Locus Magazine recently took a poll, asking what were the greatest science fiction and fantasy short stories, novellas, novelettes, and novels of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ray Bradbury placed three novels and five short stories in the 20th century categories (and I could argue that other short stories by Ray were just as deserving of the honor). The three novels were THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, FAHRENHEIT 451 and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. The five short stories were "A Sound of Thunder", "There Will Come Soft Rains", "The Veldt", "The Million Year Picnic", and "All Summer in A Day." To see the complete results, you can click on the link below:

http://www.locusmag.com/2012/A...uryPollsResults.html

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I certainly wouldn't complain about those stories/novels being in the list. The short stories are probably the most anthologised of Ray's stories, which would account for their appearing in this popularity poll (while other stories of comparable quality have been overlooked).

What I did find interesting, was that "Mars Is Heaven!" seems to have fallen out of favor. That's the story that represents Ray in the great 1970 anthology, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. It'll be somewhere way down in the list, if you look at the full results.

As a footnote, a companion volume called The Fantasy Hall of Fame appeared in 1998, and in that book Ray is represented by "The Small Assassin". I became aware of this book only a few years ago, and I've just ordered it.

In view of the Locus Poll results, I think it's safe to say that "A Sound of Thunder" is now clearly Ray Bradbury's most famous and popular science fiction story. "Best" is of course another matter.

Interesting. I wonder if "Mars is Heaven!" has now become too old-fashioned. The logic of the story holds up if the story is set at a point which is now in our past, rather than in our future. Even then, Capt Black has to be old (Ray's logic was that people would be living longer by then).

Plus, the technology of the story is very primitive in comparison with actual space technology.

None of this, in my opinion, diminishes the story. It is of its time, and it is pretty near perfect. But even when I started reading SF back in the '70s, it seemed quite antiquated. Younger readers might feel even more distant from it.

"A Sound of Thunder", on the other hand, still deals with things we can't yet do. Plus it has all sorts of resonances for our modern world, plus it echoes modern views of chaos theory, plus it has ever-popular dinosaurs.

And "The Veldt" also taps into present-day concerns, with its interactive wall screens.

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While not really science fiction or fantasy, one of my favorite stories remains, "The October Game." In speaking about the story with Ray a few years back, he told me that he now hated it, that it was written when he was a very young man, before he married and had daughters, and that he never would have written anthing like it after becoming a husband and father. I told Ray that what I loved about the story was the ambiguity at the end, the uncertainty whether the father actually killed his daughter to gain revenge on his wife, or whether it was all some horrible and ghastly joke the husband was playing on his wife. I then looked a Ray, hoping for his own interpretation, but he merely smiled back at me and, wisely, said nothing.

Stories that allow the readers to use their own imaginations are often the best kind!

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"The October Game" is one of those stories I can never quite remember in detail - I obviously haven't read it often enough for it to stick in my memory. Interesting to know that the older Bradbury felt distant from it... but then the younger Bradbury would probably be uncomfortable with some the stories his future self would write!