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In Ray Bradbury Unbound, Jonathan R. Eller continues the story
begun in his acclaimed Becoming Ray Bradbury, following the beloved
author's evolution from a short story master to a multi-media
creative force and outspoken visionary. At the height of his powers
as a poetic prose stylist, Bradbury shifted his creative attention
to film and television, where new successes gave him an enduring
platform as a compelling cultural commentator. His passionate
advocacy validated the U.S. space program's mission, extending his
pivotal role as a chronicler of human values in an age of
technological wonders. Informed by many years of interviews with
Bradbury as well as an unprecedented access to personal papers and
private collections, Ray Bradbury Unbound provides the definitive
portrait of how a legendary American author helped shape his times.
Becoming Ray Bradbury chronicles the making of an iconic American
writer by exploring Ray Bradbury's childhood and early years of his
long life in fiction, film, television, radio, and theater.
Jonathan R. Eller measures the impact of the authors, artists,
illustrators, and filmmakers who stimulated Bradbury's imagination
throughout his first three decades. Unprecedented access to
Bradbury's personal papers and other private collections provides
insight into his emerging talent through his unpublished
correspondence, his rare but often insightful notes on writing, and
his interactions with those who mentored him during those early
years.Beginning with his childhood in Waukegan, Illinois, and Los
Angeles, this biography follows Bradbury's development from avid
reader to maturing author, making a living writing for the genre
pulps and mainstream magazines. Eller illuminates the sources of
Bradbury's growing interest in the human mind, the human condition,
and the ambiguities of life and death--themes that became
increasingly apparent in his early fiction. Bradbury's
correspondence documents his frustrating encounters with the major
trade publishing houses and his earliest unpublished reflections on
the nature of authorship. Eller traces the sources of Bradbury's
very conscious decisions, following the sudden success of The
Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, to voice controversial
political statements in his fiction. Eller also elucidates the
complex creative motivations that yielded Fahrenheit 451. Becoming
Ray Bradbury reveals Bradbury's emotional world as it matured
through his explorations of cinema and art, his interactions with
agents and editors, his reading discoveries, and the invaluable
reading suggestions of older writers. These largely unexplored
elements of his life pave the way to a deeper understanding of his
more public achievements, providing a biography of the mind, the
story of Bradbury's self-education and the emerging sense of
authorship at the heart of his boundless creativity.
Celebrated storyteller, cultural commentator, friend of astronauts,
prophet of the Space Age-by the end of the 1960s, Ray Bradbury had
attained a level of fame and success rarely achieved by authors,
let alone authors of science fiction and fantasy. He had also
embarked on a phase of his career that found him exploring new
creative outlets while reinterpreting his classic tales for
generations of new fans. Drawing on numerous interviews with
Bradbury and privileged access to personal papers and private
collections, Jonathan R. Eller examines the often-overlooked second
half of Bradbury's working life. As Bradbury's dreams took him into
a wider range of nonfiction writing and public lectures, the
diminishing time that remained for creative pursuits went toward
Hollywood productions like the award-winning series Ray Bradbury
Theater. Bradbury developed the Spaceship Earth narration at
Disney's EPCOT Center; appeared everywhere from public television
to NASA events to comic conventions; published poetry; and mined
past triumphs for stage productions that enjoyed mixed success.
Distracted from storytelling as he became more famous, Bradbury
nonetheless published innovative experiments in autobiography
masked as detective novels, the well-received fantasy The Halloween
Tree and the masterful time travel story "The Toynbee Convector."
Yet his embrace of celebrity was often at odds with his passion for
writing, and the resulting tension continuously pulled at his sense
of self. The revelatory conclusion to the acclaimed three-part
biography, Bradbury Beyond Apollo tells the story of an
inexhaustible creative force seeking new frontiers.
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