‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is, like many stories Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) wrote in the early 1950s, haunted by the fear of nuclear war. Sometimes known by the slightly longer title, ‘August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains’, the story appeared in Bradbury’s 1951 collection The Martian Chronicles and remains […]
Perhaps the greatest literary rendition of ‘rock, paper, scissors’ ever written, ‘The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind’ is a 1953 short story by the American writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). The story tells of two cities ruled by Mandarins or emperors, who continually seek to destroy each other by building their […]
What are the best places to begin exploring the wonderful world of science fiction? Some of the classic novels of the genre, from Frank Herbert’s Dune to Asimov’s Foundation series (which eventually stretched to seven volumes), might appear daunting because of their sheer size and scope. Below, we introduce ten […]
‘A Sound of Thunder’ is one of the best-known short stories by the American writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). A time-travel story about how changing the past could bring about momentous and catastrophic changes to the future, ‘A Sound of Thunder’ is often taught and studied in schools and remains a […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle analyses the prophetic visions of a highly original writer Say ‘Myths of the Near Future’ to many people and they will think of the album by the Klaxons, but the Klaxons named their 2007 debut after a 1982 collection […]