The web has been alive today with notices of Ray Bradbury’s death, and reflections on his work. I remember when I first read him. I was in fourth grade, and loved science fiction, and while out with my mom I saw, probably at the grocery store, a paperback entitled S is for Space by “America’s greatest living author of science fiction!” I was unfamiliar with marketing hype in those days, and it was about *SPACE* and I badgered her into buying it for me. I think it may have been the first mass market paperback I got that was entirely my own. (Mind you, I had lots and lots of books, but they were mostly kids’ books, and various odd sizes.)

S is for Space is not what I was expecting. I was expecting science fiction, and though Bradbury is often called a science fiction author, he really wasn’t. What he was, was a poet who worked in the short story form and who often used notions from fantasy and science fiction in his works. To call him a science fiction author is to imply that there’s some similarity between his tales and those of others; and there simply isn’t. Bradbury stands alone.

I am not a huge fan of Bradbury; I’ve often read him with pleasure, but I have to be in the right mood, and many of his stories leave me cold. But his writing was unique, lyrical, evocative, eerie, but never jagged, shocking, or gritty. Hence I was surprised by this description I saw in one report:

His major breakthrough as a science fiction writer was the publishing of “The Martian Chronicles” in 1950. The story of the effects of man’s attempt to colonize Mars after a massive nuclear war on Earth, the book reflected the anxieties over nuclear war in the 1950s and the fear of foreign powers.

Um, what? Whatever The Martian Chronicles is, it isn’t that. It’s a collection of many, many stories, all united around the theme of being on Mars; but if there’s a coherent story running through all of them, I certainly was never able to find it. The description makes it sound like a gritty depiction of the struggle for survival on a harsh world, a book obsessed with the politics of the day. I suppose the book might indeed reflect anxieties over nuclear war; but that’s not what it’s about.

I still have that old paperback of S is for Space. It’s in lousy shape, but at this point it’s probably one of my oldest possessions.