Archive for Ray Bradbury
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Subterranean Press is shipping Ray Bradbury's
Where Everything Ends, but they still have some trade hardcovers available.
Description: In 1949, a struggling writer - a man very much like the young Ray Bradbury - boards a late night trolley in Venice, California and hears a disembodied voice murmur the words: “Death is a lonely business.” Shortly afterward, that same young man discovers a body trapped in a cage beneath the waters of the local canal. Convinced of a connection between these events, the narrator/hero - together with a wonderfully characterized detective named Elmo Crumley (named in a nod to noted mystery novelist James Crumley) – begins to investigate a series of suspicious deaths among the disenfranchised population of Venice.
Death is a Lonely Business was Ray Bradbury’s first book-length foray into classical detective fiction. Two others followed:
A Graveyard for Lunatics, in which Crumley and our hero (now a gainfully employed scriptwriter) join forces with special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen, and
Let’s All Kill Constance, a tale of mystery and suspense set against the faded backdrop of Hollywood’s Golden Age. All three, together with “Where Everything Ends,” the never-before-published title story that preceded and inspired them, are now gathered together in a single generous volume that should prove indispensable to Bradbury’s large and loyal readership.
Freely acknowledging the influence of the genre’s masters (Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald, and Cain), all of these stories successfully transcend those influences, filtering them through their author’s wholly unique sensibility. The result is a powerfully nostalgic evocation of time and place, and an unforgettable portrait of a writer in love with language, with movies, and with the transformative power of stories themselves.
To learn more and/or purchase:
Where Everything Ends
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Dave
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Gauntlet is continuing to firm up additional contents for Ray Bradbury’s
Dawn To Dust: Cautionary Travels. To the left you can see the cover art for the book, a Joe Mugnaini painting. This was the first Mugnaini painting Bradbury saw and while he wanted to purchase it he didn’t have the funds. He and Mugnaini came up with a payment plan, the two became friends, and the rest is history. Mugnaini illustrated many of Bradbury’s early books with wonderful cover art and interior illustrations. This is the painting that started it all and Bradbury is thrilled we’re using it for this book.
This new Ray Bradbury volume edited by Donn Albright,
Dawn to Dusk – Cautionary Travels, is constructed around two unpublished and un-produced screenplays.
Dark Carnival (1955-59) was written with Gene Kelly in mind. It would later be reshaped into the novel
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) This version is much darker.
Catacombs is an integration of two of Ray’s stories, “The Next in Line” (
Dark Carnival, 1947) and ”Interval in Sunlight” (
Esquire, March 1954).
The unpublished short story “You Must Never Touch the Cage” serves as an interesting bridge between the two screenplays. It was originally planned for the 1955 edition of
The October Country, but was emitted prior to publication.
The lettered edition contains facsimiles of fragments and Bradbury sketches the were done in preparation for
The Illustrated Man, but never used.
The cover art is a painting by Joe Magnaini. This cover was Bradbury’s introduction to Magnaini’s art and the beginning of five decades of close collaboration and friendship.
To learn more and/or order:
Dawn To Dusk
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Dave
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On Saturday, February 20, 2010, The Mystery & Imagination Bookstore (238 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA) will hold the official signing for
The Bleeding Edge, co-edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V. Brock. The anthology of all original stories was recently published by Cycatrix Press and is available in a signed, trade hardcover edition.
Authors currently lined up to appear (health allowing):
- Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles; Fahrenheit 451)
- William F. Nolan (Logan's Run; Burnt Offerings)
- George Clayton Johnson (Ocean's 11; The Twilight Zone)
- R.C. Matheson (Dystopia; Masters Of Horror)
- Jason V Brock (Charles Beaumont Documentary; Dark Discoveries)
- Lisa Morton (The Lucid Dreaming)
- James Robert Smith (The Flock)
- John Tomerlin (The Twilight Zone; Challenge The Wind)
- Norman Corwin (On A Note Of Triumph; Lust For Life)
- Earl Hamner, Jr. (The Twilight Zone; The Waltons)
- Cody Goodfellow (Radiant Dawn; Jake's Wake)
The signing is scheduled to run from 3:00pm - 6:00pm. If you're in the area, this is one you won't want to miss.
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Dave
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Posted by:
Dave
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Gauntlet Press has posted Donn Albright’s cover art for their forthcoming Ray Bradbury collection,
Bullet Trick. Scheduled for publication in the Fall,
Bullet Trick is a signed limited edition of never-before published material. It contains five teleplays (original stories that were not based on previously written stories), written by Ray Bradbury, that appeared on TV from 1955 through 1963. With the exception of the 1959 Steve Canyon production, the other four teleplays deal with fear and paranoia.
- A feeling of dark gloom and hopelessness hovers over "The Jail" and "Dial Double Zero."
- "Bullet Trick" deals with the age old problem of an unhappy marriage and infidelity.
- "Tunnel to Yesterday" deals with the paranoia and fear of a war long gone.
Bradbury wrote three scripts for the original
Twilight Zone, adapted from previously published Bradbury yarns. Only "I Sing the Body Electric" (appearing only in the lettered edition) was actually produced for the original
Twilight Zone series. "Here There Be Tygers" and "A Miracle of Rare Devices" were never produced.
For addition information:
Bullet Trick
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Dave
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PS Publishing has taken delivery of Joe Hill's
Gunpowder, Terry Bisson's
Planet of Mystery, the latest winter chapbook for Postscripts subscribers (Ramsey Campbell's
The Long Way), the paperback edition of
Postscripts #17, and the special three-book gift set of Ray Bradbury's
The Halloween Tree, The October Country and S
omething Wicked This Way Comes.
PS Publishing aims to get as many copies as they can out to customers before Christmas hits, but, particularly with a proposed strike in the offing by Royal Mail, they're doubtful that they'll manage more than those customers who live in the UK.
(The hardcover editions of both
Postscripts #16 and
#17 are delayed until the signing sheets arrive. The sheets are well on their way now, after a couple of delays, so those will be going out in January.)
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Dave
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Gauntlet Press has announced its 2009 titles. Customers can place orders beginning January 1st. Because Gauntlet has so many credit cards to charge for
He Is Legend they can’t promise the speedy processing of your order. They ask for your patience during this time. They’ll get to orders as quickly as possible.
The 2009 Lineup Is As Follows:
- Legacies: 10th Anniversary Edition by F. Paul Wilson: Now at the printer (late-February/early-March release)
- As Timeless As Infinity Vol. 6: Now at the printer for late-February release
- Visions Deferred by Richard Matheson (trade paperback): Late-Spring release
- Ground Zero, new Repairman Jack novel by F. Paul Wilson – (late-spring/early summer release)
- Matheson Uncollected Vol. 2: Summer release
- Bullet Trick by Ray Bradbury: Halloween 2009
- Welcome To Freedom: A new novel by John Shirley (Winter-2009)
- Secret Circles: 2nd YA Repairman Jack novel in the Secret Histories trilogy (winter 2009)