Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012

Over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I've written up a short sketch of Ray Bradbury's life, which you can read over here.

I'll forgo the usual sources that I've been posting: I've been seperated from my usual research materials (which are sitting on a shelf at home), and went for a number of obituaries, fan sites and articles about the legendary author.

For my part, Bradbury was a giant figure in my early science fiction years. I was first introduced to him while a student in High School, when my English teacher, Mrs. Page (seriously the best name for an English teacher), had us read Fahrenheit 451 for a class assignment. I blew through the book and paid more attention to class after that. At some point in class, we also read Soft Rains Will Come, and I was encouraged to read more of Bradbury's stories, particularly R is for Rocket and S is for Space. I picked up more of his books (although to this day, I've never been able to get through The Martian Chronicles), and whenever I picked up a new anthology, I always flipped to the Bradbury story first.

Bradbury's words always captured me and my imagination, bringing me out to Mars and back down to Earth, and there was always a story to fit whatever moon I was in when I picked up the book. Along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, Bradbury was the most influential for my young, impressionable mind, and I shall always appreciate his prose and his exceptional mind.

Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne

My latest column for Kirkus reviews has just been posted! While doing some reading on Edgar Allan Poe, I came across an interesting point: Poe only wrote a single novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which was later picked up upon by legendary science fiction author, Jules Verne in An Antarctic Mystery. In a large way, it was one of the first works of fan fiction! You can read the connection between Poe and Verne over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog.

For this piece, I used the following sources:

Billion Year Spree, by Brian Aldiss: Aldiss's first history of the genre, this book goes into extensive critical length for the roots of science fiction, and provide an excellent basis for Poe and his influences. While Aldiss doesn't regard Poe as the founding author of SF, he does count his influence. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Kevin J. Hayes, and in particular, Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction, by John Tresch: this critical series covers Poe's literature, and this section by Tresch looks at his forays into science fiction, particularly Arthur Gordon Pym.. The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of, by Thomas M. Disch: Another survey of the genre, which looks to Poe's status as an 'embarrassing ancestor'. Disch in particular labels Poe as one of the key figures in the history of Science Fiction. The History of Science Fiction, by Adam Roberts: Robert's history of the genre notes both Disch's and Aldiss's opinions, he doesn't quite go along with them, although he does outline in excellent detail the achievements that Poe did put forward and likewise places Poe high on the list of superior influences for authors to come, because of his writing and vision. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, by Henry Allen: this excellent volume is a detailed account of Poe's life, and provides a great background in the events that surrounded Poe and his works. Survey of Science Fiction Literature, Vol 3, by Frank Magill: Magill's series is an excellent one, and this particular volume provides a critical account of Arthur Gordon Pym and the influences that helped to bring it about. Oddly, there isn't an entry for Verne's An Antarctic Mystery that I could find.

Finally, something that I came across while doing some of the research, this cartoon by Hark! A Vagrant, sums up the Poe - Verne relationship nicely:

A Meeting in Geneva: The Birth of 'Frankenstein'

My first column on Science Fiction / Fantasy history is now up on Kirkus Reviews! For this first post, I couldn't think of a better place to start than Mary Shelley's creation of Frankenstein in 1816 during a summer trip to Geneva, Switzerland. Frankenstein isn't the first root of the genre, but it is a solid one that has since been built on. You can read the article here on Kirkus Reviews.

A couple of books that I used for the research for this article were:

• The letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and edited by Betty T Bennett. A three volumn collection of Shelley's letters, which provided a great insight into her life around the time of her writing the book.
• Survey of Science Fiction Literature, by Frank Northen Magill. This is an academic survey that I recently picked up that has essays from thousands of SF/F novels up to around the 1970s. Great series of reviews of books, which also provides an incredible amount of background on the author and a critical look at the literature.
• Frankenstein (Norton Critical Editions) by Mary Shelley and J. Paul Hunter. This edition provides the original text of the novel, plus extras: commentary, a couple of letters, and several reviews of the novel from when the book was first published.