Ray Bradbury's Classic Science Fiction

Ray Bradbury has been spinning yarns of classic science fiction for decades. His love of things futuristic grew from his childhood fascination with Buck Rogers comic strips. “I never stopped flying or reading,” says Bradbury who shares his passion in more than 500 published stories, novels, scripts, and plays.

Ibooks, inc. collects The Best of Ray Bradbury. This graphic adaptation of his short stories features material originally published in either The Ray Bradbury Chronicles or Ray Bradbury Comics.

Sound of Thunder

Time travel, one the most exploited themes in popular sci-fi, is a cliché among fans. It can be a thrilling device, however, in the hands of a master storyteller.

“A Sound of Thunder” is among the better known time-travel stories, even being portrayed on the hit cartoon series The Simpsons. Bradbury says the music for his story might well be, “You put your right foot there… and carefully – or risk changing history.”

Richard Corben uses lush colors and subdued lines to adapt the story of an ill-fated hunting expedition to the ancient past where one misstep holds profound consequences for the present. His depiction of the dinosaurs is fantastic and his final panel creates the same ambiguity as the final lines of the original story.

Night Meeting

“Night Meeting” – one of Bradbury’s personal favorites – combines time travel, Mars, and an alien encounter to create a unique work of science fiction. Two strangers from different eras meet on a lonely road, each convinced that the other is dislocated in time.

The native Martian describes a thriving community caught up in a festival atmosphere. The Earthman, a new settler to Mars, sees only ruins. Ultimately the two must give in, each taking the other’s version of time and the truth at face value. They go their separate ways, leaving us with nostalgia for things lost to the past and expectation for things to be found in the future.

Daniel Torres otherworldly illustrations are fun to look at. The alien architecture seems to flow out of the ground. Unfortunately the drab earth tones that color the landscape fail to please the eye.

Come Into My Cellar

Bizarre happenings in a suburban community cause Hugh, a well-rounded family man, to wonder if he might be imagining things. His best friend skips town without explanation, his neighbor claims she’s Earth first line of defense against an alien invasion, and his son spends an inordinate amount of time in the basement. Hugh’s speculations lead him to take a closer look at the mail-order mushrooms many of the town’s boys, including his son, are growing in their cellars.

When he was ten years old Ray Bradbury sent away for the Johnson-Smith & Co. catalog. Its pages sold things any boy might want – Halloween masks, magic tricks, even mushrooms he could grow in his own cellar. At lunch years later a LIFE editor challenged him to make up a story on the spot. He looked down at his hamburger, saw some mushrooms, and ran off to write “Come Into My Cellar.”

Dave Gibbon’s wonderful adaptation, reminiscent of EC Comics from the 1940s and 50s, conveys the horror of this classic piece of sci-fi. Thirteen pages manage about 200 panels - many pages have 16 panels each - without jeopardizing the delightfully creepy feel of the story.

Award-Winning Writing

Ray Bradbury’s books have earned a spot among the best science fiction on the shelf. The National Book Foundation has awarded Bradbury the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2004 President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush presented him with the National Medal of Arts.

Science Fiction

Print Article

Email Article

View All Articles

How to subscribe to feeds