I’m pleased to see that the Library of America is giving Ray Bradbury the same fine production values they gave Lovecraft a while back. Bradbury gets two volumes, the first being out now as a $40 900-page table-trembler titled Ray Bradbury: Novels & Story Cycles (2021).

It includes “Bradbury’s settled intention” for the final-cut of the famous Martian Chronicles. Google Books can provide no contents list, but according to one interview with the venerable editor this means it includes the show-stopping satirical “Usher II” horror-story, probably best skipped the first time around.

If you want some ‘starter Bradbury’ that’s a little lighter on the wrists, a fine theatrical audiobook version of The Martian Chronicles is the five and a half hour full-cast audio by Colonial Radio Theatre (they use the British spelling for Theatre). Created for direct-to-CD in 2011, rather than lopped-and-chopped to fit a broadcast time-slot. They spent a lot of time making sure the sequence fitted Bradbury’s final intentions. Again, you might do best to skip “Usher II” on the first hearing.