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All-time creepiest R.B. story
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Question:
Okay, I know people have debated this before, either on this site or the old one, but let's finally get an actual, definitive count of the votes. What's the best, most haunting, creepiest, Twilight-Zone-esque Bradbury story out there?

Choices:
"The October Game" from Long After Midnight
"Zero Hour" I think from The Illustrated Man
"The Veldt" also from the Illustrated Man
that one in Driving Blind about the garbage disposal machine
Other (post entry)

 
 
Posts: 48 | Registered: 03 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I love the garbage disposal story, but the one I was thinking of is The Skeleton (I think that was the title) from October Country. The one about the guy who's convinced that his skeleton is trying to kill him. What a great metaphor!
 
Posts: 554 | Location: Azusa, CA | Registered: 11 February 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I'd vote for "The Crowd", "The Wind" or "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl".


- Phil

Deputy Moderator | Visit my Bradbury website: www.bradburymedia.co.uk | Visit the Center for RB Studies: www.tinyurl.com/RBCenter
 
Posts: 5029 | Location: UK | Registered: 07 April 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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"The Handler" was his grossest story, but I don't know if by creepy you are going for atmosphere or other effect rather than the gross-out.
 
Posts: 7299 | Location: Dayton, Washington, USA | Registered: 03 December 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Yes, I should have defined creepy a bit... Perhaps I should also not have put out this poll when I haven't yet read every R.B. story. Still, thought I'd get a rough idea of peoples' opinions.
When I said creepy I had in mind not only a visceral impact (The October Game) and overall effect (the garbage disposal) but also lasting Bradburian images (the African imagery and metaphor in The Veldt).
 
Posts: 48 | Registered: 03 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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New fave. "On the Orient North."
 
Posts: 554 | Location: Azusa, CA | Registered: 11 February 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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"The Small Assassin" ?
 
Posts: 3167 | Location: Box in Braling I's cellar | Registered: 02 July 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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My question is: How do you set the poll up?
Ignorant yo-yo that I am, I have no clue as to how you would do that, although I suppose that exploring this neat new web site might help. But who has the time?
 
Posts: 1525 | Location: Sunrise, FL, USA | Registered: 28 June 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Hey biplane1, that's quite easy: look just above the first post on a page and you'll see a button marked "new". Click on it, select "Poll", and bob's your uncle***.

(***I assume this expression is familiar to non-Brits!)


- Phil

Deputy Moderator | Visit my Bradbury website: www.bradburymedia.co.uk | Visit the Center for RB Studies: www.tinyurl.com/RBCenter
 
Posts: 5029 | Location: UK | Registered: 07 April 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Wow, philnic! I even have a British sister-in-law, and I've never heard that phrase! Please clarify.
 
Posts: 774 | Location: Westmont, Illinois 60559 | Registered: 04 January 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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"Bob's yer uncle" is sort of like the American "faster than you can say Jack Robinson", though I haven't heard anyone use that expression for many moons...
 
Posts: 3167 | Location: Box in Braling I's cellar | Registered: 02 July 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Phil,
I am familiar with the phrase, but only because it's something we say when we're pretending to be Brits! I think we have a fascination for British words, or at least I do... words like "pram" and "lorry" and whatnot. I've also taken to abbreviating the word "because" as 'cos. I don't know if that's really a British thing (or chiefly Brit. as the dictionary says) but I've seen it spelled that way in books. Most Americans (at least people my age) spell it cuz or coz, but I like the apostrophe 'cos it just looks cool.
 
Posts: 554 | Location: Azusa, CA | Registered: 11 February 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Oops, we're heading off-topic again with my strange Briticisms! Braling II is right about "bob's your uncle" - there's some information on the etymology here: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxbobsyo.html

(I thought some Americans knew the phrase, because I heard it discussed on KPBS's "A Way With Words" the other week (I listen to it on line), one of my favourite radio shows.)

groon, 'cos is rather British I suppose. We seem to use a lot of apostrophes when transcribing our speech. Especially northerners, who say things like "t'internet".

Going even further off topic: groon's post has a little symbol next to it which is different to all the other posts. What on earth does it signify?


- Phil

Deputy Moderator | Visit my Bradbury website: www.bradburymedia.co.uk | Visit the Center for RB Studies: www.tinyurl.com/RBCenter
 
Posts: 5029 | Location: UK | Registered: 07 April 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Don't know what groon's icon is for, but if you click it, your screen will blip out and then look the same as ever, and it will then take 2 clicks of the "back" button before you can get out of the thread. I think it must have some sort of bookmarking function.

I think the British 'cos is much preferrable to the American cuz as it avoids the confusion of looking like a vernacular version of "cousin."
 
Posts: 48 | Registered: 03 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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