Memeness Continued
Still gacked from likeadeuce:
Comment to this post and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.
Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!
She provided me with five items; my comments are included with each:
2. Ray Bradbury
I was always vaguely surprised that Bradbury wasn't considered one of science fiction's "Big Three." I can only assume it was because his stories tended to be very light on the science and heavy on the fiction. He certainly never came up with a technology that had actual application, as Clarke did with the comsat, nor did he have the experience that allowed Asimov to explain the scientific world in book after book after book, nor did he have either the military insights or the gift for snappy dialogue that made Heinlein's stuff so much fun to read. No, he really had only two great traits as a writer of speculative fiction: a gift for description and an imagination that just wouldn't quit.
The latter is obvious; a good Bradbury story is bursting at the seams with imagination to a degree that any casual reader can see. Every tale has at least one enormous What If glowing above it like the Aurora Borealis: What if you went back in time and killed a butterfly? What if horror stories are outlawed in the future? What if a sea monster fell in love with a lighthouse? What if a man actually WAS to become Death, the Destoyer of Worlds?
But that's the easy part. These are thoughts that all writers of SF/fantasy might entertain, and not a few SF/fantasy fans who just never bother to set pen to paper. What Bradbury could do, though, was not merely pose the What If, but to describe it so that it could be seen, heard, and felt. Bradbury stories stick in the memory not just because they are imaginative, but because they are grounded. His mind was flying around the solar system, making periodic landings on Mars, but his prose? That was always here on earth, feeling the gravel of the Illinois countryside crunching under its shoes, with the smell of new-cut grass all around it and its eyes turned always toward the stars.
STILL TO COME: IF THIS BE MEMENESS!
Comment to this post and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.
Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!
She provided me with five items; my comments are included with each:
2. Ray Bradbury
I was always vaguely surprised that Bradbury wasn't considered one of science fiction's "Big Three." I can only assume it was because his stories tended to be very light on the science and heavy on the fiction. He certainly never came up with a technology that had actual application, as Clarke did with the comsat, nor did he have the experience that allowed Asimov to explain the scientific world in book after book after book, nor did he have either the military insights or the gift for snappy dialogue that made Heinlein's stuff so much fun to read. No, he really had only two great traits as a writer of speculative fiction: a gift for description and an imagination that just wouldn't quit.
The latter is obvious; a good Bradbury story is bursting at the seams with imagination to a degree that any casual reader can see. Every tale has at least one enormous What If glowing above it like the Aurora Borealis: What if you went back in time and killed a butterfly? What if horror stories are outlawed in the future? What if a sea monster fell in love with a lighthouse? What if a man actually WAS to become Death, the Destoyer of Worlds?
But that's the easy part. These are thoughts that all writers of SF/fantasy might entertain, and not a few SF/fantasy fans who just never bother to set pen to paper. What Bradbury could do, though, was not merely pose the What If, but to describe it so that it could be seen, heard, and felt. Bradbury stories stick in the memory not just because they are imaginative, but because they are grounded. His mind was flying around the solar system, making periodic landings on Mars, but his prose? That was always here on earth, feeling the gravel of the Illinois countryside crunching under its shoes, with the smell of new-cut grass all around it and its eyes turned always toward the stars.
STILL TO COME: IF THIS BE MEMENESS!