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Touponce, William F., and Jonathan R. Eller, eds. The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury: A Critical Edition. Volumei: 1938-1943. Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2010. 498 pp. Cloth. ISBN 978-1-60635-071-3. $65.00.
Touponce, William F., ed. The New Ray Bradbury Review. Number 2 (2010). Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2010. 89 pp. Paper. ISBN 978-160635-037-9. $25.00.
Under the auspices of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, William F. Touponce and Jonathan R. Eller have laid the foundation for renewed scholarly interest in the work of one of the most prominent and widely popular sf authors the genre has produced, Ray Bradbury. The editors confirm the increased legitimacy accorded sf since the first major attempt to turn an academic eye in Bradbury's direction (The Ray Bradbury Review published in 1952). If, however, a Grand Master (as he was named by the Hugo Awards in 1980) such as Bradbury has been somewhat marginalized by the increasingly postmodern turn in sf since the 1980s, Touponce and Eller successfully demonstrate that Bradbury's work matters as much now as it ever has.
Working in Touponce and Eller's favor is the fact that, at the age of 91, Bradbury remains an active and vital writing force. Comprehensively collecting and studying the work of a still-living author inevitably entails a number of clear advantages and disadvantages. Touponce and Eller have enjoyed enviable access both to their object of study and his personal archive that allows them a uniquely informed critical perspective. At the same time, an enterprise such as the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies and its attendant projects run the risk of coming off as lionizing efforts that lack the critical chutzpah to examine Bradbury in a rigorously academic way. While Touponce and Eller do not hide their enthusiasm for Bradbury behind sober, professorial masks, they also do not yield to simple adoration either. Their work is an investigation into the relevance of Bradbury's fiction that necessarily begins with the supposition that the work merits such an inquiry in the first place.
The Collected Stories provides a detailed introduction from Touponce, a chronology of the most significant events in Bradbury's life, the twenty-three stories themselves, a selection of his amateur publications, and a...