Ray Bradbury by Biography.Com Editors and A+E Networks, Adapted by Newsela Staff on 08.11.16 Word Count 668 Level 880L
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Questions to Accompany the Martian Chronicles
Questions to Accompany The Martian Chronicles Essential Questions: • What are the causes and effects of political turmoil in the novel The Martian Chronicles? • How do the main characters in the text and people in general make decisions based on both their political and ethical beliefs? • How do the conflicts in the texts mirror historical and modern political events? Guiding Questions: • Pay careful attention to “Rocket Summer”. What is the significance of the chapter and what is Bradbury’s intention by beginning the novel with that story? • Note the different reactions of Mr. K & Mrs. K to the newcomers. How do their decisions reflect their personalities and how do their personalities affect their decisions? At some point come back and decide whose action was correct—does it matter what their individual motives were? • Examine the Martian culture—how is it like human culture and how is it different? What can you determine the Martians value by looking at their attitudes, art, architecture, recreation, etc. What social commentary is Bradbury revealing here? • The 2nd expedition to Mars is also a failure. What do we as readers learn about humans and Martians from this chapter? What do we learn about our current society from this chapter? • The 3rd expedition fails as well. What does this chapter (along with the 2nd expedition) say about beliefs and logical reasoning? What are you more likely to believe, what you see to be true, what you think to be true, or what you know to be true? When do you change your mind? • In what way does the 4th expedition resemble the historical accounts of European explorers coming to the new world? Based on your understanding of historical events, do you think Spender’s actions are understandable? • Who do you blame for the Martians’’ fate? What were the choices that led to this outcome? Was there another way? • The settlers are coming. -
Sherwood Anderson and the Contemporary Short-Story Cycle Jennifer J. Smith
Sherwood Anderson and the Contemporary Short-Story Cycle Jennifer J. Smith Chapter Six, “Sherwood Anderson and the Contemporary Short Story Cycle,” draws on comparative analysis of contemporary authors who explicitly cite Anderson’s influence. This essay thereby establishes Winesburg, Ohio’s ongoing influence on fiction, particularly short-story cycles, including Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Russell Banks’s Trailerpark, Cathy Day’s The Circus in Winter, and Rebecca Barry’s Later, at the Bar. The chapter uses this premise in order to demonstrate how Winesburg cast the “the revolution of modernity,” as Anderson himself phrased it, in terms of a mode of literary expression invested in both realism and avant-garde practices. The short-story cycles by Bradbury, Banks, Day, and Barry extend the limits of realism and experimentation as they engage with the conventions of science fiction, myth, and postmodernism. The commonality of form, setting, and subject among these works ultimately position Winesburg as a pioneer in exploring the malleability of both genre and literary style. Three years before Ray Bradbury started working on the stories that would become The Martian Chronicles (1950), he read Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919). In the introduction to the revised 1997 edition, Bradbury claims that reading Anderson’s volume was a turning point in his own work: “It was Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio that set me free. Sometime in my twenty-fourth year, I was stunned by its dozen characters living their lives on half-lit porches and in sunless attics of that always autumn town. ‘Oh, Lord,’ I cried. -
Afrofuturism: the World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture
AFROFUTURISMAFROFUTURISM THE WORLD OF BLACK SCI-FI AND FANTASY CULTURE YTASHA L. WOMACK Chicago Afrofuturism_half title and title.indd 3 5/22/13 3:53 PM AFROFUTURISMAFROFUTURISM THE WORLD OF BLACK SCI-FI AND FANTASY CULTURE YTASHA L. WOMACK Chicago Afrofuturism_half title and title.indd 3 5/22/13 3:53 PM AFROFUTURISM Afrofuturism_half title and title.indd 1 5/22/13 3:53 PM Copyright © 2013 by Ytasha L. Womack All rights reserved First edition Published by Lawrence Hill Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, Incorporated 814 North Franklin Street Chicago, Illinois 60610 ISBN 978-1-61374-796-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism : the world of black sci-fi and fantasy culture / Ytasha L. Womack. — First edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61374-796-4 (trade paper) 1. Science fiction—Social aspects. 2. African Americans—Race identity. 3. Science fiction films—Influence. 4. Futurologists. 5. African diaspora— Social conditions. I. Title. PN3433.5.W66 2013 809.3’8762093529—dc23 2013025755 Cover art and design: “Ioe Ostara” by John Jennings Cover layout: Jonathan Hahn Interior design: PerfecType, Nashville, TN Interior art: John Jennings and James Marshall (p. 187) Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 I dedicate this book to Dr. Johnnie Colemon, the first Afrofuturist to inspire my journey. I dedicate this book to the legions of thinkers and futurists who envision a loving world. CONTENTS Acknowledgments .................................................................. ix Introduction ............................................................................ 1 1 Evolution of a Space Cadet ................................................ 3 2 A Human Fairy Tale Named Black .................................. -
Dark Images of Cyberpunk
Dark Images of Cyberpunk Carlo Savino 29 September 1995 With the publication of seminal works such as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, science fiction has always contained an appeal to the underground culture. Her gothic visions of human behavior became the inspiration for works such as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot series. Though the beginning emphasized utopian societies, science fiction progressed to include a future quite different from the present. Visions of flying ships, lasers, and travels to far off space colonies inundated these works. However, one subset of authors, such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Lewis Shiner, molded an entirely different genre of science fiction, placing more emphasis on the darker future of life on Earth. This work, later labeled "cyberpunk", brought with it a very bleak view of future societies and culture. The features of their style of writing, which include the masculinization of women, the perversion of technology, the oppressive descriptions of settings and life, and the negative characterizations of people, defined the notion of cyberpunk. Women have a certain status in cyberpunk, one that is very contrary to the current sociological expectations of them. Women in these societies have had to adapt to the environmental pressures put on them. They behave in an unconventional manner, as their sociological role dissolves any need for refinement and they must act and think as men would if they are to survive. Illustrations of this assertion abound. On an emotional level, women are portrayed as being very aggressive, both sexually and physically. One example of this can be found in Tom Maddox's Snake Eyes : Lizzie and George are described as "rubbing up against one another.. -
Readingblackout Adult Book List Afrofuturism (Science Fiction And
#ReadingBlackout Adult Book List Afrofuturism (Science Fiction and Fantasy) Lilith’s Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago by Octavia Butler ● Available through Hoopla and Overdrive. Xenogenesis trilogy. Acacia: The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham ● Available through Hoopla. First in a trilogy. Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson The Fifth Season: Every Age Must Come to an End by N.K. Jemisin ● Available on Overdrive. First in a trilogy. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor ● Available on Hoopla and Overdrive. First in a trilogy. Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi The Deep by Rivers Solomon The Sorceror of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson ● First in a two book series. Biography and Memoir The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullers & Asha Bandele Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston ● Available through Hoopla. This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins ● Available through Hoopla My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King Heavy: A Memoir by Kiese Laymon Unbowed by Wangari Maathai The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore ● Available through Overdrive Born a Crime by Trevor Noah A Promised Land by Barack Obama Becoming by Michelle Obama ● Available through Overdrive Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha D. -
Ray Bradbury”, National Endowment for the Arts
RRaayy BBrraaddbbuurryy 1 1 “Portrait by John Sherffius”, under “Audio & Video: Ray Bradbury”, National Endowment for the Arts, http://arts.endow.gov/av/video/bradbury/bradbury.html 091027 Bibliotheca Alexandrina Compiled by Rasha Mohsen Biography 1 Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. His father, Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, worked as a telephone lineman. His mother was Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury. Bradbury had older twin brothers, Leonard and Samuel, who were born in 1916, and a younger sister, Elizabeth, born in 1926.2 In 1934, the Bradbury family drove across the country to Los Angeles, with young Ray piling out of their jalopy at every stop to plunder the local library in search of L. Frank Baum's Oz books. In 1936, Bradbury joined a weekly Thursday-night conclave that would grow to attract such science-fiction legends as Robert A. Heinlein, Leigh Brackett, and future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. In 1947, Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure. They had met the previous April in Fowler Brothers Bookstore, where she worked—and where at first she had him pegged for a shoplifter: “Once I figured out that he wasn't stealing books, that was it. I fell for him”. 3 Ray Bradbury is best known for his highly imaginative science-fiction short stories and novels that blend social criticism with an awareness of the hazards of runaway technology. He published his first story in 1940 and was soon contributing widely to magazines. His first book of short stories, Dark Carnival (1947), was followed by The Martian Chronicles (1950), which is generally accounted a science-fiction classic in its depiction of materialistic Earthmen exploiting and corrupting an idyllic Martian civilization. -
Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics
Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics: A Topical Index Compiled by Andrew Fraknoi (U. of San Francisco, Fromm Institute) Version 7 (2019) © copyright 2019 by Andrew Fraknoi. All rights reserved. Permission to use for any non-profit educational purpose, such as distribution in a classroom, is hereby granted. For any other use, please contact the author. (e-mail: fraknoi {at} fhda {dot} edu) This is a selective list of some short stories and novels that use reasonably accurate science and can be used for teaching or reinforcing astronomy or physics concepts. The titles of short stories are given in quotation marks; only short stories that have been published in book form or are available free on the Web are included. While one book source is given for each short story, note that some of the stories can be found in other collections as well. (See the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, cited at the end, for an easy way to find all the places a particular story has been published.) The author welcomes suggestions for additions to this list, especially if your favorite story with good science is left out. Gregory Benford Octavia Butler Geoff Landis J. Craig Wheeler TOPICS COVERED: Anti-matter Light & Radiation Solar System Archaeoastronomy Mars Space Flight Asteroids Mercury Space Travel Astronomers Meteorites Star Clusters Black Holes Moon Stars Comets Neptune Sun Cosmology Neutrinos Supernovae Dark Matter Neutron Stars Telescopes Exoplanets Physics, Particle Thermodynamics Galaxies Pluto Time Galaxy, The Quantum Mechanics Uranus Gravitational Lenses Quasars Venus Impacts Relativity, Special Interstellar Matter Saturn (and its Moons) Story Collections Jupiter (and its Moons) Science (in general) Life Elsewhere SETI Useful Websites 1 Anti-matter Davies, Paul Fireball. -
Ray Bradbury Has Inspired Generations of Readers to Dream, BUBONICON FRIEND AMONG Think and Create," the Statement Said
ASFACTS 2012 JULY “S UMMER RAINS , S TUPID DRAINS ” I SSUE ROGERS & D ENNING HOSTING PRE -CON PARTY Patricia Rogers and Scott Denning will uphold a local fannish tradition when they host the Bubonicon 44 Pre-Con Party 7:30-10:30 pm Thursday, August 23, at their home in Bernalillo – located at 909 Highway 313. The easiest way to reach the house is north on I-25 to exit 242 east (Rio Rancho’s backdoor and the road to Cuba). At Highway 313, turn right to head north. Look Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way for the Country Store, the John Deere sign and Mile Comes , died June 5 after a lengthy illness. He was 91 Marker 9. Their house is on the west side of the road, with years old. plenty of parking on the shoulder. Bradbury "died peacefully [in the] night, in Los An- In addition to socializing, attendees can help assem- geles, after a lengthy illness," his publisher, Harper- ble the membership packets, and check out the 2012 con t Collins, said in a written statement. -shirt with artwork by Ursula Vernon. Bradbury's books and 600 short stories predicted a Please bring snacks and drinks to share, plus plates, variety of things, including the emergence of ATMs and napkins, cups and some ice. As with any hosted party, live broadcasts of fugitive car chases. please help keep the house clean and in good shape! "In a career spanning more than 70 years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, BUBONICON FRIEND AMONG think and create," the statement said. -
Zen in the Art of Writing – Ray Bradbury
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ray Bradbury has published some twenty-seven books—novels, stories, plays, essays, and poems—since his first story appeared when he was twenty years old. He began writing for the movies in 1952—with the script for his own Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The next year he wrote the screenplays for It Came from Outer Space and Moby Dick. And in 1961 he wrote Orson Welles's narration for King of Kings. Films have been made of his "The Picasso Summer," The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, The Mar- tian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the short animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright, based on his story of the history of flight, was nominated for an Academy Award. Since 1985 he has adapted his stories for "The Ray Bradbury Theater" on USA Cable television. ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING RAY BRADBURY JOSHUA ODELL EDITIONS SANTA BARBARA 1996 Copyright © 1994 Ray Bradbury Enterprises. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Owing to limitations of space, acknowledgments to reprint may be found on page 165. Published by Joshua Odell Editions Post Office Box 2158, Santa Barbara, CA 93120 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bradbury, Ray, 1920— Zen in the art of writing. 1. Bradbury, Ray, 1920- —Authorship. 2. Creative ability.3. Authorship. 4. Zen Buddhism. I. Title. PS3503. 167478 1989 808'.os 89-25381 ISBN 1-877741-09-4 Printed in the United States of America. Designed by The Sarabande Press TO MY FINEST TEACHER, JENNET JOHNSON, WITH LOVE CONTENTS PREFACE xi THE JOY OF WRITING 3 RUN FAST, STAND STILL, OR, THE THING AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, OR, NEW GHOSTS FROM OLD MINDS 13 HOW TO KEEP AND FEED A MUSE 31 DRUNK, AND IN CHARGE OF A BICYCLE 49 INVESTING DIMES: FAHRENHEIT 451 69 JUST THIS SIDE OF BYZANTIUM: DANDELION WINE 79 THE LONG ROAD TO MARS 91 ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS 99 THE SECRET MIND 111 SHOOTING HAIKU IN A BARREL 125 ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING 139 . -
Clockwork Heroines: Female Characters in Steampunk Literature Cassie N
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by TopSCHOLAR Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School 5-1-2013 Clockwork Heroines: Female Characters in Steampunk Literature Cassie N. Bergman Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Bergman, Cassie N., "Clockwork Heroines: Female Characters in Steampunk Literature" (2013). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 1266. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1266 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses & Specialist Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLOCKWORK HEROINES: FEMALE CHARACTERS IN STEAMPUNK LITERATURE A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English Western Kentucky University Bowling Green Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirement for the Degree Master of Arts By Cassie N. Bergman August 2013 To my parents, John and Linda Bergman, for their endless support and love. and To my brother Johnny—my best friend. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Johnny for agreeing to continue our academic careers at the same university. I hope the white squirrels, International Fridays, random road trips, movie nights, and “get out of my brain” scenarios made the last two years meaningful. Thank you to my parents for always believing in me. A huge thank you to my family members that continue to support and love me unconditionally: Krystle, Dee, Jaime, Ashley, Lauren, Jeremy, Rhonda, Christian, Anthony, Logan, and baby Parker. -
Fragmentary Futures: Bradbury's Illustrated Man Outlines--And Beyond
2015 Fragmentary Futures: Bradbury's Illustrated Man Outlines--and Beyond Jonathan R. Eller Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, Indiana, USA IUPUI ScholarWorks This is the author’s manuscript: This article was puBlished as Eller, Jonathan R. “Fragmentary Futures: Bradbury's Illustrated Man Outlines--and Beyond” The New Ray Bradbury Review 4 (2015): 70- 85. Print. No part of this article may Be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or distriButed, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Kent State University Press. For educational re-use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center (508-744- 3350). For all other permissions, please contact Carol Heller at [email protected]. https://scholarworks.iupui.edu Fragmentary Futures: Bradbury’s Illustrated Man Outlines—and Beyond “I believe first drafts, like life and living, must be immediate, quick, passionate. By writing a draft in a day I have a story with a skin around it.” Ray Bradbury’s creative coda originated long before he fashioned this concise version of it for his December 1964 Show magazine interview. His daily writing habit had become a quotidian fever by the early 1940s, and he soon learned to avoid interruptions from any other voices—including his own rational judgments. Each day became a race between subconscious inspiration and the stifling effects of his own self-conscious thoughts—the more logical thought patterns that he desperately tried to hold at bay during the few hours it would take him to complete an initial draft. Bradbury was convinced that the magic would dissolve away if he failed to carry through on a story idea or an opening page at first sitting, and it’s not surprising that his Show interview coda came with a cautionary corollary: “If one waits overnight to finish a story, quite often the texture one gets the next day is different. -
What's Alien About Science Fiction?
GENRE BENDER? The German expressionist classic Metropolis is a sci-fi masterpiece, says Kimmel. What’s Alien About Science Fiction? less than many people Hollywood, and the Bar- say he’s going to have bad tender’s Guide (Fantastic vision and he might have think, says movie critic Books), is set to come out a heart defect. His whole dan Kimmel ’77. early in 2013. life is written for him, just from his DNA. And we’re Interview by Karen McCally ’02 (PhD) Why do science fiction so much more than our films need an advocate? DNA. I show that movie Movie critic Dan Kimmel ’77 has got a Whenever there is a se- to my students and they yellow jacket in his bonnet. The former rious television show or love it. I had one come president of the Boston Society of Film movie with science fic- up to me and say, “I never Critics, cochair of the Boston Online Film tion elements, you will thought I would cry at a Critics Association, and media professor at inevitably read a review science fiction movie.” Suffolk University says there’s one movie with a director or one of genre that’s never gotten its due: science the stars or the writer, You’ve had a lot to say, fiction. “It’s not really science in this same vein, about CRITIC: Sci-fi addresses serious In 2011, he made his case in a polemic, fiction. Yes, we use time Metropolis. themes, says Kimmel. Jar Jar Binks Must Die . and other Obser- travel and spaceships and Yes.