Good Old-Fashioned Nightmare Fuel

[bloodyrosemccoy]

The first Ray Bradbury story I read was “Zero Hour,” and it was in Bruce Coville’s Book of Aliens.* It’s a story about a happy suburban housewife living in the Zeerust Future, who gradually begins to suspect that her innocent daughter’s new children’s game is actually an alien invasion.  I know it sounds corny, but the way it was written gave me absolute chills. Plus, I was ten.

 

The second I read was for Junior Great Books in sixth grade, when I found “The Veldt” in the anthologies they gave us. I knew what to expect from this author this time, but it didn’t stop the story of a pair of spoiled children siccing their Holodeck on their parents from sending a delightful shiver through me.** I felt smart for noticing the Sinister Kids motif in the two stories, and for pointing out that the nursery’s grip on the kids was probably how he saw TV.

 

I should not like Ray Bradbury’s science fiction.  If the critic in me gets out and starts deconstructing things, what comes up is how very much I disagree with him about pretty much everything.  He’s got this cynical, apocalyptic view of the world combined with some obnoxious conservatism showing through in all his stories. And his characters tend to repeat themselves—especially the women, who are either virtuous, sweet, hysterics-prone ineffective predictors of disaster, or shrewish, ill-mannered, hen-pecking ineffective predictors of disaster.  I’m an optimist, don’t blame Industry, Science, and Technology for all our problems, and, you know, think women may have other possible personalities.  I should not like stories that deal with an alien city built to Destroy All Humans, or slow death when you get hurled out the airlock in a spacesuit, or houses that are trying to kill you, or houses that are not trying to kill you but you’re dead already.

 

But.

 

But there’s one thing Ray gets right in his short stories.

 

They’re really, really creepy.

 

And I like that feeling of creepy. Sure, you can start any one of his stories assured that This Will End Badly, but finding out how it ends badly is the fun of it. The setup, the execution of the stories—they’re spine-chillingly wonderful.

 

And so, while I should not like Ray Bradbury’s science fiction, I do.

 

I thought of this after cruising the Nightmare Fuel and Nightmare Fuel Unleaded sections at TV Tropes,*** which linked to a Russian cartoon version of his deliciously creepy “There Will Come Soft Rains.”   Only the trouble is, the story was supposed to be about a completely normal-seeming suburban house in California that was devoid of people, while the cartoon makes the house itself into nightmare fuel.  Would you want a giant bug-faced robot telling you to get up?  Maybe they would sell well in Russia.

 

Also, the fact that the housebot is apparently programmed to kill everyone when an intruder gets in seems a bit shortsighted of the manufacturer. If the Nuclear Apocalypse hadn’t come, I have the feeling the manufacturer would not have been spared the Lawsuit Apocalypse. But still, an interesting take on an intensely creepy story—even if I like the story better.

 

And even if I don’t think we’re all going to die.

 

 

*That book was also where I first read “To Serve Man”—a story much more effective than its Twilight Zone version. Although, being the evil person I am, I snickered like mad at the last sentence and still do at the phrase itself.

 

**“Why do we even have a holodeck?”

 

***And thanks, TV Tropes, for bringing up “I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream.”  I had successfully blocked that stupid story out.  “The Jellyman story,” as Josh and I called it, merely confused me, and the Freshman Seminar Class Discussion was no help.

Comments

[chaosvizier.livejournal.com]

Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. I love his creepy short stories, especially when they're not quite science-fiction-y, and yet not quite normal. I love The Martian Chronicles, which really isn't a "novel" but more like a bunch of stories. And "Zero Hour" and "The Veldt" are great choices.

The first story of his that I ever read was the one about the elementary school on Venus, where it rains for seven years at a time and then there's a 2 hour break, and then it rains again for seven years, and the kids lock this unpopular girl in a closet during the two hour window so that she misses that brief moment where the sun comes out. Mmmmmmm... tastes like human cruelty at its best.

Just... always good stuff. Especially when folks get eaten by holo-lions.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The Martian Chronicles reads like a bunch of stories because it actually is--it's an anthology all his stories about Mars, with a few others tossed in for flavor, with a few brief attempts at continuity added and the rest fleshed out.

I hadn't read that one until I found it one day while I was in Kenya and got ridiculously excited. I was a bit book-starved over there ...

I didn't mention this in the post, but I also love Dandelion Wine with all my heart. He couldn't quite keep out all the sci-fi elements even in that, which amused me, but it was also just a beautiful book.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

"Martian Chronicles" scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I read it. I have no idea how old I was-- probably early teens?-- but it gave me serious nightmares.

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

The first I read was the The Nine Billion Names of God, back in 6th grade.

I like "I Have no Mouth", but to each their own. One of Niven's books has a section where a bunch of authors got loaded ( shocking, I know ) at a con and wound up making up parody titles. Can't remember them, or the book, but a lot of them were hilarious.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Sixth Grade is a good time for Ray, it seems.

I think "I Have No Mouth" violates a fundamental rule of science fiction in my head, and if I ever figure out what it is I'll let you know. ;) I suspect it was the omnipotency of the computer extending to messing with their bodies. I could assume that it messed up minds through careful conditioning, but it may be that the computer's ability to change people's appearance and keep them alive and starving crossed some line in my head. So it's like many popular authors for me, where I read them, recognize the stories are well-written and have nothing really wrong with them, and don't like them anyway.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

There Will Come Soft Rains is one of the creepiest stories ever.

There's a pretty good comic book adaptation on scans_daily, posted not long ago.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I love the story version, especially the shadows on the house. The normal life that didn't have anyone living it was so striking. (Also I like some of the hints of how he assumed people would live in the future--from big things like "We has a routine and an automated life" to little things like the fact that Dad apparently smokes a cigar after work.)

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Also, TV Tropes eats hours like Tic-Tacs. Aren't you glad I told you about it? ;)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

YES. YES IT DOES.

You and kittikattie both--you mentioned it, but she has this habit of using phrases from the site with links to it. Her entries are like minefields, because once I click a link, that's it for the next four hours or so.