Fascination--You described it perfectly!! I too, although much older than you, feel like a child sitting on his grandfather's knee when I'm reading Ray's stories. This is one of the main reasons I love him--he brings out the child in me, the part that needs to come out now and then to be revitalized. On another note, you mentioned that you haven't seen many t.v. adaptations of his work. The Sci Fi Channel periodically run episodes of his Bradbury Theater. About 65 of his stories were made into half hour programs for this series. They run them for a month or two, then they disappear for several months. Most of them are, in my opinion, good adaptations of his stories. Some of my favorite episodes are "The Veldt" (one I got flack for showing to my seventh graders as well as teaching the story!!), "The Anthem Sprinters," "The Lake," "The Screaming Woman," and more. I found a list of them at one of his other websites and made it my goal to catch every episode. It took me about three years, but I did it. If you go to www.scifi.com and search their t.v. schedules, you can see if they are playing his episodes currently or in the near future. Hope you can catch some of them!!

Mr Bradbury's more current work, Driving Blind, Quicker Than the Eye, and One More For The Road. Each have some exellent short stories that could easily be made into short film treatments. It would be a wonderful undertaking to bring some of his current work to life. I would also love to see Death is a Lonely Business made into a film. It would be tasty fare.

Ironic, a year and 11 days from the top post and here is another reason I love this book!

12th grade SF class (tv, 3 distance schools):
We read "The Settlers" orally today. RE: Biggs is christening the canal with empty liquor bottles & Spender arrives...

"Spender was on his feet, over the fire, and alongside Biggs before anyone moved. He hit Biggs once in the teeth and once in the ear. Biggs toppled and fell down into the canal water."

At the end of the chapter after Spender gets it "in the chest," Captain Wilder advises the others to think about Spender from time to time. Spender is placed in a Martian tomb, complete with waxes and wines, 10,000 years old...

"The next afternoon Parkhill did some target practice in one of the dead cities, shooting out the crystal windows and blowing off the fragile tops. The captain caught Parkhill and knocked out his teeth."

His writing is Poetry in motion!

The students are again reacting as my comments in the initial post implied this time last year. Really enjoyable! Thanks Mr. B!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 02-12-2003).]

7 years and a couple of months -- and is "Rocket Summer" now becoming nothing but just a sci-fi story???

http://www.politico.com/click/...a_hurting_space.html

These founts sound like those in The Martian Chronicles. Also, is the golf range not like some scene out of The Veldt!?
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