Ray Bradbury’s Bradbury: Novels and Story Cycles is a collection of the author’s more well known works, including the individual stories that make up one of his best known works The Martian Chronicles.
“Way in the Middle of the Air” covers race in the American south from the point of view of the setting. The language in this story includes arguably the most offensive of racial slurs, yet it serves as one of the excellent and poignant opportunities to read an anti-racist story from a legend of speculative fiction.
During the story, money and debt are used as a cudgel to make someone stay, and it is only by crowd sourcing funds that he is liberated. This is a fascinating yet believable little piece of storytelling that reminds readers of how modern capitalism and economics are used to victimize the less fortunate, particularly in regard to the problem of a group who are an economic and racial underclass. It is a wonderful story that reminds readers of the problems with the world then and now, though the frank and horrible language may make it hard for some.
“Usher II” is a more revenge fantasy style story, dealing with the question of censors and how to react, particularly given Bradbury worked in an era that included government censorship even in the west to a fairly noticeable degree.
It was a strange decision to include the Martian Chronicles story by story, but not any of the other Mars stories that were connected but not originally collected in book form. Given the omnibus nature of the work, these would seem quite appropriate additions. “The Other Foot” is a particularly appropriate lost piece which should have featured, due to being an excellent companion to “Way in the Dark Middle of the Air.”
Dandelion Wine is a stranger affair. A story of a boy living through a summer of adventures, as so many coming of age tales are, and another example of Bradbury knitting together a mixture of previous stories into a fairly coherent narrative. In many ways it is echoed in volumes like In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Lake Wobegon Days, feeling less like a supernatural epic, though those elements are occasionally hinted at in something of the style that would later be known as magical realism.
As expected from Library of America a number of excellent timelines and explanations of the texts round out this volume, as well as a number of essays by the famous author.
Bradbury: Novels and Story Cycles is easy to recommend to a wide variety of readers. Bradbury was an expert at the short story, and many of the works in this volume include some of his most famed tales. There is slice of life, crime, magic, sci-fi, and even more varied content. Anyone with an interest in the work of Ray Bradbury should check out this volume, as they will not find a better treatment of the contents within.
(Library of America, 2021)
