Common themes

Works

Although he is often described as a science fiction writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization: “First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time—because it's a Greek myth, and myths have staying power”.

Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short essays on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field.

Many of Bradbury's stories and novels have been adapted to films, radio, television, theater and comic books.

Major novels: The Martian Chronicles (1950), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Dandelion Wine (1957), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), The Halloween Tree (1972), Death Is a Lonely Business (1985), Farewell Summer (2006); short story collections: The Illustrated Man (1951), The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), R is for Rocket (1962), I Sing The Body Electric (1969).

Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 –1988) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of "hard" science fiction. He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility that few have equaled, and helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was the first writer to break into mainstream general magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s with unvarnished science fiction. He was among the first authors of bestselling novel-length science fiction in the modern mass-market era. For many years Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

The major themes of his work were social: radical individualism, libertarianism, religion, the relationship between physical and emotional love, and speculation about unorthodox family relationships. His iconoclastic approach to these themes led to wildly divergent perceptions of his works. For example, his 1959 novel Starship Troopers was widely viewed as glorifying militarism. By contrast, his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land put him in the unexpected role of pied piper to the sexual revolution and the counterculture.

Heinlein won four Hugo Awards for his novels. In addition, fifty years after publication, three of his works were awarded "Retro Hugos" — awards given retrospectively for years in which no Hugos had been awarded. He also won the first Grand Master Award given by the Science Fiction Writers of America for lifetime achievement.

In his fiction, Heinlein coined words that have become part of the English language, including "grok", "TANSTAAFL" and "waldo."

Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907, to Rex Ivar and Bam Lyle Heinlein, in Butler, Missouri. His childhood was spent in Kansas City, Missouri. The outlook and values of this time and place would influence his later works; however, he would break with many of its values and social mores, both in his writing and in his personal life. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929, and served as an officer in the United States Navy. He married soon after graduation, but this marriage lasted only about a year. He served on the USS Lexington, in 1931. He married his second wife, Leslyn Macdonald, in 1932. Leslyn was a political radical, and Isaac Asimov recalled Robert during those years as being, like her, "a flaming liberal." Heinlein served aboard USS Roper in 1933–1934, reaching the rank of naval Lieutenant. In 1934, Heinlein was discharged from the Navy due to pulmonary tuberculosis. During his long hospitalization he developed the idea of the waterbed, and his detailed descriptions of it in three of his books later prevented others from patenting it. The military was the second great influence on Heinlein; throughout his life, he strongly believed in loyalty, leadership, and other ideals associated with the military.

After his discharge, Heinlein attended a few weeks of graduate classes in mathematics and physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, but quit either because of his health or from a desire to enter politics. He supported himself at a series of jobs, including real estate and silver mining. Heinlein was active in Upton Sinclair's socialist EPIC (End Poverty In California) movement in early 1930s. When Sinclair gained the Democratic nomination for governor of California in 1934, Heinlein worked actively in the unsuccessful campaign. Heinlein himself ran for the California State Assembly in 1938, but was unsuccessful.

While not destitute after the campaign — he had a small disability pension from the Navy — Heinlein turned to writing in order to pay off his mortgage, and in 1939 his first published story, "Life-Line," was printed in Astounding magazine. He was quickly acknowledged as a leader of the new movement toward "social" science fiction. During World War II he did aeronautical engineering for the Navy, recruiting Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp to work at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.

As the war wound down in 1945, Heinlein began re-evaluating his career. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with the outbreak of the Cold War, galvanized him to write nonfiction on political topics; in addition, he wanted to break into better-paying markets. He published four influential stories for The Saturday Evening Post, leading off, in February 1947, with "The Green Hills of Earth", which made him the first science fiction writer to break out of the "pulp ghetto". In 1950, Destination Moon — the documentary-like film for which he had written the story and scenario, co-written the script, and invented many of the effects — won an Academy Award for special effects. Most importantly, he embarked on a series of juvenile novels for Scribner's that was to last through the 1950s.

Heinlein divorced his second wife in 1947, and the following year married Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld, whom he would remain married to until his death forty years later. Ginny undoubtedly served as a model for many of his intelligent, fiercely independent female characters. In 1953–1954, the Heinleins took a trip around the world, which Heinlein described in Tramp Royale, and which also provided background material for science fiction novels, such as Podkayne of Mars, that were set aboard spaceships.

Heinlein published 32 novels, 59 short stories and 16 collections during his life. Four films, two TV series, several episodes of a radio series, and a board game derived more or less directly from his work. He wrote a screenplay for one of the films. Heinlein edited an anthology of other writers' SF short stories.

Robert Heinlein's stories are characterized by simple plots with the main focus being on character description and most importantly development. The main characters are always of very strong opinions and are frequently involved is situations which force the maturing of their beliefs, usually from a faith based belief system to a more rational one developed from a practical viewpoint. Often described as preachy because of the long speeches his characters make, Heinlein's story's define hard science fiction as being technically correct was always among his top criteria.

Major works: The Puppet Masters, 1951; Double Star, 1956 (Hugo Award, 1956); The Door into Summer, 1957; Starship Troopers, 1959 (Hugo Award, 1960); Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961 (Hugo Award, 1962), republished at the original greater length in 1991; The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966 (Hugo Award, 1967); The Number of the Beast, 1980; Friday, 1982; The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, 1985.

Clifford Donald Simak (1904 - 1988) was a leading American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo awards and one Nebula award, as well as being named the third Grand Master by the SFWA in 1977.

Clifford Donald Simak was born in Millville, Wisconsin, son of John Lewis and Margaret (Wiseman) Simak. He married Agnes Kuchenberg on April 13, 1929 and they had two children, Scott and Shelley. Simak attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and later worked at various newspapers in the Midwest. He began a lifelong association with Minneapolis Star and Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) in 1939, which continued until his retirement in 1976. He became Minneapolis Star's news editor in 1949 and coordinator of Minneapolis Tribune's Science Reading Series in 1961. He died in Minneapolis.

Simak started writing for science fiction pulp magazines in 1931, but dropped out of the field by 1933. Once John W. Campbell began redefining the field in late 1937, Simak returned to science fiction and was a regular contributor to Astounding Stories throughout the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1938-1950). His first publications like Cosmic Engineers (1939) were in the traditions of the earlier superscience sub-genre, but he soon developed his own style, which is usually described as gentle and pastoral. A typical Simak alien is much more likely to be seen sitting on a porch in rural Wisconsin drinking beer with the protagonist than invading Earth. During this period, Simak also published a number of war and western stories in pulp magazines.

Simak continued to produce award-nominated novels throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The quality of his longer pieces somewhat declined in the 1970s as his health deteriorated, although his short fiction was still well regarded. Aided by a friend, he continued writing and publishing science fiction and, later, fantasy, into his 80s.

Simak's best known stories often repeat a few basic ideas and themes. First and foremost, of course, is a setting in rural Wisconsin. A crusty individualistic backwoodsman character literally comes with the territory, the best example being Hiram Taine, the protagonist of The Big Front Yard. Hiram's dog "Towser" (sometimes "Bowser") is another Simak trademark being common to many of Simak's works. But the rural setting is not always idyllic as here. And in Ring Around the Sun it is largely dominated by intolerance and conservatism.

Another idea often found in the stories is the idea that there is no past time for a time traveller to go to. Instead our world moves along in a stream of time, and to move to a different place in time is to move to another world altogether. Thus in City our Earth is overrun by ants, but the intelligent dogs and the remaining humans escape to other worlds in the time stream. In Ring Around the Sun the persecuted paranormals escape to other Earths which, if they could all be seen at once, would be at different stages of their orbit around the sun, hence the title. In Time is the Simplest Thing a paranormal escapes a mob by moving back in time, only to find that the past is a place where there are no living things and inanimate objects are barely substantial. Time travel also plays an important role in the ingeniously constructed Time and Again, in which a space traveller returns with an sf-slanted yet in tone religious message.

An important theme (or theme group) concerns robots, who in Simak's case are usually very likeable mechanical persons. In the novella All the Traps of Earth (in the collection of the same title) the robot Daniel seeks freedom having served men for a very long time, only to find in the end that he has become more human than he had thought. We have, of course, the faitful butler Jenkins in City, the religious robot Hezekiel in A Choice of Gods and the theological project of the robots in Project Pope.

The religious theme is often present in Simak's work, but the protagonists who have searched for God in a traditional sense, tend to find something more abstract and inhuman. Hezekiel in A Choice of Gods can not accept this. Quote: "God must be, forever, a kindly old (human) gentleman with a long, white, flowing beard."

One finds many other traditional SF-themes in Simak's work. The importance of knowledge and compassion in "Immigrant" and "Kindergarten". Identity play, at times almost in a Philip Dick like manner, as in "Good Night. Mr James". Fictions come to life in "Shadow Show" and elsewhere. And there is the revolt of the machines in "Skirmish". And the rather horrifying meeting with an alien world in "Beachhead". (Many of these stories are to be found in Strangers in the Universe).

Simaks short stories and longer novellas range from the contemplative and thoughfully idyllic to pure terror, although the punch-line is often characterstically understated as in "!Good Night Mr. james" and "Skirmish". There is also a group of humorous stories, of which The Big Front Yard is the most successful. And Way Station is in the midst of all of the science fiction paraphernalia a moving psychological study about a very lonely man, who has to make peace with his past and finally manages to do so, but not without personal loss. The contemplative nature of the Simak character is a recurring trait both of them and of the author's style.

Major works: City (1952), Ring Around the Sun (1954), Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Way Station (1963), The Goblin Reservation (1968), Our Children's Children (1974); collections: All the Traps of Earth and Other Stories (1962) (contents revised in 1963).

Robert Sheckley (1928 – 2005) was an American Jewish author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical. Sheckley was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.

Robert Sheckley was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in New Jersey. He was in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948 and served in Korea. He then attended New York University. In 1951 he began to sell stories to science-fiction magazines, eventually producing several hundred short stories and novels. He also wrote episodes of the TV series Captain Video.

In the 1970s he lived on the Spanish island of Ibiza. He then returned to New York City as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine. After leaving OMNI in 1981 he lived and wrote in the Florida Everglades, Manhattan again, Paris, France, Ibiza again, Connecticut, Portland, Oregon and Red Hook, New York.

Until his death in 2005, Robert Sheckley continued to write at his home in Red Hook, New York. His early pen names included Phillips Barbee and Finn O'Donnevan. Sheckley's four marriages (to Barbara Scadron, Ziva Kwitney, Abby Schulman and writer Jay Rothbell Sheckley) ended in divorce. At the time of his death, he was separated from his fifth wife, Gail Dana. His son, Jason, is from his first marriage, and daughter Alisa Kwitney is from his second. His daughter Anya, and his son Jed, came from his third marriage. Alisa Kwitney is a novelist, the author of Till the Fat Lady Sings (1991), The Dominant Blonde (2002) and Does She or Doesn't She?" (2003).

During a 2005 visit to Ukraine for the Ukrainian Sci-Fi Computer Week, an international event for science fiction writers, Sheckley fell ill and had to be hospitalized in Kiev on April 27, 2005. His condition was very serious for one week, but he appeared to be slowly recovering. Russian news sources referred to him as "The unkillable Robert Sheckley". The official web site of Robert Sheckley ran a fundraising campaign to help cover Sheckley's treatment and his return to the USA. However, only a large donation from a Ukrainian businessman Pynchuk allowed him to pay the hospital bill and return home. In New York he also underwent open heart surgery.

Robert Sheckley had vowed he would write fiction until slumped dead over the typewriter. Indeed, he was still writing the last day he was conscious.

On November 20 he had surgery for a brain aneurysm. He died in a Poughkeepsie hospital on December 9, 2005.

Typical Sheckley stories include "Bad Medicine" (in which a man is mistakenly treated by a Martian psychotherapy machine), "Protection" (whose protagonist is warned of deadly danger unless he avoids an act that is never explained to him), and "The Accountant" (in which a family of wizards learns that their son has been taken from them by a more sinister trade). In many stories Sheckley speculates about alternative (and usually sinister) social orders, of which a good example is the story "A Ticket to Tranai" (that tells of a sort of Utopia adapted for the human nature as it is, rather than the human nature as some idealists believe it should be).

One of his early works, the 1953 Galaxy short story "Seventh Victim," was the basis for the film The 10th Victim, also known by the original Italian title, La Decima Vittima. The film starred Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. A novelization of the film, also written by Sheckley, was published in 1966. The story is an inspiration for the role-playing game Assassin.

Another novel, Immortality, Inc. — about a world in which the afterlife could be obtained via a scientific process — was very loosely adapted into a film, the 1992 Freejack, starring Mick Jagger, Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo, and Anthony Hopkins.

His 1954 story Ghost V and 1955 story The Lifeboat Mutiny were adapted in two episodes of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World.

His 1958 short story "The Prize of Peril" was adapted in 1970 as the German TV movie Das Millionenspiel, and again in 1983 as the French movie Le Prix du Danger. Written about a man who goes on a TV show in which he must evade people out to kill him for a week in order to win a large cash prize, it is perhaps the first-ever published work predicting the advent of reality television.

A number of Sheckley's works, both as Sheckley and as Finn O'Donnevan, were also adapted for the radio show X Minus One in the late 1950s, including the above-mentioned "Seventh Victim", "Bad Medicine" and "Protection".

In the 1990s, Sheckley wrote a well-received series of three mystery novels featuring detective Hob Draconian, as well as novels set in the worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Alien. Before his death, Sheckley had been commissioned to write an original novel based upon the TV series The Prisoner for Powys Media but died before completing the manuscript.

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