that its inhabitants live for only eight days. “Birth was quick as a knife. Childhood was over in a flash. Adolescence was a sheet of lightning. Manhood was a dream, maturity a myth, old age an inescapably quick reality.” The effects of this transience on the civilization are fascinatingly teased out. Its scientists, for example, must labor apart from their fellows in seemingly futile fashion to escape the accursed shortness, passing their incremental gains on to the youth selected to join them before expiring. The protagonist of this story is one who dares to transcend the terminal brevity.
I could go on. Doubtless I am forgetting some of the other more obscure tales that I was delighted to discover. Either way, it’s best for you to discover Bradbury’s work yourself.