Fiction, Fiction Subjects, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Long After Midnight

Name: Long After Midnight
Author: Ray Bradbury
ISBN: 9781400188208

by Ray Bradbury, Michael Prichard (Narrated by)

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Overview

Two drifters caught in the backwash of space wander from city to dead city, sifting the rubble for the fabled Blue Bottle of Mars-and find in it two different, equally entrancing, dooms...A young boy in Green Town, Illinois, does not marry-yet marries-his beloved eighth-grade teacher...In the hell of a Manhattan July night, Will Morgan is offered a possibly Mephistophelean proposal by which he might gain a perfect love and a magical immunity...A jealous husband who orders an exact replica of his unfaithful wife from an android manufacturing company (purpose: murder) runs afoul of the compassionate new "live robot" law...At forty-eight, seized with an overwhelming desire to settle an old score, a man journeys back into the past under the spell of his "utterly perfect, incredibly delightful idea," only to recoil in stunned disbelief when he confronts, at last, his former tormentor...Bradbury's imaginative field is boundless. In this book, his stories carry us from the cozy familiarity of the small-town America we lived in in Dandelion Wine to the frozen desert and double moon that have been part of our interior landscape since The Martian Chronicles. His characters range from the "ordinary"-a rookie cop, an unhappy wife on vacation in Mexico, an old parish priest hearing confession-to the quite extraordinary: the parrot to whom Ernest Hemingway confided the plot of his last, greatest, never-put-down-on-paper novel, and a woman who, in New York City in the summer of 1974, hangs out a sign reading "Melissa Toad, Witch."Fantastic or conventional, chillingly suspenseful or hauntingly nostalgic, each of these stories has that aura of the unexpected combined with the special ring of absolute rightness that is brilliantly, uniquely Bradbury.Track List for Long After Midnight: Disc 1"The Blue Bottle"-Track 1"One Timeless Spring"-Track 10"The Parrot Who Met Papa"-Track 16Disc 2"The Burning Man"-Track 2"A Piece of Wood"-Track 9"The Messiah"-Track 13"G.B.S.-Mark V"-Track 21Disc 3"The Utterly Perfect Murder"-Track 3"Punishment Without Crime"-Track 11"Getting Through Sunday Somehow"-Track 19Disc 4"Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds"-Track 1"Interval in Sunlight"-Track 11Disc 5"A Story of Love"-Track 9"The Wish"-Track 17Disc 6"Forever and the Earth"-Track 2"The Better Part of Wisdom"-Track 17Disc 7"Darling Adolf"-Track 4"The Miracles of Jamie"-Track 17Disc 8"The October Game"-Track 1"The Pumpernickel"-Track 8"Long After Midnight"-Track 11"Have I Got a Chocolate Bar for You!"-Track 16

About the Author, Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. He became a full-time writer in 1943 and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes Earthlings' first attempts to conquer and colonize Mars and the unintended consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece. Other works by Bradbury include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric! Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury published more than thirty books and close to six hundred short stories. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. Michael Prichard has played several thousand characters during his career. While he has been seen performing over one hundred of them in theater and film, Michael is primarily heard, having recorded well over five hundred full-length books. During his career as a one-man repertory company, he has recorded many series with running characters-including the complete Travis McGee adventures by John D. MacDonald and the complete Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout-as well as series by such masters as Mark Twain, John Cheever, and John Updike. His numerous awards and accolades include an Audie Award for Tears in the Darkness by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman and several AudioFile Earphones Awards, including for At All Costs by Sam Moses and In Nixon's Web by L. Patrick Gray III. Named a Top Ten Golden Voice by SmartMoney magazine, he holds an M.F.A. in theater from the University of Southern California. Michael appears regularly on the professional stage, including as a member of Ray Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company, performing such great roles as Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451, which became the second-longest-running production in the Los Angeles area. Bradbury himself dubbed Michael "the finest Beatty in history."

Biography

Ray Bradbury is one of those rare individuals whose writing has changed the way people think. His more than 500 published works -- short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse -- exemplify the American imagination at its most creative.

Once read, his words are never forgotten. His best-known and most beloved books -- The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, and Something Wicked This Way Comes -- are masterworks that readers carry with them over a lifetime. His timeless, constant appeal to audiences young and old has proven him to be one of the truly classic authors of the 20th Century -- and the 21st.

Ray Bradbury's work has been included in several Best American Short Story collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. In recognition of his stature in the world of literature and the impact he has had on so many for so many years, Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the National Medal of Arts in 2004.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you'll come along."

Good To Know

In our exclusive interview with Bradbury, he shared some fascinating facts with us:

"I spent three years standing on a street corner, selling newspapers, making ten dollars a week. I did that job every day for three hours and the rest of the time I wrote because I was in love with writing. The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love."

"I have been inspired by libraries and the magic they contain and the people that they represent."

"I hate all politics. I don't like either political party. One should not belong to them -- one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking."