Showing results by author "Ray Bradbury" in All Categories

Ten classic science fiction stories.

Defense Mech by Ray Bradbury is a haunting and psychologically rich science fiction short story that explores the fragile boundary between reality and illusion. Set during a tense voyage from Earth to Mars, the narrative follows Halloway, a deeply anxious man whose terror of space threatens both his sanity and the mission itself. In a desperate bid to protect him, the ship’s psychiatrist deploys an experimental psychological “defense mechanism,” constructing an artificial reality in which Halloway believes he never left Earth.

Lorelei of the Red Mist is a thrilling science fiction novella co-written by Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett. The story follows the adventures of Hugh Starke, a notorious space outlaw, who finds himself in an unusual predicament after his death. His mind is transferred into a new, powerful body by a mysterious woman named Rann, who rules a deadly world covered in red mist. With his new form, Starke is thrown into a chaotic struggle for power, involving alien creatures, treachery, and strange forces.

A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury is a poignant and quietly powerful science fiction short story that explores faith, aging, and the human hunger for transcendence. Written during Bradbury’s golden early-1950s period, the story follows Mrs. Bellowes, an elderly widow who joins a group of older women on what is promised to be a miraculous voyage to Mars—and ultimately, a path to God.

Set amid an endless interstellar conflict, the narrative follows Sam Burnett, a weary coroner aboard the morgue ship Constellation, whose grim task is to retrieve and preserve the bodies of fallen soldiers drifting through space. As moral duty collides with personal conscience, Burnett is forced to reckon with the futility of violence, the machinery of war, and the humanity lost in its wake.

"The Fight of the Good Ship Clarissa" is an experimental short story by Ray Bradbury. It was first published in the Winter 1940 edition of Futuria Fantasia, credited as "by one who should know better". The story begins with the space rocket Clarissa being nine days out from Venus, while “the members of the crew were also out for nine days”. The narrative then morphs into an incoherent "stream of consciousness", where various scenarios of bizarre wordplay briefly follow one another.

How will Click and Irish survive being marooned on a pirate’s asteroid with only a single gun and a news reel camera to defend themselves?

In Irritated People, Ray Bradbury offers a sharp and insightful exploration of human nature, capturing the frustrations, anxieties, and tensions that arise in everyday life. Set in a near-future world that feels both familiar and subtly altered, the story delves into the lives of ordinary individuals who, pushed to their limits by modern pressures, find themselves unraveling in unexpected ways. Through his characteristic blend of poetic prose and keen social observation, Bradbury portrays how minor irritations can escalate into significant conflicts, reflecting larger societal issues.

Imagine a romantic afternoon on the seashore when a man and woman sunbathing have the sense that there is something wrong. The woman has the intuition that the sea or something in the sea has designs on her man. Has the ocean developed a personality, an identity? Women are said to have a sixth sense and the man's partner senses that the ocean is a female lusting for her man. The woman makes every effort to keep the man out of the grasp of the lustful sea, but will her efforts be enough to keep her man?

In this short story first published by Ray Bradbury in the 1951 "Illustrated Man" collection, the game of "Invasion" has been sweeping the country. Children all across the nation pretend to have been enlisted by alien invaders, their job to overthrow their parents, and help their newfound friends take over the Earth. To Mrs. Morris, it's harmless fun — but to her daughter Mink, it's far from just a game.

Defense Mech by Ray Bradbury in Planet Stories Spring 1946. Halloway stared down at Earth, and his brain tore loose and screamed, Man, man, how'd you get in a mess like this, in a rocket a million miles past the moon, shooting for Mars and danger and terror and maybe death.

Rocket Summer by Ray Bradbury propels readers into a world of speculative wonder, where the arrival of a rocket marks not just a seasonal change, but a transformative shift in human consciousness. Set against the backdrop of Bradbury's trademark blend of nostalgia and futuristic intrigue, the short story captures the collective imagination of a community as they witness the advent of space exploration. With vivid imagery and poetic prose, Bradbury explores the impact of technological advancement on human aspirations and the bittersweet dance between progress and the preservation of the past.

Explorers from Earth have wiped out the Martian race with chicken pox. But only one man is willing to stand up for the civilization they left behind. Based on a story from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, this episode of Dimension X originally aired on September 29, 1950.

Asleep in Armageddon by Ray Bradbury is a haunting and atmospheric science fiction tale that explores the thin boundary between consciousness and madness. After crash-landing on a desolate planetoid, space traveler Leonard Sale finds himself trapped in chilling isolation—until disembodied voices of ancient warriors begin to invade his mind.

The Creatures That Time Forgot by Ray Bradbury is a haunting and thought-provoking science fiction masterpiece set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity’s existence has been compressed into a mere eight days. Following the tragic yet heroic journey of Sim, a boy born into a dying cave society, Bradbury explores the fragility of life, the relentlessness of time, and the desperate yearning for freedom and meaning.

This is one of the few Bradbury short stories that has never been reprinted since its appearance in the Spring 1948 issue of PLANET STORIES. It's about an old man named Nibley who has a unique, almost supernatural ability to calculate the orbits of objects in motion. That's a valuable ability to have for navigating in space, of course, but science has passed Nibley by and all rockets now have radar computators to handle such navigation. But then an accident happens and the fate of the entire Earth colony on Jupiter relies on getting a supply ship through the Asteroid Belt without its instruments, with only a dying old man to guide the way.

Emil Barton literally missed his rocketship when the Mars colonists were brought back to Earth at the start of the nuclear war. After a lifetime alone on the Red Planet - literally the only inhabitant of the terraformed world - Barton gets an unwelcome phone call on his 80th birthday. It's himself, calling from sixty years in the past.

In Ray Bradbury's "It Burns Me Up," listeners are transported into the mind of a murder victim who remains aware of his surroundings even in death.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.