Can someone please help direct me to a couple of his short stories that maintain the same theme, looking for themes that relate to warning humanity from loosing themselves. Also, it would need to be during the golden age of SF. So if anyone of you fans out there can name a few short story titles that reflect this, I would be forever grateful...

Hi Sideshow mermaid, and welcome. It sounds like you need help for a homework assignment... so I'm just going to give you a couple of titles that might fit the bill, and you can then figure out where to find them, read them, and figure out the themes for yourself.

I suggest "The Murderer" and "The Pedestrian". Both from the 1950s - many people would consider this to be included in the Golden Age of SF.

Thank you, I have a couple of his books with many diffrerent stories so I'll check it out. I did read Kaleidoscope, any other stories that may be in that realm as well. Thank you for the help!!!

"The Veldt" is always good.

Would The Veldt be within the same theme as Kaleidoscope?

Not necessarily, but would go well with "The Murderer" and "The Pedestrian" as being a warning.

Or how about The Veldt paired with The Small Assassin?

"The Veldt", "The Small Assassin" and "Zero Hour" would make a good trio... if you can figure out the connection (not difficult).

Thank you once again for all the help, I do have the Veldt,murder,small assassin & pedestrian but I do not have Zero hour. The small assassin was written in 62'. So would that still be within the golden age of sf? Also, can you kind folks recommend a sci-fi book that may help with critiquing and or supporting my argument for Bradbury's theme? Basically, I need a reference book for citing, at least one or two...yikes...this is so stressful! Thank goodness I found this forum cause I would be at a total lost...thank you all for taking the time with me.

No, "The Small Assassin" was first published in 1946. (You're probably confusing it with the book (short story collection) of the same title, which dates from 1962.)

FAHRENHEIT 451 is a science fiction book, by Ray Bradbury. Similar themes to "The Pedestrian", "The Murderer" and other Bradbury short stories.

I've long held the eccentric opinion that "The Small Assassin" can be argued to be science fiction. I don't think many would agree, but I think you could argue it.

It was actually written in 1943, as we know from the work of Touponce and Eller, but as Phil correctly points out, it was first published in 1946.

Basically, the assignment is to find a couple short stories that have the same theme, arguing that the theme is cohesive. So,arguing that one story is a sci fi story wouldn't work for my particular assignment, but thanks for the input douglasSP. Also, I am still looking for books that I can cite to help me critique and argue my points. I need citing material other than the stories I am reading for the assignment. So, any knowledge of such books would be a great help.

Take a look at James Gunn's multi-volume history of SF, THE ROAD TO SCIENCE FICTION, especially vol.3

I don't have a problem seeing "The Small Assassin" as science fiction. It certainly isn't presented as a supernatural tale (even though the events would support it as such), and if I recall correctly it is framed through the observations of a doctor. How more "scientific" can you get?!

Phil says it well. I haven't read "The Small Assassin" for several years, but as I recall, the science fictionality of the story lies in the mention of the possibility that the baby might be a mutation - a very rare genetic aberration. The story was included in The Fantasy Hall of Fame, though (ed. Robert Silverberg, HarperPrism 1998).

Sideshow Mermaid, if you look at the three stories mentioned by philnic above, I think you could add "The Small Assassin" to that group. Or even "All Summer in a Day". All these stories have variations of the same theme, which I would loosely describe as how children live in a world so different to (or as Americans say, than) that of adults, that at some points they scarcely seem to belong to the same species.

You didn't say the stories had to be by the same author. If not, a famous story by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", fits in very nicely with the others I've just mentioned in this post, particularly "The Veldt", which has a very similar eerieness to it.

I agree completely with Phil's observations that "The Small Assassin" can be seen as science fiction, but I've just looked at its publication history in isfdb.org, and from that it is clear that it has almost never been published in the company of other science fiction stories (with the possible exception of the William Tenn anthology).

See http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58434

From this it is clear that most would regard the story as fantasy or horror.