The story is about a boy who falls in love with his teacher.

That's it? Any more details you can provide?

"A Story of Love" in the collection LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT.

Trust your doctor.

-- Doc

How about The Emissary, a similar plot with a macabre ending!

quote:

Originally posted by Mr. Dark:
That's it? Any more details you can provide?

A short story of this was published in Reader's Digest in 1982 or 1983.The ending of the story is about the boy,now a man, returning to his hometown.He discovers his teacher died and comments now we would be the same age.This is all I remember,as I was a kid the last time I read this.

Hummerfly--

It's "A Story of Love" in LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT.

Again, trust me on this: I just re-read the story over the weekend.

-- Doc

quote:

Originally posted by Doc Saguaro:
Hummerfly--

It's "A Story of Love" in LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT.

Again, trust me on this: I just re-read the story over the weekend.

-- Doc

Thanks a million,Doc!Just ordered a copy from Amazon.

Glad to hear it!

Other stories in the collection I really recommend:

The Blue Bottle
One Timeless Spring
The Burning Man
Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You
Forever and the Earth (one of my top 5 faves)

In fact, story for story it's one of Bradbury's best collections---definitely more hits and misses.

(Even then, a bad Bradbury collection is still leagues ahead of most other author's "best of" collections.)

-- Doc

Well, the guy who had the cover tattooed on his back should be glad to learn the collection is one of the best.

Dandelion--

I admit I've always been partial to LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT as it was the first Bradbury collection I read after THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (unless you consider TMC a novel).

The collection is a good mix of Bradbury themes and interests: Mars, Green Town, Ireland, Hemingway, Wolfe, the past, the future. . .

You name it--it seems to be in the collection.

Your response makes me think about THE ILLUSTRATED MAN and my mixed feelings about it.

I read it just after the first time I read SOMETHING WICKED. The title made me think it was a continuation (or even a prequel) of Mr. Dark in the former. Imagine my disappointment. Likewise, despite some critics placing it as a novel, it just seemed too disjointed to ever hook up correctly in my imagination.

That being said, I still enjoy "The Exiles."

And the mid-1970s Bantam cover is one of the coolest SF paintings I have ever seen.

-- Doc

Some critic once said unkindly of "Forever and the Earth" that those who brought Thomas Wolfe to the future would have had to bring Maxwell Perkins, too. (I can see the sequel--"For Edit and the Earth"--not quite as engaging, somehow.) Actually, Wolfe himself objected to the idea that his writing was rambling and his prose undisciplined. He was about ready to write some non-Perkins-edited material to prove it when he met his untimely demise.

I've never been a Wolfe fan myself due to the length of his prose (life is too short for some things Ha Ha).

What I intially liked about "Forever and the Earth" was that it was the first time I was exposed to writer-as-character and using a non-SF writer in an SF story at that!

As I became older I came to enjoy the story for its own merits--it's obvious Bradbury enjoyed Wolfe (his enthusiasm cries out in every sentence the old man utters). And the choice Wolfe has to make: to knowingly die so that the future he writes about can still come to pass. And that "epilogue" �

No matter how many months/years go by, the ending still moves me. The only non-Bradbury stories that ever moved me as much were Ellison's "Repent Harlequin" and Vonnegut's "Who Am I This Time?"

-- Doc