Hi. I'm new, both to Ray Bradbury and these forums.
I actually had no idea I'd find an active forum to post this in. I know RB is popular, but some author's sites are just dead.

I bought the 1980 hardcover "Stories of Ray Bradbury" as a starter (and later got an old paperback of Something Wicked This Way Comes".

So far I've read The Night, Homecoming, and I cherry picked the Fog Horn because I'd heard about it.

My concern is that some of these stories are original from some collections, namely the Martian Chronicles and the Illustrated Man. These are supposed to be sort of interconnected, right? I'd rather skip them in this volume and get the standalone books (of Martian Chronicles and Illustrated Man) just so I can get the full experience.

I'm cross checking them on Wikipedia and making a text file of overlap, but is there a database somewhere that will do this for me? Show me which stories are in which collections at a glance?

Thanks.

I think Wiki does a great job here and here. Were you looking for something else?

Yeah, that's what I was using, checking those against the Table of Contents of the 100 stories book. I meant if there was a database that said for example "Homecoming" (located in: Stories of, Dark Carnival, etc.)

It's not a big deal, thanks anyway.

Are the stories about the Martian stuff the same as in the actual Martian "novel"? Did he change them when he put them in the Martian Chronicles, or just add a frame story or what?

Hi Gibush, you need the Short Story Finder on my Bradburymedia website. Here's a direct link:

http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in5379/storiesDB.htm

quote:

Originally posted by Gibush:
Yeah, that's what I was using, checking those against the Table of Contents of the 100 stories book. I meant if there was a database that said for example "Homecoming" (located in: Stories of, Dark Carnival, etc.)

It's not a big deal, thanks anyway.

Are the stories about the Martian stuff the same as in the actual Martian "novel"? Did he change them when he put them in the Martian Chronicles, or just add a frame story or what?

Yeah, I was about to recommend Phil's site, too, but didn't understand exactly what you were looking for. His site will tell you every place a certain story is found.

There are Martian stories not in The Martian Chronicles, and he strung existing ones together with a thread to make it work as a "novel".

Thanks a lot, everyone!

One last thing: Do you recommend what I said before: skip the ones that are in the "novels" and read them as part of that? Or should I read them as I get to them in this book and then read the novels later?

quote:

Originally posted by Gibush:
...Are the stories about the Martian stuff the same as in the actual Martian "novel"? Did he change them when he put them in the Martian Chronicles, or just add a frame story or what?

It varies. Some of the stories are reproduced without change, others are modified slightly, others are radically re-written.

For example, "And the Moon Be Still as Bright" has a bit more material added in the novel, compared to the originally published short story.

"The Million-Year Picnic" has more detail (and altered detail) on the Martian ruins and civilisation.

"The Third Expedition" ("Mars is Heaven!") has a modified ending.

However, when the stories have been excerpted from the novel and re-published as short stories (as in THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY), it is nearly always the novelised versions that have been used, rather than the originally published short story text.

If you're interested in the detail of all this, you need to get THE COLLECTED STORIES edited by Eller and Touponce, which is charting the textual history of Bradbury's short stories in chronological order of composition/publication. The first volume is already out; the subsequent volumes will be published over the next few years.

Apparently they are using earliest published version--usually the magazine version but in some cases, such as certain stories in Dark Carnival, Ray actually had a little longer to revise the versions in the magazines than those in the book as Derleth insisted on having the book proofs by a certain date.

Hi, Gibush! Nice to see you around.

It's always a good idea to read Ray Bradbury's collections in the way they were originally published. With the earlier collections especially, a lot of care was taken with the sequencing of the stories.

RB has used the technique of "novelizing" some of his story groups several times, because most readers are more excited by a novel than by a story collection (mistakenly so, imo, but that's another story).

The extent to which the "fused" stories actually become a novel varies from one book to the next.

Here's my take on how "novelized" the various books are:

The Martian Chronicles - in my opinion, this is still a story collection, rather than a novel, since all the stories appear under their own titles, and all of them make complete sense when read on their own. In fact, there are some minor inconsistencies between the stories that reveal their origin as separate pieces. HOWEVER, having said that, there is much to be gained from reading the book from start to finish, since there is a clear story arc.

The Illustrated Man - this is a story collection; not a novel at all. The stories are completely unrelated and very little is lost by reading them separately. Yes, there is a unifying device, and it's a pretty cool one, but it doesn't seep very deeply into the text. It's still a bit better to read it as a book, but it's not as important as with The Martian Chronicles.

Dandelion Wine - here's the real thing. Most of the book consists of stories that previously had their own identity, but they are substantially changed and fully blended into a novel, and a great one, at that. Besides, the stories don't have their own titles in Dandelion Wine.. This one must definitely be read as a book.

Green Shadows, White Whale - novelized to the same extent as Dandelion Wine. It's not as good, considered as a novel, as Dandelion Wine, but then, what is? If you encounter some of the stories separately, then by all means read them separately. Incidentally, there is an excellent story called "The Hunt Wedding" which appears as chapter 9, and which hasn't been collected under its own title.

From the Dust Returned - this one is similar in pattern to The Martian Chronicles. The stories are individually titled, but they are altered somewhat from their appearance elsewhere and form a single story tapestry. The original stories are among Bradbury's classics, so this book can never take their place. Read this one both ways!

I haven't checked my lists - have I left anything out?

quote:

Originally posted by Gibush:
Thanks a lot, everyone!

One last thing: Do you recommend what I said before: skip the ones that are in the "novels" and read them as part of that? Or should I read them as I get to them in this book and then read the novels later?

Read the novels on their own, although they're not really novels, but you know what I mean.

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
From the Dust Returned - this one is similar in pattern to The Martian Chronicles. The stories are individually titled, but they are altered somewhat from their appearance elsewhere and form a single story tapestry. The original stories are among Bradbury's classics, so this book can never take their place. Read this one both ways!

If you're a diehard completist who doesn't want to wait for all the Eller and Touponce volumes to come out, some of the stories must be read up to four ways.
1. Magazine version
2. Dark Carnival collected version
3. The October Country collected version
3a. Some are revised and collected in The Stories of Ray Bradbury
4. From the Dust Returned version.

Some years ago I tried to incorporate all the best passages of four or possibly five versions of "Homecoming" into one narrative and gave up--which is not to say it can't or even shouldn't be done!

quote:

Originally posted by Gibush:
...Do you recommend what I said before: skip the ones that are in the "novels" and read them as part of that? Or should I read them as I get to them in this book and then read the novels later?

Do both! The different contexts will make you read the same text differently.

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
...The Martian Chronicles - in my opinion, this is still a story collection, rather than a novel, since all the stories appear under their own titles...

Nearly all. "Mars is Heaven!" is re-titled. I used to think that "Mars is Heaven!" was a non-Bradbury title forced on the story by a magazine editor, but Bradbury sometimes uses that title himself (and did so when he adapted it for Ray Bradbury Theatre).

Gibush, Also worth seeking out is the fairly new release collection A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories. Some of the stories are not in any other collection and the book contains the novellas that Bradbury later made into the novel Fahrenheit 451.

Woah, a lot to take in here. Keep in mind I have read a total of 4 stories so far, I'm just the type of person who worries over reading order and that sort of thing.


OK, so philnic seems to be saying that in Stories of Ray Bradbury, they use the novelized version, but the very next post (by dandelion) says "Apparently they are using the earliest published version". If it's the "novel" version then I suppose I'd rather read it contained in the "novel".

Either way - Martian Chronicles can't be too hard to find. I suppose I'll skip those stories when I get to them and buy the book itself.

By the way, my favourite so far is Homecoming. I love the way it described the family, vaguely yet with a lot of atmosphere. Too bad there are only (7) about those characters (according to Wiki?)