Long After Midnight

Another Bradbury Worth Listening To

I enjoy Ray Bradbury short stories all ways have this collection fits the bill for me. The narrator does a very good job interpreting the individual stories and the characters in each story. The collection contain topics that range from subtle to, “that was different”, suspense also stories that are other worldly, futuristic and a twist on a 20th century character (Hitler) in Darling Adolf and the suspense of family life as a man plots against his wife in The October Game. Other stories I really liked are: The Miracles of Jamie; A Story of Love and especially Interval in Sunlight a man with a robotic wife he intended to destroy. On a whole the entire Audio is worth the listen and yes I have listened to it in its entirety more than once as I have listened to other Bradbury audible stories. Check it out you might find you like it.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

15 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Mars, Childhood, good ole days, and a No No

Read much of Bradbury and you learn two things about him. He would like to go to Mars and he would like to be twelve forever.

These stories were written before 1944, which makes it seem funny to us that he writes about how much better things were in the good old days. This is a theme he uses often. Times were better when the roads were made of dirt. The stories are dated. What he writes or the way he writes could not be done today. Several of the stories talk about his love for his male friends, to the point that today it would sound very gay (not that their is anything wrong with that), but I am pretty sure at the time he did not think it gay. One story is about a 14 year old boy who falls in love with a 24 year old teacher and she falls in love with him. Recent news stories remind us that, that is not legal today. I felt a little uncomfortable listening to that one. Writers are mentioned often in these stories. George Bernard Shaw is the main character in one, Thomas Wolfe in another and Hemingway thru a parrot in another.

Of the 22 stories I would give six of them five stars, my two favorites would be The Burning Man and A piece of Wood. There are five stories at the four star level and then the rest are three or less. Darling Adolf is long and boring. The Burning Man is scary and even talks about genetics. None of the others are scary.

Narrator was good

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

11 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Spooky, thoughtful, but sometimes just schmaltzy

Ray Bradbury is what I would call a literary author who's always labeled as writing genre stories (never mind the debate about what "literary" means in this context); he's a storyteller but his writing is also suffused with poetic flourishes and evocative, moody imagery and dialog that many genre authors skimp on. That said, none of the short stories I've read by him are among my favorite or most memorable. But some of his horror stories are very effectively creepy without any explicit violence.

Long After Midnight is a collection of twenty-two of his older stories. They range from mediocre to pretty good, but the mediocres outweighed the pretty goods, since after finishing the audiobook, I couldn't remember many details about specific stories. There is a lot of sentimentality, bordering on schmaltziness, such as in The Pumpernickel, basically about a middle-aged man remembering his childhood friends and how they drifted apart:

"In the hard, shiny crust of the bread, the boys at Druce's Lake had cut their names: Tom, Nick, Bill, Alec, Paul, Jack. The finest picnic in history! Their faces tanned as they rattled down the dusty roads. Those were the days when roads were really dusty; a fine brown talcum floured up after your car. And the lake was always twice as good to reach as it would be later in life when you arrived immaculate, clean, and un-rumpled."

A lot of the sci-fi stories in this collection are also heavily allegorical, with a tone ranging from Catholic to mystical, as in "G.B.S. - Mark V":

"What are we? Why, we are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts. Creation turns in its abyss. We have bothered it, dreaming ourselves to shapes. The void is filled with slumbers; ten billion on a billion on a billion bombardments of light and material that know not themselves, that sleep moving and move but finally to make an eye and waken on themselves. Among so much that is flight and ignorance, we are the blind force that gropes like Lazarus from a billion-light-year tomb. We summon ourselves. We say, O Lazarus Life Force, truly come ye forth. So the Universe, a motion of deaths, fumbles to reach across Time to feel its own flesh and know it to be ours. We touch both ways and find each other miraculous because we are One."

Many of the more dated ones also seemed to be semi-autobiographical, perhaps slightly elaborated tales of Bradbury himself as a boy.

Here is a list of the stories in the collection. Some of them have been turned into short films or Twilight Zone episodes.


"The Blue Bottle" — heavily metaphorical story about two men searching for an artifact on Mars.
"One Timeless Spring" — a twelve-year-old boy believes his parents are trying to poison him.
"The Parrot Who Met Papa" — almost felt like a bit of magical realism, about a parrot that has memorized Hemingway's last, unwritten novel.
"The Burning Man" — odd story mixing any number of "why you shouldn't pick up hitchhikers" tales with a pseudo-philosophical meditation on the nature of evil.
"A Piece of Wood" — one those speculative fiction stories that tries to make an important statement by starting with a silly premise, that a soldier has invented a device that can destroy all weapons.
"The Messiah" — a Martian manifests as Christ to a Catholic priest, with tragicomic results.
"G.B.S. - Mark V" — meditations of a robot.
"The Utterly Perfect Murder" — an old man resolves to visit his childhood friend and enemy and kill him for all the misery he suffered.
"Punishment Without Crime" — a man is sentenced to death for killing an android duplicate of his wife.
"Getting Through Sunday Somehow" — an old Irishman rambles about the past.
"Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds" — a man meets a witch.
"Interval in Sunlight" — this was one of the more memorable, though devoid of any fantastical elements, about a woman who wants to leave her joyless, verbally and emotionally abusive husband.
"A Story of Love" — interesting, surprisingly thoughtful story about a thirteen-year-old with a crush on his teacher, who reciprocates his feelings on some level. Manages to examine age differences and societal taboos without being icky.
"The Wish" — schmaltzy tale about a man who wants one last conversation with his dead father.
"Forever and the Earth" — a SF writer brings Thomas Wolfe to the future to write about Mars and space travel.
"The Better Part of Wisdom" — an old Irishman discovers his grandson is gay.
"Darling Adolf" — an actor hired to play Hitler in a historical film wants to literally revive the Fuhrer's role.
"The Miracles of Jamie" — dark-themed but not very original story of a boy who believes himself omnipotent, as a way of coping with his dying mother.
"The October Game" — this is the creepiest story in the collection, and the most obviously horrific, about a man who conceives a horrible vengeance against his wife.
"The Pumpernickel" — sentimental and kind of banal slice-of-life story.
"Long After Midnight" — another gay-themed story, but frankly the plot slips my mind.
"Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!" — a chocolate addict confesses to a priest, in another allegorical tale about redemption and pleasure and freedom.


In general, not a bad collection of stories, especially if you are a Ray Bradbury fan, but they didn't really excel in my opinion, although there is enough horror and creepiness in a few of them to make this good Halloween reading. 3.5 stars.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

9 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

LISTEN IN THE DAY

These short stories were very good, but I am glad I listened to them, in the daylight hours. So good, then Ray Bradbury is a genius when it comes to the macabre.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Journeys to other Worlds

I have loved Ray Bradbury's writing ever since, as a 12 year old, I found a 1st edition of his "Martian Chronicles" on my parents' bookshelf. Do not look for high-tech wizardry in these stories--rather Bradbury employs the science fiction/fantasy genre to explore the mysteries of existence and of the human psyche. As with any collection of short stories, there are some that resonate more than others, but overall, this collection evokes those feelings--of wonder, poignancy, curiosity, fear and mystery--that sets Bradbury in a class by himself .

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Great Collection of Ray's Short Stories

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ray's short of Dublin on Sunday is outstanding. Brought tears to my eyes. The chocolate bar confessional at the end made me laugh out loud for a full minute. Wonderful. Overall, a great collection of stories of every sort written in the constricting confines of the short story. Every word is perfectly placed. From prosaic to poetic, these are worth the listen. As a first introduction to Bradbury, you'll get a feel for his ability to paint your mind with images and people.

What does Michael Prichard bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Mr. Prichard brings great characterizations and voice to the reading. I've already relistened to a number of these simply because Michael did such a wonderful job of voicing. Several of the old men sounded like they were brothers, but from young to old, great job. As one who has voiced hundreds of characters to my sons over the years, I admire this immensely.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Not the Best Bradbury Collection

The stories in this book aren't really typical of what Ray Bradbury was capable of. All in all the stories were mostly lack luster. since seemed to lack really vintage plots. If you want to be scared read The Illustrated Man or The October Country instead.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

My favorite short story is in this book

I have always liked Bradberry. The story long after midnight has been with me since I was 17 years old. I’m 44 now. The pure way he distributes and tells about life is amazing.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

Disappointing.

I expected much more. A very hodgepodge collection which most of the time left me frustrated.

The production itself could have been improved by giving more than a split second space between stories. There were longer pauses between paragraphs.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !

Somewhat entertaining, somewhat haunting

Some good, some forgettable, but overall I found myself keen to be done with this collection of Bradbury's. These seem to be early writing yearning for childhood.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !