Why is Ray Bradbury ignored on sci-fi booktube?

What is it about Ray Bradbury's writing that leaves him out of sci-fi booktube videos and top tens?

[bobsala]

"What about Ray Bradbury?"

"I'm aware of his work."

[paintedjaguar]

I seldom hear Ray Bradbury's name these days without thinking of his long time friend the late Ray Harryhausen, stop-motion genius who seems in danger of being completely forgotten by younger generations. As a fan of both classic cinema and F&SF, this development really breaks my heart.

[themojocorpse]

Bradbury is fantastic the Martian chronicles is absolutely amazing Much darker than I had anticipated.as is something wicked, 451, his short stories are a great place to start reading his work .

[romanglinnik]

Can we quickly appreciate the best shirt ever?! Such an amazing channel, great content!

[CrazyLinguiniLegs]

As a kid the Hanna-Barbera animated adaptation of Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree was always magical to me (and it still is even when I watch it now). I’ll always have a soft spot for Bradbury because of it.

[fairyfairy]

Probably because people don't really understand him, his mind worked on a very different level than most people. Fahrenheit 451 is a classic example. More terrifying than 1984 because its slow and sneaky. his vision of people staring at screens and not reading in the future is quite unsettling especially as we are slowly going that way. That's why I try to save as many classics as I can. I find it hauntingly accurate for the times we live in now.

[EmiCheese]

That nostalgia towards childhood is so apparent when you read Dandelion Wine and then go back to his sci fi stuff

[unstopitable]

iYou're definitely on to something. As a die-hard Bradbury fan ever since I could read, I, too, sensed this silence about his work. But it wasn't until this video that it really hit me. Really enjoyed this. Thanks. You hit so many nails right on the head. Such a thoughtful and insightful analysis.

[JohnInTheShelter]

I haven't watched your video yet but thank you for even bringing up this topic. Bradbury is one of the small group of truly great writers who've worked in the sf/f/h field.

[EndingSimple]

I see things your way about Ray Bradbury, particularly because as a young man, I myself had not liked him as much as the big three, Asimov, Heinlein, and Clark. Now that I'm older, I see things I didn't before. In a way, you can almost think of the old science fiction as fiction written by scientists of the old school. Masculine, objective (characters doing things instead of feeling things), direct, factual, and with the implicit assumption that all progress is good and anything that isn't progress is bad and needs to be dealt with. In other words, the John W. Campbell Jr. school of science fiction. The early Bradbury was doing horror because he was exorcising troublesome feelings he was dealing with. Once he got past that, he dealt with things through his feelings. His writing has a feminine feel to it. (the fact that he could make your little girl cry demonstrates this). He is subjective, indirect (his prose if often poetry), the facts he relates are always interpreted through feelings, and he constantly questions whether a scientific advance is really an advance. As you say, he was more interested in what we lost from the past then what we'll gain in the future. And just as the John W. Campbell Jr. school lent itself to right wing thought, Bradbury's stories tended to lend themselves to left wing concerns. Fahrenheit 451 was about censorship (which was a left wing concern when they were not dominant), The Martian Chronicles had implicit critiques of colonialism (the Martians were killed off by earth's germs the way the Indians perished from European germs). The Illustrated Man was a series of stories about how technology is badly affecting traditional human values (the original reason for the emergence of the modern left was the advent of factories.) I don't think he brought science fiction into the main stream as much as he left Campbell type science fiction behind and became bigger than the ghetto it was in. Like Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I think I didn't like him because he always made me feel sad about scientific progress. I was very into robots then. I became a computer programmer. Now I'm a used up retired computer programmer watching the emergence of AI eliminate computer programing for good and all and lonely because every one is looking at their smart phones. I feel Bradbury could have taught me a few things back then.

[tinoduran]

Bradbury is sidelined in the Sci-Fi book world because he became a staple of fiction in general and after decades of discussion Bradbury transcends the genre in much the same way that figures like Asimov define it

[Vgallo]

I dont think Bradbury is as ignored as Kurt Vonnegut

Fahrenheit 451 is his most popular, its considered not just a sci fi classic, but an important literary novel in the same vein as 1984 and brave new world, its also the one I've seen on other sci fi book tube list.


I think sci fi people miss him because they're in their bubbles and are unaware of his literary achievements outside of the sci fi realm, just like Kurt Vonnegut and even George Orwell.

[ColonelPanic]

You make interesting points. You are correct that Bradbury seems to be ignored. Perhaps it is a preference for what is considered hard sci-fi? (Or perhaps "harder" sci-fi?) That possibility doesn't satisfy me because there are other authors who are commonly discussed who are not, in my opinion, hard sci-fi.

Maybe it's, as you mentioned, his misgivings about science advancing beyond our own humanity.

Love the shirt! 🐈

[macrosense]

I have had a similar question about Roger Zelazny.

[account]

Quickly becoming my new goto channel when im at work or driving. Very thought provoking commentary!

[AS-fukd]

So glad I found this channel. Been new to science e fiction the last couple years, read some Frank Herbert, gonna try Isaac Asimov

[glaudydevas]

Man, you gave me some wonderful insight into Bradbury and things I have not thought about. It didn't dawn on me until this video that he is largely ignored in the sci-fi youtube videos that I watched. Illustrated Man was such a great work. I enjoyed your story about you and your daughter reading the Bradbury piece. That hit my heart a little bit. Nice shirt!!

[MichaelSmith-sdkz]

I think I just realized that I KNOW IRL this awesome sci-fi YouTuber whose videos I only recently discovered. Keep up the great work, friend! Gonna watch em all.

[StopFear]

Ray Bradbury was very popular in the Soviet Union when they allowed American science fiction. I think he still is in all post Soviet countries.

[paintedjaguar]

Looks like yet another of my text droppings was removed apparently because I included an innocuous hyperlink to something outside this tubular walled garden. Is it really too much to ask that the AI leave a notice behind with some reason for the deletion? "Social" media my aunt fanny! I had just run across a comment which made the interesting comparison between Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" (very soft allegorical SF/F) and Clarke's "The Sands of Mars" (very hard nuts & bolts SF). I also mentioned a series of 2013 posts on Auxiliary Memory, a blog run by James W. Harris, with his lists of "The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1950s" /1960s/1970s, etc. Worth a look and not a bad starting point for those interested in older SF. My lists would be different of course, but with a lot of crossover.
I wouldn't have said that Bradbury was neglected at all, especially compared to some other top tier SF authors of his time, including the so-called "Big Three" (Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke). Interest often seems to wax and wane depending on whether there has been any popular film adaptation to keep an author in the forefront of the social media hivemind. However I don't spend much time on booktube stuff. Off topic, is there a serviceable term anymore for film & TV as opposed to print? "Film" is almost obsolete, at least technically, and "visual media" is too broad... I'm stuck.