Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Golden Age of Short Science Fiction - David Cochran (essay date 2000)

Golden Age of Short Science Fiction - David Cochran (essay date 2000)

David Cochran (essay date 2000)

SOURCE: Cochran, David. “‘I'm Being Ironic’: Imperialism, Mass Culture, and the Fantastic World of Ray Bradbury.” In American Noir: Underground Writers and Filmmakers of the Postwar Era, pp. 55-72. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.

[In the following essay, Cochran investigates the defining characteristics of Ray Bradbury's science fiction stories, contending that they reflect the elite cultural view of the postwar period.]

Over lunch one day, a friend asked Ray Bradbury where he got the ideas for his stories. “Anywhere,” the author replied, looking at the mushrooms on his plate. “There's a story in mushrooms.” To prove his point, Bradbury went home and wrote a frightening tale of extraterrestrial invaders coming to Earth in the form of mushrooms, taking over the bodies of those who eat them. The story appeared as a brilliant episode of the television show “Alfred Hitchcock...

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