About This Site

Although there are some good Bradbury sites out there, there are few that pay more than lip service to Bradbury's work in the media. As I've been collecting Bradbury adaptations for years - lots of off-air taping of TV shows, films, radio broadcasts - I decided there was nothing for it but to put together a site of my own.

This is very much a site under construction. I'm a full-time media lecturer, and will only get time to dabble with this site every now and again. If it feels a bit sparse at the moment, please call again in a week or two when - I hope - it will have more substance.

I've been reading Bradbury since (guess what?) the age of twelve. The Golden Apples of the Sun was my introduction. The first time a book presented to me in school had any appeal. Stories such as "The Pedestrian", "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" and "Hail and Farewell" made me realise that there was a world of literature that could look outward and inward at the same time.

Over the years, I have become excited - and the disappointed - at nearly every adaptation of Bradbury stories the media have thrown at us. Some (The Illustrated Man for one) left me thinking "so what?". Others (The Martian Chronicles) left me groaning (for god's sake, they even had a script by the excellent Richard Matheson, and they still made it dull and clunky). But every now and again...

...I would stumble across a gem such as Mike McDonough's masterful Bradbury Thirteen, or lay hands on Bradbury's own readings of his stories. And, hey, even Ray Bradbury Theater had some good moments!

So I'm jaded, and this may come across in the reviews to be found on this site. But if ever disappointment shows through, please know that it comes from a knowledge of what might have been, had the film-makers done the work justice!

The growth of the site has slowed a little of late (pressure of work), but please be assured that it's still alive. Thanks to members of the Ray Bradbury message board for their much needed support and attention to detail - and thanks to Jon Eller, Eric, Darcy, Roy Hill and dandelion for filling in some gaps in my coverage.

Phil Nichols Aug 2005

 

 
Updates to the Site

July 2006
  • made the Home page into a blog, to make it easier for me to keep the site updated with Bradbury news. All future updates will be documented in the blog.

16 August 2005

 

15 August 2005

 

27 July 2005

 

22 July 2005

 

 
  • corrected information on the Audio page relating to the three BBC adaptations of There Will Come Soft Rains, and added a few more BBC broadcasts I have recently become aware of
  • corrected the broadcast date on the There Will Come Soft Rains page

 

11 July 2005

 

 

 

8 January 2005

 

 

23 September 2004

 

8 September 2004

 

 
  • added some more covers to the Books page, and one cover to the Illustrated Man page
  • another revision of the Short Story Finder, to include cross-references to Jonathan Eller's bibliography in Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction and some more magazine covers

29 August 2004

 

26 August 2004

 

25 August 2004

 
  • added a page for the classic radio series Bradbury 13

24 August 2004

 

22 August 2004

 
  • added Bradbury audio interviews to the Links page

18 August 2004

 

 

 

28 July 2004

 

 

25 July 2004

 

 

24 July 2004

 

 

20 July 2004

 

 

1 June 2004

 

 

1 May 2004

 

25 April 2004

 
  • corrected information on Douglas Spaulding in the FAQ

8 April 2004

 
  • added some early TV dramatisations of Bradbury story to (and corrected some errors on) the Films page

7 April 2004

 

 

1 April 2004

 

 

26 March 2004

 

 
  • revised the contents list for Dandelion Wine
  • minor corrections to publication details across the site
  • added detail to some recordings on the Audiobooks page

13 March 2004

 

 

 
  • added plots, reviews and pictures to "The Small Assassin" (episode of Ray Bradbury Theater)
  • added Bradbury quote to the Fireside Theater page, clarifying some of the mystery surrounding "The Bullet Trick"
  • added clarifying detail to the dicussion of screenplay credit of Moby Dick
  • added Aggelis' thesis to the Links page
7 March 2004
  • added more covers to the Books page
  • added links to some magazine covers throughout the site, and especially the Short Story Finder
  • added some Links

27 Feb 2004

 

 

22 Feb 2004

 
  • added some foreign language covers to the Books page, with larger versions viewable on each individual book page

14 Feb 2004

 

 

 

 
  • revised the contents list of The Illustrated Man to more accurately reflect the differences between the US and UK editions, and updated the Short Story Finder accordingly
  • added Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby is a Friend of Mine to the Films page
  • added Zero Hour to the Films page
  • added plots, reviews and pictures to "The Long Years" and "The Earthmen" (episodes of Ray Bradbury Theater)
  • corrected inaccurate episode listing for Ray Bradbury Theater on the Films page

7 Feb 2004

 

 
  • corrected references to the short story "The Illustrated Man" and "Prologue: the Illustrated Man" (these are not the same thing, but some pages implied they were - thanks for Eric Carter for pointing this out)
  • added some books to the Books page

31 December

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 October

 

 

 

26 September

 

 

 

21 September

 
  • added more cover scans to Books pages; added detail and some corrections to the Film and TV page

19 September

 

 

 

13 September

 

 
  • a thorough revision of the Short Story Finder (see Books), following an extensive (and somewhat tedious!) comparison of conflicting sources; most individual book pages updated so that they now have exhaustive listings of first appearances of short stories
  • various cover scans added

7 September

 

 
  • added a Short Story Finder to the Books page
  • more work on the story lists on individual book pages
  • added some acknowledgments to this page

6 September

 

 

 
  • additions and modifications to the Books index page
  • added cover scans and story lists to most individual book pages
  • added page for A Medicine for Melancholy
  • added "Send me your covers" to home page
  • added ISFDB to Links

3 September

 

 

2 September 2003

 

 
  • added prototype version of Audio pages
  • additions to the Film & TV page

28 August 2003

 
  • added script detail to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, plus some other minor corrections, on the Film & TV page

22 August 2003

 

 

21 August 2003

 
  • modified link button colours, corrected some typos

21 August 2003
  • site unveiled. Much work still to be done!

 

 

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(c) Phil Nichols 2005

Page updated 9 August, 2006