Category: Ray Bradbury

Remembering a literary giant on his birthday: My interview with Ray Bradbury

By Michael Grossberg

Ray Bradbury in 1975 (Creative Commons license)

Ray Bradbury was born Aug. 22, 1920 and lived a creative and productive life until 2012.

In honor of Bradbury’s birthday, the Prometheus Blog is reprinting an interview I did with the acclaimed and bestselling storyteller in the mid-1980s – one of the interviews I found most stimulating and satisfying during my six-decade career as a journalist, arts reporter and critic.

Among the questions I asked Bradbury:
What inspired him to write his classic novel Fahrenheit 451, later inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame?

Why did it take him only two weeks to write?
Why and how did the legendary storyteller rewrite Network, an Academy Awardwinner for Best Picture – after its release?

And perhaps most lasting in his reply, what lessons from his own against-the-odds life did Bradbury offer other writers?

Continue reading Remembering a literary giant on his birthday: My interview with Ray Bradbury

Male vs. female readers, and science fiction vs. fantasy: Is modern publishing targeting one more than the other? 


By Michael Grossberg

It’s an old cliche: Men prefer science fiction; women prefer fantasy. (Of course, that’s a half-truth at best: After all, many men enjoy fantasy, and many women, science fiction.)

Left to right: The planets Mars, Earth and Venus (File photo)

Yet, if men are mostly from Mars and women are mostly from Venus, how is today’s publishing world appealing to both?

Not very well, Kristin McTiernan argues on her Fictional Influence website and blog.

When McTiernan posted a video about the absence of contemporary men’s fiction, it went viral.

“I struck a nerve that resonated far beyond my usual audience,” McTiernan wrote on her Fictional Influence website.

“The comment section flooded with responses from men who felt invisible in today’s publishing landscape – readers hungry for stories that spoke to their experiences (from their perspective) without apology.”

Continue reading Male vs. female readers, and science fiction vs. fantasy: Is modern publishing targeting one more than the other? 


Forster, Bradbury, Heinlein, Le Guin, Vonnegut stories ranked among the 26 best SF stories by New Scientist


By Michael Grossberg

Several Prometheus-recognized authors are included on New Scientist’s intriguing list of the 26 best science fiction/fantasy stories of all time.

Ray Bradbury (Creative Commons license)

E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” is the only story on the magazine’s list previously inducted into the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Hall of Fame. Yet, several other enduring and Prometheus-winning authors have classic stories on the magazine’s list – just not the ones our award has recognized.

Among them: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut.

It’s interesting to see which of their stories are recognized by the magazine, and why.

Continue reading Forster, Bradbury, Heinlein, Le Guin, Vonnegut stories ranked among the 26 best SF stories by New Scientist


Heinlein, Anderson, Tolkien, Orwell, Rand, Hoyt, Vinge, Stephenson, Bradbury and Wilson among popular Prometheus-winning authors added as convenient index links on our blog

What do Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, James P. Hogan, Sarah Hoyt, Victor Koman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken MacLeod, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, L. Neil Smith, Neal Stephenson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Vernor Vinge and F. Paul Wilson have in common?

Robert Heinlein in the 1980s (Photo courtesy of Heinlein Trust)

Some rank high among bestselling and even world famous authors; some are not quite as well known but still have sold millions of copies of their books, and a few are lesser-known writers who deserve a wider readership.

George Orwell. (Creative Commons license)

Yet they’re all writers who have written notable speculative fiction (generally science fiction and/or fantasy) that in different ways championed freedom-loving themes and exposed the evils of authoritarianism.

And all of the above have been recognized for such works by winning Prometheus Awards – some for Best Novel, some for Best Classic Fiction and several for both annual award categories.

Continue reading Heinlein, Anderson, Tolkien, Orwell, Rand, Hoyt, Vinge, Stephenson, Bradbury and Wilson among popular Prometheus-winning authors added as convenient index links on our blog

Orwell’s 1984, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and other Prometheus-recognized dystopian cautionary tales are popular again, post-election (but deserve a sober reading)

By Michael Grossberg

Two of the best-known Prometheus Hall of Fame winners are enjoying a surge in sales.

George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 shot up on Amazon’s best-seller list after the recent U.S. presidential election.

So did Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a 1987 Prometheus Best Novel finalist. (The Testaments, Atwood’s sequel to her classic dystopian novel, was recognized as a Best Novel finalist in 2020.)

Both Orwell’s classic and Bradbury’s classic dystopian novels were inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1984, only the second year of the Hall of Fame.

All three novels – well-worth reading (or rereading) – offer cautionary  tales about the rise of various types of authoritarian or totalitarian governments that institutionalize massive violations of individual rights – from censorship to torture and mass murder.

Check out the Prometheus blog review-essay Appreciations of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451.

Continue reading Orwell’s 1984, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and other Prometheus-recognized dystopian cautionary tales are popular again, post-election (but deserve a sober reading)

Is “book-banning” the same as censorship or book-burning? How Bradbury’s Prometheus-winning classic Fahrenheit 451 figures in current debates

By Michael Grossberg

The late great Ray Bradbury memorably dramatized the dangers of censorship and book-burning in Fahrenheit 451.


Bradbury’s Prometheus-winning 1953 novel, inducted in 1984 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, is occasionally brought up as a cautionary tale in contemporary discussions about freedom of expression, censorship, school libraries and what books are appropriate for students of different ages to read.

Fahrenheit 451 is referenced anew in an interesting Thinkspot column that challenges common media reporting about “book bans” in government-run schools and libraries across the country.

But do the lessons of Fahrenheit 451 truly apply?

Is “book banning” tantamount to book-burning and other forms of State-enforced censorship?

Continue reading Is “book-banning” the same as censorship or book-burning? How Bradbury’s Prometheus-winning classic Fahrenheit 451 figures in current debates

Taibbi on Bradbury: How Fahrenheit 451 remains relevant and resonant today as a cautionary tale of lost liberty

By Michael Grossberg

Ray Bradbury envisioned in his classic novel Fahrenheit 451 a dystopian future of censorship and destruction of literature – a paradoxically chilling world in which firemen paradoxically don’t put out fires but set them to burn books.

However haunting in its literary power, Bradbury’s dystopian vision sadly may not be as widely referenced in popular culture these days as George Orwell’s widely quoted 1984 and Animal Farm or Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged or perhaps even Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical story “Harrison Bergeron.”

All of the above works have been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame over the decades. Yet, not all are equally remembered and applauded as still-resonant cautionary tales with vital lessons that still should be heeded in the 21st century.

That’s why it’s a pleasure to report that Matt Taibbi, a prominent journalist and independent-minded columnist, has referenced Bradbury’s novel and poignant themes in a recent essay posted on his Racket News platform.

Continue reading Taibbi on Bradbury: How Fahrenheit 451 remains relevant and resonant today as a cautionary tale of lost liberty

Review: Queen Wallis an inventive, suspenseful sequel to the dystopian alternate history of Carey’s Widowland

By Michael Grossberg

Sequels can be tricky and often disappointing, falling short of the originals in potentially all sorts of ways.

So it’s nice to report that C.J. Carey’s Queen Wallis (published by Sourcebooks in the U.S. and Quercus in the U.K.) is a worthy sequel that in several ways improves on Widowland, her 2023 Prometheus Best Novel finalist.

Overall, this feminist dystopian novel is one of the most enjoyable works of alternate history I’ve read in years.

Continue reading Review: Queen Wallis an inventive, suspenseful sequel to the dystopian alternate history of Carey’s Widowland

Science fiction’s prophetic dystopias: Niall Ferguson Spectator essay sheds light on Prometheus winners Bradbury, Orwell, Stephenson and Zamyatin while drawing timely comparisons to Huxley

How can science fiction be used to explore and perhaps take steps to prevent the darker possibilities of the future?

Writer-historian Niall Ferguson examines the benefits and prophetic classics of science fiction in an intriguing essay in The Spectator magazine.

Several Prometheus-winning authors – including Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), Sinclair Lewis (It Can’t Happen Here), George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four), Neal Stephenson (The System of the World, Snow Crash) and Yevgeny Zamyatin (We) – are discussed with intriguing and incisive commentary in Ferguson’s recent article, “How Science Fiction Novels Read the Future.”

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Review: Exploring freedom on the frontiers of Free Space, the first explicitly libertarian sf anthology and first Prometheus Special Award winner

 

“Now we dare the great
Promethean sin
And bring fire back to heaven
on our rockets.”
– Robert Anton Wilson
“Free at Last,” from Free Space

By Michael Grossberg

Free Space, the first Special Prometheus Award-winner in 1998, has the distinction of being the first explicitly libertarian sf anthology.

Published in 1997 by TOR Books and edited by Brad Linaweaver and Ed Kramer, Free Space generated immense excitement among libertarian sf fans.

Today, almost a quarter century later, quite a few of its stories remain worth reading (or worth rereading) by freedom-lovers and, for that matter, anyone who enjoys interesting and imaginative sf speculations about humankind’s future in space.

The 352-page collection, dedicated to Robert and Ginny Heinlein, offers a wide range of stories and short fiction by 20 writers reflecting several generations and multiple perspectives.

Continue reading Review: Exploring freedom on the frontiers of Free Space, the first explicitly libertarian sf anthology and first Prometheus Special Award winner