Posted on by jameswharris · 3 Comments

How Many Ray Bradbury Short Stories Do You Want to Read?

by James Wallace Harris, 5/12/25

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).

After that, it's expert level.

I just don’t want to read that many Ray Bradbury stories. I just want to read his best stories, but I’m unsure which ones are the best. I’m partial to his science fiction stories, but I’m willing to read any type as long as they are among his best. I started listening to Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories, and my response varied significantly. I own copies of Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales and The Stories of Ray Bradbury, but they aren’t available on audio at Audible.com. Since I want audio editions, I will buy A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories next. After that, I’m not sure.

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
-------------------------------------------------------

Posted on by jameswharris · 12 Comments

My Changing Attitudes Towards Science Fiction Over a Lifetime

“The Gift” by Ray Bradbury – illustration Esquire Magazine, Dec. 1952

When I was young, science fiction was all about sense of wonder. This was back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I didn’t even know the phrase science fiction – I was just mesmerized by the images of rockets and space travel. Science fiction was rare shows I’d stumbleupon on television. We think we can remember what it’s like to be a child, but we can’t because we have a lifetime of words and concepts that children don’t have. Remember when you thought you could fly?

Then in 1961, when I was in the fifth grade I discovered Tom Swift Jr., Danny Dunn, and Oz books. This was just after the first Project Mercury mission. I also found nonfiction books about planes, rockets, and space, all at the Homestead Air Force Base Library. I knew more then, but didn’t really understand the concept of science. I recently read “People Soup” by Alan Arkin (yes, that Alan Arkin) in which he perfectly captured the attitude of ten-year-olds have towards science. Science and technology was magic that was real, and at ten I had unlimited faith in what science could do. So did Bob and Bonnie in Arkin’s story.

I’m not sure how aware of the world I was at age ten. I assume my vocabulary had grown since the late 1950s but was still quite small, and without the words to anchor ideas I’m not sure how much I could have understood conceptually about the science fiction I was consuming. Like I said, I didn’t even know that the fictional books, TV shows, and movies were even categorized by genre labels. Probably my awe and wonder was akin to ancient Greek children listening to the adventures of gods and goddesses. Isn’t it tragic that we believe the strongest in the fantasies we first encountered as children?

Then in the fall of 1964 I had an English teacher who gave me a recommended reading list. I was also taking science and math classes, and I loved reading popular science books. Still, I’m not sure how well I understood the concepts of science. That reading list included the writer Robert A. Heinlein, and I found his book Red Planet. I loved that novel and it inspired me to read astronomy books, especially books about Mars. It was then I knew I wanted to go to Mars in the same way Kip Russell wanted to go to the Moon in Have Space Suit-Will Travel.

By now I was in the eighth grade and my school was preparing us to think about the future of jobs, careers, and colleges. I knew immediately I wanted to become an astronaut. Within a year I had read most of what Heinlein had written, and his books were often inspirational about ambition, studying science, and space exploration. Then I read a career guide which gave the requirements for different kinds of jobs. I learned that astronauts needed 20-20 vision. I was devastated because I was a four-eyed nerd. After that I gave up considering careers and became a hedonist. I wished I had discovered computers back then, which is what I eventually got into. For the rest of junior and senior high I had to attend school, but I only applied myself at having fun – mostly reading science fiction and listening to rock and roll music. I did dabble in girls and drugs, but lacked talent to really pursue them properly.

For many years I just coasted. My parents were alcoholics and my family went through a long period of painful times. I used science fiction to ignore real life. Science fiction actually made me happy in a time when I should have been miserable. I’m quite thankful for that. Science fiction was a kind of virtual reality, one in which I escaped.

Then in the twelfth grade (1968/69) I took a creative writing course. I thought maybe I could become a professional science fiction writer. I wanted to be a prophet of space exploration, evening knowing I’d be like Moses and never reach the promised land. At the time I really thought the purpose of science fiction was to promote manned space travel. By then Star Trek mania had arrived and it seem to legitimize the idea that the final frontier was humanity’s destiny. Well, I believed it. I was quite naive and didn’t realize that the majority of population didn’t. Most SF fans and non-fans knew science fiction was merely entertainment.

I graduated high school just a couple months before the first Moon landing. If asked in the summer of 1969, I would have strongly predicted Americans would be on Mars by the 1980s, and humans would have explored most of the solar system by the year 2000. I hoped some kind of interstellar drive would be discovered and we’d be on to the stars before I died in the middle of the 21st-century. As we know I was as cracked as my crystal ball.

By the end of the 1970s I was married and working at a university that I’d stay at until I retired in 2013. For forty years I waited for us to go to Mars and we never did. Plenty of people wanted to go, but not enough to influence the politics involved. The will of the people never pushed for expanding into space. The high point of this period was Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, and several other science fiction novels that tried to seriously imagine colonizing Mars. Then came Robert Zubrin’s nonfiction books, A Case for Mars. Our society had everything we needed to go to the red planet, we just didn’t want to go. I was a true believer in a religion that most people were atheists.

During the past 55 years I probably read close to two thousand science fiction books. I also read hundreds of popular science books. I slowly grew up and realized that space travel isn’t what I dreamed about as a kid. When I was young I would have sold my soul to become a space explorer. Now, you couldn’t pay me to go. Over the decades I slowly learned I didn’t have the right stuff, and never had. I hate being sick, and most people get space sick. I hate discomfort, and space travel is very uncomfortable. I won’t or can’t push myself to my limits. Even if they had allowed astronauts needing glasses back in the 1960s, I never could have gotten into the program. I’m a dreamer, not a doer.

Even though I came to realize I wasn’t suited for space travel, I still hoped that a branch of humanity would colonize the Moon and Mars, and eventually we’d find a way to the stars. Science fiction was still my religion. I put my faith in science fiction. I loved science fiction books that worked to imagine the full potential of the human race. By then I had given up on fun science fiction. I didn’t like Star Wars because it wasn’t realistic.

In the last ten years I’ve read many essays and books that suggest that human space exploration is probably not practical. To me, the most important science fiction novel of this era was Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson was one of a few science fiction writers who were considering the possibility we would never go to the stars. Oh, we’ll probably go to Mars someday. And we’ll develop bases on the Moon, but interstellar travel is about as likely as time travel. I’ve read many science books since 2000 that have added to the evidence against manned space travel.

If I tell young science fiction fans I don’t think it’s possible to go to the stars they get upset. The dream doesn’t die. Why? There’s something deep in that belief we don’t understand.

It’s not physically impossible to travel between the stars, but it’s just not probable or practical for humans. It might not even be practical for machines. My current science fiction faith is in artificial intelligence. Machines are perfect for space travel, but I’ve even begun to wonder if a superintelligent AI might find the distances too far to cross.

As my beliefs about science fiction grow more skeptical it’s became harder to enjoy science fiction. At least, enjoy it with the same attitude I had growing up. But I have a heavy science fiction habit. I know I need to either give up science fiction or find a new purpose for it.

After I discovered Audible.com in 2002, that purpose was nostalgia. I bought audiobook editions of all the science fiction books I loved reading during the previous forty years. I saw these stories in a new light. I was able to psychologically analyze my younger selves and realize a lifetime of delusional thinking.

I discovered science fiction had never been particularly serious to begin with. Sure, the final frontier true believers read science fiction, but most of them went on to become scientists and engineers. There was never much science to be learned in science fiction. If you really want humanity to explore space you need to become a rocket scientist or politician, not a science fiction fan or writer.

This brought about a new understanding of science fiction. It’s an art form. Sure, a rather minor art form. But I had invested a lifetime of studying this art and it was too late to take up another. My new attitude towards science fiction is studying its history. That makes me sometimes feels like an English major (which I was), and sometimes a scholar of religion or mythology. Other times, it feels like I’m an art historian. Science fiction writers craft stories, and a lot art and creativity goes into that craft.

My new attitude towards science fiction is admiring the craft of inventing science fictional ideas while embedding them into fiction. My reading has shifted away from novels. It just takes too much time to study novels, and there’s are too many SF novels to make a comprehensive study this late in life. I’ve found science fiction short stories to be just the right size to collect and analyze. I can read 300+ short stories a year. I have two bookcases of SF anthologies, mostly the annual best-of-the-year anthologies, but also lots of genre retrospective and theme anthologies. It’s a manageable amount of territory to explore, but I should probably specialize even more.

To get some idea of the scope of this microscopic patch of literary history read Mark R. Kelly’s site on SF anthologies. Now when I read a science fiction story I wonder how and why the author wrote it, and what readers could get out of it. I consider fiction a message in a bottle, from one lonely conscious mind to another. What are we really coding and decoding when we write and read science fiction?

I could live another ten, twenty, or even thirty years, although I tend to believe I’ll have a statistical average length of life. In any event, I might have enough time to change my mind one or more times about science fiction. I don’t think I can give it up. Years ago I saw a television news story about priests and preachers who have lost their faith. Many of them continued on in their jobs because it was too late to retrain. I’ve lost my faith in science fiction, but not my love. To keep that love going requires constantly repurposing my approach to the genre.

JWH