NEWS | Info on the Ray Bradbury Tribute Anthology

I mentioned news of a Ray Bradbury tribute anthology a couple months ago called Live Forever!, which has since been re-tilted to Shadow Show. The title is a reference to Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, which is the circus from Something Wicked Comes This Way. The cover seen above looks to be the final and judging by the style I'd bet money on it being done by Tom Gauld who also recently did the covers for the Gaiman and Sarrantonio anthology Stories as well as Matthew Hughes' The Damn Busters. Here is the blurb:

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America’s most beloved authors. In a much-celebrated literary career that has spanned seven decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work. In Shadow Show, editors Sam Weller and Mort Castle have collected short stories from 27 of the most celebrated authors today to honor Ray Bradbury and his contribution to the literary canon.

The revealed list of contributors includes: Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Dave Eggers, Harlan Ellison, Alice Hoffman, Dean Koontz, Audrey Niffenegger, David Morrell, Lee Martin, Ramsey Campbell, Robert McCammon, Dan Chaon, Joe Meno, Kelly Link, Jay Bonansinga, Sam Weller, Thomas F. Monteleone, John McNally, Mort Castle, John Maclay, Gary Braunbeck, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Charles Yu, Julia Keller, Bayo Ojikutu, and Jacquelyn Mitchard. The big names that weren't on the previous list I had include Charles Yu and Kelly Link. So you could definitely say I want Shadow Show come its July 17th release date.

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NEWS | Ray Bradbury Tribute Anthology

Tribute anthologies have been hot recently with Jack Vance (Songs of the Dying Earth) and Frederik Pohl (Gateways) both getting the treatment.  And now it is Ray Bradbury's turn. According to The British Fantasy Society Live Forever: An Anthology of all New Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury, edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle with Bradbury doing the introduction is tentatively set for July, 2012 from William Morrow. Weller is actually a biographer of Bradbury's penning The Bradbury Chronicles and Castle is a well-known Horror writer.

Contributors include Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, Joe Hill, Alice Hoffman, David Morrell, Tom Monteleone, Lee Martin, Ramsey Campbell, Robert McCammon, Dan Chaon, Harlan Ellison, Margaret Atwood, Joe Meno, Dean Koontz and a few others to be named.

As if the first three names weren't enough we'll also have Ellison, Campbell, and Chaon? That is a heavy hitting line-up. Lee Martin also announced the collection going into the origin of the anthology title:

The title comes from something that happened to Bradbury when he was a boy. He went to a carnival to see a magician named Mr. Electrico. This man sat in an electric chair and was electrocuted at every performance. As the electricity shot through his body, he raised a sword and knighted all the kids sitting in the front row near his platform. Here’s how Bradbury describes what happened when it was his turn to be knighted: “When he reached me, he pointed his sword at my head and touched my brow. The electricity rushed down the sword, inside my skull, made my hair stand up and sparks fly out of my ears. He then shouted at me, ‘Live forever!’”

Here’s a link to the rest of Bradbury’s story about how Mr. Electrico gave him a future with his exhortation and also, the next day, a past when Bradbury returned to the carnival and Mr. Electrico claimed that he, Bradbury, was the reincarnated spirit of an old friend

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COVER EVOLUTION | The Martian Chronicles (1950-2009)

After reviewing The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition (here) I started to think about the evolution of covers quite a bit, especially those books that have been around for decades.  Below are a few examples of cover treatments given to The Martian Chronicles over the years, which include some beautiful and some not so beautiful versions.

1950 First Edition

I've seen this listed as the first edition cover of The Martian Chronicles, but I'm not entirely sure if it is. I have to say it is one of my favorites though. The usual treatment of Bradbury's name and the coloration of the art are wonderful and set the tone for many other covers to come. This is the type of cover that never feels old such as the cover for Fahrenheit 451 that has been used for years.

1951 First Paperback edition

One of the worst version out of the lot, but it was a product of its time.

1958 Edition

A fairly basic design, but still a nice austere look.

1954 Edition

A pulp cover that looks designed for a young audience.  Ohh, rocket ships!

1967 Edition

Very bland cover, but it definitely fit with the time period of 1960s movie posters.

1984 Grand Master Series Edition

This is one of the few editions that show the Martians. It seems most of the covers want to show the human factor or some dry bleakness.

Unknown Year, but I'd guess in the 70s or early 80s.

Again another very bland version. For some reason his publishers' love showing a globe of some sort.

1976 Japanese Edition

Believe it or not, but this is a very sedate cover for a Japanese edition.

1997 Newest Trade Edition

Simple and straight forward.  Notice how the title is much smaller than Bradbury.  You can definitely tell that as Bradbury's fame grew so has his name on most covers.

2008 UK Edition

Makes me think of a more turn of the century type book.

2009 Sub Press Limited Edition

Overall, this is definitely one of the better covers.  It does a good job of giving you an alien feel yet some how homey.

So which one's do you like or hate?

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Some Love for The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition by Ray Bradbury (Subterranean Press/PS Pub)

The Martian Chronicles was my first indoctrination into Science Fiction for adults. What I discovered in that slight, battered paperback in my early teens awakened me into entire new realms of thought and understanding to the different ways a story could be told. For that reason I was truly lucky to receive a galley of the joint PS Publishing and Subterranean Press's definitive edition of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles to remind me of why I love Science Fiction(see this article to see why I was wavering).

With more than 50 stories, essays, introductions, and two full-length screenplays by Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition is a volume destined for the display shelf. It will proudly sit there shouting to all who enter my library area and shout that this is one of the best books of its kind, ever. As soon as I opened the package I was blown away but it sheer size, weight, and completeness. I immediately starting reading the introductions and found myself reading the majority of the original story and than thumbed through many of the unpublished short stories gems, which would be worth the price alone for the true Bradbury die-hards. However, this is no single sitting book, but one to be savoured and reread for years to come.

This edition does adopt the renumbered years starting from 2030 used in the recent versions of The Martian Chronicles rather than 1999 as they were originally published. This is one point I think the publisher should have stayed to the original, but moving up the years does provide the reader easier context to think of the stories as placed in the not too distant future. We are treated with remembrances from John Scalzi, Richard Matheson, and Joe Hill about how the work has influenced them in addition to Bradbury's own recollections of its creation. Some of these pieces have been published before in earlier editions, but this is the only place to read them all together and the Scalzi Foreword and Hill Afterword are available only in this edition.

I can only imagine the weight of the final hardcover, but to give you some perspective here it is next to my copy of G.R.R.M: A RRestrospective, which was later released as Dreamsongs in two volumes. A RRestrospective is one of the largest non-reference books in my collection and you can see how Chronicles more than stands up to to it in size. If you are a Bradbury fan or have a deep love and remembrance for The Martian Chronicles I highly recommend you get a copy from Sub/PS while they are still available. The publishers have truly done justice to Mr. Bradbury and the stories. Also, if you haven't ever read The Martian Chronicles or haven't in a long time go pick-up a copy. You won't be disappointed.

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