I’m an atheist who doesn’t normally enjoy reading fantasy fiction; however, I found “The Invasion of the Church of the Holy Ghost” by Russell Kirk, a religious ghost story, to be quite entertaining and well-written. The characters of Father Raymond Thomas Montrose and Fork Causland are so well developed that it’s hard not to like this story. Plus, the story is set in a seedy, rundown section of town filled with hustlers, prostitutes, and con men, has all the feel of a Damon Runyon tale.
I had no idea who Russell Kirk was, but after reading about him on Wikipedia, the philosophy behind the story made more sense. Kirk was a major conservative intellectual and a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Since I’m a liberal, this doesn’t endear me to him. Kirk was also a convert to Catholicism and enjoyed writing ghost stories.
Kirk’s significant spiritual, political, and philosophical background forces me to look deeper into “The Invasion of the Church of the Holy Ghost.” Kirk was a serious thinker. That makes it hard to dismiss the story as a silly, inconsequential ghost story.
Even while liking “The Invasion of the Church of the Holy Ghost” very much, it proposes ideas I find totally repugnant. Both Father Montrose and Fork Causland are possessed. Kirk suggests that when people do bad things, it’s because they are influenced by evil ghosts, and when they do good things, they are empowered by higher-order beings. He doesn’t specifically say angels, but that’s how I interpreted the story.
In old religious philosophy, good comes from God, and evil from Satan. If humans do good, it’s because of the influence of the divine, and if we do bad, it’s because of the devil working through us. At one point, the normally good Father Montrose starts thinking about raping a young woman. Kirk proposes that those thoughts come from being possessed by an evil spirit.
I don’t believe in free will, but I also refuse to believe that our thoughts and actions originate with ghosts or other metaphysical beings. I don’t know if Russel Kirk believes that either, but “The Invasions of the Church of the Holy Ghost” is based on such a religious foundation. This fantasy is a religious reality to some. On the other hand, it might just be Kirk’s way of scaring us.
However, if I ignore what this story is suggesting, it’s an exceptionally creative work. Russell Kirk does an amazing amount of world-building. When I like fantasy, it’s often because it’s set in our present-day world. For example, It’s a Wonderful Life or The Bishop’s Wife.
Yesterday, I was pondering the value of fiction and nonfiction. Writers of nonfiction strive to be as accurate as possible. We read nonfiction to understand reality. Fiction is elaborate lies, but sometimes fiction writers work to express a truth they perceive at a deep, personal level. Knowing the kind of person Russell Kirk was, I can’t help but believe that he might believe in ghosts and possession.
I reread “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D” by J.G. Ballard because my short story reading group is reading The Best Fantasy from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Inclusion in this volume suggests its fantasy. However, it was also included in The Great Science Fiction Series edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Joseph Olander, and Frederik Pohl. The story contains no magic, no dragons or elves, and it’s set in our present day, but in a fictional resort called Vermillion Sands.
Vermillion Sands feels like a decadent playground for the rich, which also features the many kinds of parasites that live off the wealthy. It’s also an artist and expat colony. We don’t know its location, but it feels like Palm Springs, California. Many worldly travelers come and go there.
“The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D” was my first introduction to J. G. Ballard back in the 1960s. Other stories from that setting make up the series, collected into Vermillion Sands.
“Prima Belladonna” (Science Fantasy, December 1956)
“Venus Smiles” (Science Fantasy, June 1957)
“Studio 5, the Stars” (Science Fantasy, February 1961)
“The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista” (Amazing Stories, March 1962)
“The Singing Statues” (Fantastic Stories, July 1962) (not in original collection)
“The Screen Game” (Fantastic Stories, October 1963)
“Cry Hope, Cry Fury!” (F&SF, October 1967)
“The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D” (F&SF, December 1967)
“Say Goodbye to the Wind” (Fantastic, August 1970)
Wikipedia provides an excellent overview of the stories, highlighting that each dealt with a different artistic medium being affected by technology.
When I first read “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D” as a teen, it felt very grown-up to me. The characters were the kinds of people I met growing up in Miami, not the typical heroes of science fiction stories I spent so much time reading. It never occurred to me to think of the story as fantasy, but it didn’t seem like science fiction either. At the time, I was just discovering British science fiction writers like Brian Aldiss and John Brunner and the New Wave SF. The stories were set in the present or near future and took place on Earth. No rockets or robots. Was this actual science fiction?
“The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D” is about a band of glider pilots who shape clouds with silver iodide. At first, their audience and patrons are people who park their cars along the lagoon road to watch. Eventually, the Garbo-like Leonora Chanel hires them to perform for her party. Sculpting clouds is a neat idea, but far from realistic. Does that make the story science fiction? Ballard does throw in a creature called sand rays, which I suppose are like manta rays that live under the sand instead of the sea. Do they make the story a fantasy?
Science fiction has often been the dumping ground for any kind of weird story that can’t be classified. The Vermillion Sands stories would have been rejected by mainstream and literary magazines. They fit nicely in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. They were also published in the British magazine Science Fantasy and the American Fantastic. Only one was published in a straight-ahead science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. I doubt John W. Campbell would have accepted them in Astounding or Analog. Nor would he have published them in Unknown. I wonder if Rod Serling would have used “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D” for The Twilight Zone?
I’m not fond of traditional fantasy, and many of the stories in The Best Fantasy from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction aren’t enjoyable for me to read. But I did enjoy “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D.” The story has a pleasant, surreal feel. The setting is very close to this world, but just a smidge off. I love the artist colony atmosphere, the hint of decadence, the ever-so-slight sense of unreality. The story combines barnstorming, carny folks, and the ugly rich. I visualize it as a cross between early Faulkner and Fellini.
The shortest description would be to say the story has atmosphere.
YouTuber Michael K. Vaughan is promoting Rocket Summer 2025. It’s a reading challenge for fans of classic science fiction. During July, various YouTubers will review classic science fiction novels, asking their viewers to read along. They are dividing the month into four weeks:
Week 1: Books published before 1940
Week 2: Books from the 1940s
Week 3: Books from the 1950s
Week 4: Books from the 1960s
Each YouTuber will select their own titles to read. Here’s Vaughan’s video introducing the books he wants to read.
Links to other YouTubers participating in Rocket Summer 2025 are listed under this video on YouTube. Check them out to find a reviewer that’s reading books you’d also like to read.
Here’s the Rocket Summer 2025 video from Vintage SF (Richard Rempel). He’s proposing four books for each week, allowing his viewers to vote and select the one he will review. The first week’s poll is up now.
Here are other YouTuber videos to watch. Not every YouTuber participating in Rocket Summer 2025 has created their video yet. I’ll update this page as I discover them.
I’m going to read along, but I haven’t decided on which books I’ll read for each week of Rocket Summer 2025
I don’t read many science fiction novels nowadays. I prefer SF short stories. I just don’t read as many books as I used to. However, after my friend Laurie told me about The Last Astronaut by David Wellington, I decided to give it a try. The Last Astronaut is the kind of science fiction thriller that Michael Crichton used to write — fast pace, lots of physical action, and basically fun. The Last Astronaut reminded me how entertaining reading a novel used to be. I wouldn’t call it great, but it does have that page-turning quality.
Now I do have some things to say about it, but what I have to say is full of spoilers. I recommend you go read the novel and then come back here, if you can remember. The Last Astronaut made me think about how science fiction novels change over the years, and how each generation retells old themes in new ways.
The Last Astronaut is about a Big Dumb Object. That’s the official name of a specific science fiction plot device. When I started reading The Last Astronaut, I immediately thought of Rendezvous with Rama. In 2020, The Last Astronaut was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Wikipedia even says, “Edward Guimont and Horace A. Smith propose that the origins of the Big Dumb Object trope can be found in H. P. Lovecraft’s novellas At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time, both of which feature human expeditions to immense ancient alien cities in remote parts of our world, and both of which were early influences upon Arthur C. Clarke.”
Funny that they mention H. P. Lovecraft. Because I also thought of Lovecraft while reading The Last Astronaut. Wellington’s novel features horror. Horror like the film Alien, but also horror like Lovecraft’s monstrous alien gods.
The setting, inside the vast alien spacecraft, is dark. Having a story set almost completely in darkness reminded me of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson.
I’m finally reminded of another story/movie, Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov, along with “Finisterra” by David Moles. This last reminder should give you one huge clue to what’s happening in The Last Astronaut. But I did warn you about spoilers.
My point in this essay is that science fiction is seldom original anymore. The Last Astronaut feels like David Wellington took several of his favorite science fiction themes and blended them into a new SF novel. It succeeds well. I had a lot of problems with the characters because I felt their psychological motivations were too contrived. However, Wellington does use those contrived motivations to wrap up his novel. The ending does make sense and is satisfying.
I was entertained by how Wellington told his story. Wellington places himself in the book as an author in the future, writing a historical novel, but a history that hasn’t happened yet. It’s amusing that one of his characters criticizes the future Wellington for getting his facts wrong. Since we know the story is based on history, there are clues as to who survives and who doesn’t. The audiobook is especially nice because they rig up the audio so that interviews of characters taken after events sound different.
In the 40s and 50s, science fiction writers aimed to create new ideas and themes, but their stories were told without sophistication. In the 60s and 70s, SF writers added literary techniques to their stories. In the 80s and 90s, SF writers upped the ante by going epic. Hyperion is a great example. In the 21st century, SF writers have had to constantly find new ways to tell stories that have already been told.
If you haven’t read old science fiction, new science fiction seems novel. If you have read old science fiction, new science fiction feels recycled. That’s not a bad thing, but it makes the stories feel baroque when you cram so many old ideas into one story. Wellington does streamline his novel, so it feels action-packed like old science fiction. In some ways, his storytelling is as speedy as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories or pulp fiction.
Ray Bradbury published hundreds of short stories over and over again in various collections. Bradbury and his publishers often repackaged his stories into new collections or reprinted older collections with a slightly different lineup of stories. Ray Bradbury’s bibliography at ISFDB.org is so confusing that we’ve decided to select those collections that will provide the most stories by buying the fewest books.
Mike, the programmer for the Classics of Science Fiction website, coded several programs to find the right combinations of Bradbury collections that would give the widest selection of stories to read. The permutations turned out to be excessively large, so we simplified the procedure.
Our solution was to pick the collection that provided the most Bradbury stories. Then add a second collection that provides the most additional stories not in the first collection. Then add the third collection that contributes the next most additional stories, not in the previous two. And so on. Study the table, and the technique will become obvious.
Here are the twenty-five collections we used. We only used collections that are in print, either in hardback, paperback, e-book, or audiobook. Hyperlinks are to Amazon affiliate links.
I have not been writing blogs or reading for a couple of weeks. I lost the habit of reading and writing because of a house guest, many visitors, and a more active social life. However, tonight I felt a wistful urge to read a short story. I chose “The Whole Town’s Sleeping” by Ray Bradbury. It was the first story in Ray Bradbury Stories. You can read a PDF copy online here. “The Whole Town’s Sleeping” is not science fiction or fantasy. And I wouldn’t call it horror, although its purpose is to scare. “The Whole Town’s Sleeping” was published in three magazines, McCall’s (1950), Argosy (1951), and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (1954), indicating its wide appeal. Finally, the story was incorporated into the fixup novel Dandelion Wine in 1957.
For me, “The Whole Town’s Sleeping” was pure nostalgia. It’s a story that made me think about memory and writing. Sure, Bradbury is trying to tell a scary story, like those he heard camping in the woods, but he’s also remembering his past.
Although the story came out in 1950, “The Whole Town’s Sleeping” is set much earlier, in the era of Bradbury’s youth, because Lavinia, Francine, and Helen go to the theater to see a Charlie Chaplin film. That unnamed film could have been Monsieur Verdoux from 1947, but the story’s mood makes me think it might be The Circus (1928) or City Lights (1931). Bradbury was born in 1920, the same year my father was born. I was born in 1951. It feels nostalgic to the small towns I lived in in the 1950s, but it would have been nostalgic to readers in 1950.
Many of Bradbury’s stories were inspired by his youth growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, which he later fictionalized as Green Town. I believe those little towns I lived in hadn’t changed much in twenty years. Back then, I remember walking with my friends to the theater and talking to people sitting on their porches, which made me identify with the story. I remember walking alone along deserted streets late at night like Lavenia and having the same fears as she did.
My past includes living in small towns where all the stores were set on the square or along Main Street, with all the connecting streets occupied by homes. I had a hard time visualizing the ravine that divides Green Town. Although I do remember living in a little town divided by a small lake. It had a tiny waterfall, which scared me at age nine.
There’s not much I want to say about “The Whole Town’s Sleeping,” because I want to talk about reading. Often in my life, I’ve substituted reading for living. There are times when life is uneventful, so reading is exciting. Life experiences are superior to reading, but idle times are great for reading.
However, there are times when life is full, and I wish I were idle reading. We have two worlds to live in, reality and fantasy. Ray Bradbury created a fantasy world for us to enjoy, and it’s fascinating to think about how and why he did that. On one hand, he’s given us a simple story built to scare us. We even know he’s doing it. Readers know the ending will shock them, but we didn’t know how Bradbury would pull it off. It’s the kind of story that we watched on the old TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (It’s even reprinted in one of Hitchcock’s anthologies.)
But that’s only one level. Fiction usually works on multiple levels. Bradbury also works to describe the past, his past, in the kind of detail that will trigger memories in his readers. And there’s a level beyond that which Bradbury entertains us. It’s the writing.
I have had several intense experiences over the last two weeks. They will stay locked in my head because we seldom share intense experiences. If I were a writer, I would write a story about them. That story might even be read by readers who have had similar experiences.
Isn’t that what Ray Bradbury is doing? Do we read to learn about Bradbury’s experiences, or do we read to remember our own?
Often, we use fiction to escape from boredom. But doesn’t fiction work best when it triggers something inside us? When life is full, I shouldn’t crave reading, but I do. Why? Is reading an essential nutrient of the soul that causes us to fall ill if it goes lacking?
I wish I could fictionalize my experiences so I could understand them. Maybe because I don’t, I read other people’s efforts instead.
I’ve been getting back into Ray Bradbury again. I loved The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man when I was young, but then I forgot about Ray Bradbury for a long time. I came late to Fahrenheit 451, and I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I loved the Truffaut film more than the book. In 2015, I reread The Martian Chronicles. I was dazzled. Yet again, I quickly moved on. Bradbury has a sweet quality that I can’t overindulge.
However, over the last five years, I’ve been gorging on science fiction short stories, and I’ve been surprised by how often his stories show up in anthologies. Then, a few weeks ago, I read The Bradbury Chronicles, a biography of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller. Bradbury’s life was riveting, inspiring me to read more of his work. According to the Library of Congress, Bradbury published over 600 short stories. According to the Weller biography, by the late 1940s, Bradbury was writing and publishing a short story a week.
Piet Nel sent me a spreadsheet with 375 stories from all of Bradbury’s major collection. Piet also said, “Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction, by Eller & Touponce (2004), has a comprehensive story list, compiled with academic rigor, up to 2002. It runs to about 400 stories.” So, it’s hard to reconcile the 600 number from the Library of Congress. Piet also sent me the link to Phil Nichols’ site and his Short Story Finder.
Piet also emailed me this comment, which I will quote:
I think it's quite simple. If you read everything collected up to and including 1980, I think you've read as much Bradbury as all but serious experts need to read. The later collections get progressively weaker and the last ones are mostly leftovers. In saying all that, I am referring to the short fiction only. I've never liked the late detective novels because, for me, they seem a bit Nancy Drew-ish.
The short course is simply to read The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980), which is more essential than Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Essential Tales.
The intermediate course is to read The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, The Golden Apples of the Sun, The October Country, Dandelion Wine (a disguised story collection), A Medicine for Melancholy, The Machineries of Joy, R Is for Rocket (without duplicates), S Is for Space (without duplicates), I Sing the Body Electric!, Long After Midnight, and The Stories of Ray Bradbury (again without duplicates, which leaves about five stories).
Piet Nel, in our short story reading group, created this graph showing the stories in The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories (peach 1-32) and A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories (blue-gray 33-63). Those two collections reprinted many of the stories in the four previous collections (orange, blue, red, green). The numbers in the four earlier collections are the story’s position in the table of contents.
I told my friend Mike, a computer programmer, and he decided that comparing the collections of Ray Bradbury’s short stories is an interesting programming problem.
It all depends on what you want.
All of his stories – would buying all his collections do that?
The best stories – who knows how many collections.
The fewest collections with the least duplicates.
Just science fiction?
Maybe add fantasy?
Just the literary works. Mysteries.
Just in ebook, or audiobook, or in print?
Mike might make this an interactive program if enough people are interested, but for now, he’s just testing the idea by generating reports. Here’s the latest one showing 30 of 1003 combinations generated so far.
As you can see, we’re only working with a handful of his collections, and the maximum number of stories is 256.
------------------------------------------------------- Group 1
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 256 Total duplicate stories: 100 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 2
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 8: S is for Space 9: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 256 Total duplicate stories: 116 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 3
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 8: R is for Rocket 9: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 256 Total duplicate stories: 117 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 4
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 8: R is for Rocket 9: S is for Space 10: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 256 Total duplicate stories: 133 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 5
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: R is for Rocket 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 253 Total duplicate stories: 88
Group 4 stories that are not in Group 5: En la Noche The Murderer Sun and Shadow ------------------------------------------------------- Group 6
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: R is for Rocket 8: S is for Space 9: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 253 Total duplicate stories: 104 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 7
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 252 Total duplicate stories: 75
Group 6 stories that are not in Group 7: Christus Apollo Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds The Lost City of Mars One Timeless Spring
Group 7 stories that are not in Group 6: En la Noche The Murderer Sun and Shadow ------------------------------------------------------- Group 8
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 252 Total duplicate stories: 91 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 9
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: R is for Rocket 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 252 Total duplicate stories: 92 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 10
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: R is for Rocket 8: S is for Space 9: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 252 Total duplicate stories: 108 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 11
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 251 Total duplicate stories: 85
Group 10 stories that are not in Group 11: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Group 11 stories that are not in Group 10: Christus Apollo Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds The Lost City of Mars One Timeless Spring ------------------------------------------------------- Group 12
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 251 Total duplicate stories: 101 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 13
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: R is for Rocket 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 251 Total duplicate stories: 102 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 14
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: R is for Rocket 8: S is for Space 9: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 251 Total duplicate stories: 107
Group 13 stories that are not in Group 14: The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away
Group 14 stories that are not in Group 13: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man ------------------------------------------------------- Group 15
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: R is for Rocket 8: S is for Space 9: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 251 Total duplicate stories: 118
Group 14 stories that are not in Group 15: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Group 15 stories that are not in Group 14: The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away ------------------------------------------------------- Group 16
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 250 Total duplicate stories: 74
Group 15 stories that are not in Group 16: En la Noche Here There Be Tygers The Murderer R is for Rocket Sun and Shadow The Time Machine
Group 16 stories that are not in Group 15: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man ------------------------------------------------------- Group 17
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 250 Total duplicate stories: 90 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 18
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 250 Total duplicate stories: 91
Group 17 stories that are not in Group 18: The Gift The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away
Group 18 stories that are not in Group 17: En la Noche Here There Be Tygers The Murderer R is for Rocket Sun and Shadow The Time Machine ------------------------------------------------------- Group 19
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Illustrated Man 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: R is for Rocket 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 249 Total duplicate stories: 63
Group 18 stories that are not in Group 19: Christus Apollo Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds En la Noche The Lost City of Mars The Murderer One Timeless Spring Sun and Shadow
Group 19 stories that are not in Group 18: The Gift The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away ------------------------------------------------------- Group 20
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Illustrated Man 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: R is for Rocket 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 249 Total duplicate stories: 79 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 21
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: R is for Rocket 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 248 Total duplicate stories: 73
Group 20 stories that are not in Group 21: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Group 21 stories that are not in Group 20: Christus Apollo Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds The Lost City of Mars One Timeless Spring ------------------------------------------------------- Group 22
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: R is for Rocket 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 248 Total duplicate stories: 78
Group 21 stories that are not in Group 22: The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away
Group 22 stories that are not in Group 21: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man ------------------------------------------------------- Group 23
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: R is for Rocket 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 248 Total duplicate stories: 89
Group 22 stories that are not in Group 23: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Group 23 stories that are not in Group 22: The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away ------------------------------------------------------- Group 24
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: R is for Rocket 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 248 Total duplicate stories: 94
Group 23 stories that are not in Group 24: Chrysalis Come Into My Cellar The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender Pillar of Fire The Time of Going Away
Group 24 stories that are not in Group 23: The Concrete Mixer En la Noche Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Murderer The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man Sun and Shadow ------------------------------------------------------- Group 25
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 247 Total duplicate stories: 60
Group 24 stories that are not in Group 25: Christus Apollo The Concrete Mixer Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Lost City of Mars One Timeless Spring The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Group 25 stories that are not in Group 24: Chrysalis Come Into My Cellar The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender Pillar of Fire The Time of Going Away ------------------------------------------------------- Group 26
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: S is for Space 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 247 Total duplicate stories: 76 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 27
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: R is for Rocket 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 247 Total duplicate stories: 77 ------------------------------------------------------- Group 28
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories 5: The Illustrated Man 6: The Martian Chronicles 7: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 247 Total duplicate stories: 78
Group 27 stories that are not in Group 28: Chrysalis Come Into My Cellar The Gift The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender Pillar of Fire The Time of Going Away
Group 28 stories that are not in Group 27: Christus Apollo The Concrete Mixer Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Lost City of Mars One Timeless Spring The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man ------------------------------------------------------- Group 29
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Illustrated Man 5: The Martian Chronicles 6: R is for Rocket 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 247 Total duplicate stories: 82
Group 28 stories that are not in Group 29: Christus Apollo Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds The Lost City of Mars One Timeless Spring
Group 29 stories that are not in Group 28: Chrysalis Come Into My Cellar The Gift Pillar of Fire ------------------------------------------------------- Group 30
1: Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales 2: Driving Blind 3: The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories 4: The Martian Chronicles 5: A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 6: R is for Rocket 7: S is for Space 8: The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Total unique stories: 247 Total duplicate stories: 93
Group 29 stories that are not in Group 30: The Concrete Mixer Epilogue (The Illustrated Man) The Highway The Other Foot Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Group 30 stories that are not in Group 29: The Headpiece In a Season of Calm Weather The Little Mice The Marriage Mender The Time of Going Away -------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday I read “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College” by James D. Walsh, which was quite eye-opening. AI programs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have made a massive and immediate impact on K-12 and high education. This essay is already being widely discussed. It says students are using AI to do their homework and that teachers have practically given in.
The essay is worth reading carefully, especially if you’re a parent, educator, or science fiction writer. I don’t think I’ve read a single science fiction story that’s even come close to imagining what’s happening today.
Try extrapolating this trend into the future.
Since the 17th century and the advent of public education, society has been working to develop a curriculum that defines a basic, well-rounded education. The way students use AI today throws all of this out the door. They want to rely on AI to know what needs to be known and use AI to get what they want.
In essence, school kids are making themselves into cyborgs. But what happened to the Borg when they were cut off from the Hive Mind?
The article profiled one kid who is using AI to invent ways to create wearable AI believing that someday that AI access will just be embedded in our heads. That has come up in science fiction before. But I’m not sure if any writer imagined how intelligent the human part would be on its own.
As the article points out, education isn’t about stuffing kids with knowledge. Education is about learning how to think and process information. AI bypasses that.
The article also implies we’ll never put the genie back in the bottle, so we’ll need to adapt. What we need is a science fiction novel that explores such adaptation on the level of Nineteen Eighty-Four or The Handmaid’s Tale. We need to imagine where this is going.
I don’t use AI to write my blogs, but I do use the realtime spelling and grammar checker that’s built into Microsoft Edge. Then I use the free version of Grammarly, but in a weird way. The free Grammarly constantly offers to rewrite my sentences but only if I pay them $129 a year. With the free version, it only shows me a blurred version of what it proposes. Because I’m too cheap to buy the full version of Grammarly, I just keep rewriting my sentences until Grammarly stops trying to sell itself to me.
I’m wondering if even that much AI help is bad for me. I could turn off all of Edge’s writing tools and depend solely on my own knowledge. I’d need to carefully proof everything I write and look up everything that looks suspicious. Of course, that means I need to know when something is wrong.
Advocates of AI in education claim that AI will offer every student their own personal tutor. And that’s probably a good thing. But tutors teach. I would probably be better helped by a program that just crosses out problems but gives me no solutions.
One of the insights I gained from reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is standout successful people like Tiger Woods or Mozart achieved their great successes by early intervention of their fathers. That people who find a mentor or tutor early in life have a far better chance of achieving a major success.
In the Walsh article, one of the students profiled eventually dropped out of Columbia. He ended up inventing several programs and companies by using AI. That shows you can still succeed without getting a traditional education. However, most of what he created helped students cheat with AI. Would you want a tax accountant who skipped school and based their expertise on AI?
If students are going to cheat their way through the standard education system, why keep our current education system? Do kids need all twelve years of grammar and secondary education? Do they need four years of college?
Can any science fiction writer imagine what adults will be like in the 2040s who grew up with using AI in school in the 2020s? Science fiction has often imagined AI taking over human civilization. Has any writer imagined a symbiotic civilization based on human-AI cyborgs?
“A Two-Timer” by David I. Masson (New Worlds 159, February 1966) (Amazon)
Back in the sixties, in high school, my friends and I would argue endlessly over science fiction short stories. We didn’t remember them by their title or author, but by whatever neat idea they imagined. I still remember my friend George telling Connell and me about a humorous short story, where a human crewed military spaceship tries to get cooperation from a human colony world where the social norms and economy were wacky. The colonists kept telling the crew “myob” to everything asked. I didn’t learn until years later that this was a famous story by Eric Frank Russell called “… And Then There Were None.” Another story George told us was about an Earthman who fell in love with a girl, and she wanted him to tell him he loved her. But the guy didn’t want to use such a trite phrase, so he left Earth and went all over the galaxy to learn about the preciseness of language. Eventually, he returns to the girl and says, “My dear, I’m rather fond of you.” Of course, the girl was hugely disappointed and rejected the guy. When the guy told his language guru what happened, the guru said, “Lucky devil, vaguely enjoyable was the best I could ever find.” I didn’t discover until decades later that it was “The Language of Love” by Robert Sheckley.”
The point of all this was that we judged science fiction solely on the ideas in the stories, not the plot, characterization, or writing. George read the most and was the best at retelling a story. I think he mainly read anthologies. I read anthologies and magazines. I was more into neat inventions. For example, I told them about the ecologariums in “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany. Connell and I loved Mindswap by Sheckley, and we told everyone about the Theory of Searches. We worked at the Kwik Chek in Coconut Grove, Florida. At the time, its park was a gathering place for would-be hippies. The odds of meeting someone you knew from all over Dade County were increased if you came to the park on Saturdays. That fit Sheckley’s idea that there were optimal places to go if you were searching for someone.
The last three stories we read for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Facebook group were all idea stories, the kind my buddies and I would have discussed at Connell’s house on Vista Ct.
“The Certificate” by Avram Davidson is a tight little story about alien invaders who take complete control over humanity, making us their slaves. The aliens create a vast bureaucracy that’s impossible to fight. The aliens also punish us severely if we don’t cooperate. To make matters worse, they have altered us so we heal immediately, so they can torture us over and over again.
The story’s protagonist is Dr. Roger Freeman, who desperately wants a new winter coat. To apply for one involves going through an obstacle course that takes years. But Freeman is finessing the system.
Back in high school, this story would have caused us to argue about how we’d overthrow those aliens. Being young guys, we’d probably claim to know how to start a rebellion, even though Davidson sets up the story to suggest no rebellion is possible. When I read this story this week, the idea didn’t appeal to me much. The story is well-written, with an O. Henry surprise ending. However, it doesn’t offer anything to me as an older reader.
“To See the Invisible Man” by Robert Silverberg seems like a reply to Damon Knight’s classic short story, “Country of the Kind.” Like the Knight story, Silverberg sets up a society with a unique liberal form of punishment. The unnamed first-person narrator is sentenced to a year of invisibility for being cold and detached. He’s not actually made invisible. He’s just branded on the forehead, so anyone who sees him should act like he doesn’t exist. The story is about the psychological changes this character undergoes during the year. The narrator learns that he can steal whatever he wants or visit women’s locker rooms and be completely ignored. But he gets lonely, even desperate for someone to talk to. Silverberg takes us to a different place in his story. His character rebels in a different way by being compassionate.
My buddies and I would have had a lot to say about this story, with each of us coming up with how to handle the punishment. We’d probably argued over whether or not we’d go into the women’s locker room. I would have said that my solution would have been to read science fiction for a year. We did know of “Country of the Kind,” so we would have compared the two, but only about what the two criminals did, not about the writing, plotting, or characterization. Science fiction was about setting up a situation that you could argue over.
“To See the Invisible Man” is a good story. It’s tightly told, immediate, and works. However, it is not nearly as dramatic as “Country of the Kind,” and thus won’t be as memorable.
There’s little likelihood we would have read “A Two-Timer” by David I. Masson in the 1960s because it came out in a British SF magazine. Also, the idea behind this story is probably too subtle for three teenage boys in the 1960s. Joe, the narrator, is a guy from 1683 who steals a time machine and visits 1964. Of course, he doesn’t know it’s a time machine when he discovers it, or comprehends the idea of time travel. He just sees a guy walk away from a weird enclosed chair. He gets in and sees all kinds of dials and buttons labeled with words he doesn’t understand. He pushes a button and goes to 1964. Eventually, Joe figures out how the machine travels in time and space, like the DeLorean in Back to the Future.
The real point of this story is Joe, with his Middle English mind, describing 1964 to the reader. That might have entertained us back in the sixties, but I’m not sure. Old man me, found it very creative. There’s little action in the story. The piece is Masson’s playground for showing off his knowledge about language and history. Present-day me was disappointed that Joe wasn’t inspired to explore time based on his 17th-century knowledge.
I’m getting old and jaded. I find it hard to discover science fiction that thrills me in the remaining years of my life. I’ve loved reading science fiction magazines my whole life, but most of the stories were aimed at readers like my younger self. Masson’s exploration of language is more ambitious and mature than the other two stories, but Masson built his story on a lame plot.
Even though I’ve been reading science fiction for over sixty years, I still want to find stories that thrill me to the same degree as I was at 13. I’m not sure that’s even possible. Breakthrough science fiction novels like Hyperion are rare. But it’s interesting to note that Hyperion would have been a novel that thrilled me and my high school science fiction buddies.
Obviously, many of the stories that wowed me as I grew older would have also thrilled the younger me. For example, “Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly or “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress.
On the other hand, would “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang have inspired our younger selves? We would have avidly talked about translating an alien language, but would we have appreciated the advanced plotting and exceptional writing?
And could we have appreciated “Loneliness Universe” by Eugenia Triantafyllou without having lived through the social media era? Or could my younger self appreciate “Two Truths and a Lie” by Sarah Pinsker, which moved my older self? Wasn’t I mainly moved by the writing? I’m not sure high school Jim could have.
What if we could have read “Press ENTER ■” by John Varley in 1966? Would it blow us kids away like it did me in 1984? Did we need to understand computers and know about the technological singularity first?
I have to assume certain stories in the 1960s were relevant because of my age and current events. That’s why Dangerous Visions was exciting in 1969 but painful to read last year.
I keep looking for old science fiction I missed back then that will thrill me as much now as it would have thrilled me back when — if I had discovered it when I was young. One such book was The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis. The trouble is, I think George, Connell, and I would have all thought that story was dull. Isn’t that novel better for the old and jaded?
I need to find cutting-edge science fiction for today that would have thrilled me as a 13-year-old but also a 73-year-old.
By the way, my 1964 self expected a much different 2025 than the one I live in now. There are many nonfiction books about current affairs that, if I could send to my 1964 self, would read more like science fiction than science fiction.
My library constantly discards science fiction from its holdings. I know that because I see those books in the Friends of the Library book sale stamped DISCARD. Often, they are books I would consider SF blasts from the past. Evidently, if they aren’t checked out for a certain period, they get discarded. I used to believe libraries were supposed to preserve the past, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.
But that’s not my only clue that science fiction has a shelf life. At the used bookstore I visit every week I see the same old books week after week – no one is buying them. It’s the newer books that come and go so quickly.
For years now, I’ve been watching people review science fiction books on YouTube. I can sense that many authors and their books are falling out favor over time. A major example is Robert A. Heinlein. When I was growing up, he was considered the #1 science fiction author. He was my favorite SF writer. I still love his books published before 1960, but the ones after that haven’t aged well with me. Reviewers generally pan Heinlein nowadays. I often see critical comments about Heinlein on Facebook. He’s just not popular anymore. I see many of his books at the used bookstore, but only a couple at the new bookstore.
Whitney at the YouTube channel Secret Sauce of Storycraft has been reviewing old Hugo winning novels by decades. She didn’t like over half of the winners. Five of the ten (The Wanderer, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, This Immortal, and Lord of Light) have stopped working for me too.
If I gave the Hugo Award now for the 1960s, my list would be:
1960 – STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert A. Heinlein
1961 – ROGUE MOON by Algis Budrys ( for A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ)
1962 – STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert A. Heinlein
1963 – THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Philip K. Dick
1964 – THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH by Walter Tevis (for WAY STATION)
1965 – THE MARTIAN TIME-SLIP by Philip K. Dick (for THE WANDERER)
1966 – DUNE by Frank Herbert
1967 – FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON by Daniel Keyes (THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS)
1968 – no award
1969 – STAND ON ZANZIBAR by John Brunner
I thought there would be hundreds of science fiction books that would be Hugo worthy from the 1960s, but there weren’t. I used CSFquery.com and ISFDB.org to look at each year 1960-1969 and there just was’t that many older books that’s being read today that people still admire.
I love A Canticle for Leibowitz still, but it’s a fixup novel, and I mostly love it for the first story. And reviewers aren’t as wowed as they used to be for it. I kept Stranger on the list even though I no longer like it, because it’s so ambitious for the times, and historically, it is the standout novel of the year. I love Way Station, but I don’t think people still read it much. The Man Who Fell to Earth has grown in popularity since 1963. The Martian Time-Slip is way better than The Wanderer, and people still read it. I definitely think Flowers for Algernon has aged better than Mistress. I’d give No Award over Lord of Light, or any other novel I remember from 1967.
All the books on my list are in print, and all are available as audiobooks. That’s a good indicator that they are still being read.
I was shocked by how few science fiction books from the 1960s I still admire. Twelve years ago I wrote a series about the best SF books from each decade. Looking at my essay for the 1960s shows damn few books that people still read.
I remember back in the 1960s when old guys would gush about E. E. “Doc” Smith books from the 1920s and 1930s. I tried them, and they were horrible. I guess today’s young readers would feel the same about most of the books I loved back in the 1960s. Is anyone still reading Keith Laumer, John Boyd, Mack Reynolds, A. Bertram Chandler, etc.
What are the best science fiction books from the 1960s that you still read and think young people should try?
You might like to read An Information History of the Hugo Awards by Jo Walton. This was first published at Tor.com and many of the comments from readers are included.
Classics of Science Fiction 