History Creator / RayBradbury

** In "The Other Foot", Mars has been colonized by black Americans escaping racism. The rumored arrival of a white man kicks off some nasty undercurrents of retributive reverse-racism.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E100ISingTheBodyElectric I Sing the Body Electric]]" (screenplay)

* CloningBlues: "Marionettes, Inc."

Raymond Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was a highly acclaimed American author of [[MysteryFiction Mystery]], {{Horror}}, [[SpeculativeFiction Speculative]], and LiteraryFiction. He was also known for his screenplays and poetry, and for organizing and editing a number of [[{{Anthology}} anthologies]] in the ScienceFiction genre.

* SurpriseCreepy: With so many of his works being lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek affairs, it's easy to forget that Bradbury could do dark and twisted horror with equal skill. The real surprise is the ease with which he can bounce between "whimsical" and "blanket clutching terror" multiple times within a single short story.

* OutDamnedSpot: In "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl", the protagonist becomes so obsessed with removing all his fingerprints from a murder scene that he actually forgets that his main objective is to escape and get away with the crime — the police eventually find him at three in the morning, polishing old coins he'd found in a box in the attic.

* ExcitedShowTitle: "Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in ''Your'' Cellar!"

* NamesTheSame:
** At least two stories are named "Skeleton"
** There also two completely unrelated stories that are named "Chrysalis"
** Many characters from Bradbury's amateur writings are named "The Lonely One" which is also the name of the SerialKiller in "The Whole Towns Sleeping".
** In a "Green Town" story a girl who made fun of the protagonist is named Isabel Skelton, which is also the name of one of the murderous children in "Let's Play Poison."
** At least two important female characters are named Clarisse: the free-spirited teenager Guy Montag meets in ''Literature/Fahrenheit451'' and the narrator's wife in "Skeleton."
** Ray also seems to really like his middle name since almost every [[KidHero boy protagonist]] in his short stories is named Douglas.

Several of his novels and short stories have been [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted to film]] and TV series. Back in the 1950s, he discovered that two of his stories had been adapted by Creator/ECComics without permission. He kept his sense of humor about this, writing a note to the publisher praising the adaptations, while remarking that he had "inadvertently" not yet received the royalties. The publisher was eventually able to work something out with the author well enough to be able to print several fine authorized adaptations of his work.

** Several members of the Elliot family display vampire-like characteristics, such as the ability to shapeshift and the inability to be seen in mirrors. They habitually drink blood and sleep in boxes during the day, but apparently that's all voluntary. Timothy and a few other members, like Uncle Einar, get by quite well without drinking blood, and sunlight doesn't seem to hurt any of the family. ZigZagged, to say the least.

** Attempted by the protagonist of "Pillar of Fire" [[spoiler:but never actually happens because he is DrivenToSuicide]]

** Several members of the Elliot family display vampire like characteristics such as the ability to shapeshift and the inability to be seen in mirrors. They habitually drink blood and sleep in boxes during the day, but apparently that's all voluntary. Timothy and a few other members, like Uncle Einar, get by quite well without drinking blood, and sunlight doesn't seem to hurt any of the family. ZigZagged, to say the least.

* ''Literature/AllSummerInADay''
* ''[[Literature/AgainDangerousVisions Christ, Old Student in a New School]]''

* ''Literature/DeathIsALonelyBusiness''
* ''Literature/Fahrenheit451''
* ''Literature/TheFlyingMachine''
* ''Liturature/TheFogHorn''
* ''Literature/TheHighway''
* ''Literature/IcarusMontgolfierWright''
* ''Literature/TheIllustratedMan''
* ''{{Literature/Kaleidoscope}}''
* ''Literature/TheMartianChronicles''
* ''Literature/TheMurderer''
* ''Literature/TheOctoberCountry''
* ''[[Literature/OneForHisLordshipAndOneForTheRoad One for His Lordship, and One for the Road!]]''
* ''Literature/SomethingWickedThisWayComes''
* ''Literature/ASoundOfThunder''
* ''Literature/ThereWillComeSoftRains''
* ''Literature/TheVeldt''
* ''Literature/ZenInTheArtOfWriting''
[[/index]]

* ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'' (based on The Fog Horn)
* ''Film/HowlFromBeyondTheFog'' (also based on The Fog Horn)

* DarkIsEvil: "The Thing At the Top of The Stairs" has the titular creature, which lives in darkness.

* CruelMercy: In ''The Utterly Perfect Murder'', Douglas, a successful classical pianist in his 60s, decides to seek out and shoot Ralph, a [[FutureLoser bully who tormented him as a child]]. When Douglas discovers that Ralph is now a frail, lonely old man living in poverty, he decides that the best revenge is to just turn his back on Ralph and let him live out the rest of his useless and pathetic life.

* CruelTwistEnding: "The Whole Town's Sleeping" ends with [[spoiler:Lavinia Nebbs making it safely home and locking herself in, only to discover that a man (presumably the Lonely One) is in the house with her.]]

* DarknessEqualsDeath: "The Thing At the Top of The Stairs"

** In "Skeleton", M.Munigant is an extremely small gentleman [[spoiler:who happens to have a taste for human bones]].

* MultipurposeTongue: M.Munigant from "Skeleton" use his tongue as some kind of organic vacuum.

-->It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping in the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains.

* PurpleProse: He's pretty good at it, though.
* RealityWarper: The various famous authors in "The Exiles"
* RecycledInSPACE: Leviathan '99 is literally Literature/MobyDick in a futuristic setting, but with a comet replacing a whale and the ethnic stereotypes replaced with aliens.

* SeaMonster: The unseen creature in ''The Fog Horn'' is a massive behemoth from the depths of the ocean, millions of years old.

* SkeletalMusician: Inverted in "Skeleton", aside from eating them M.Munigant likes to use bones to make instruments.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Works can go anywhere on the scale. ''Literature/Fahrenheit451'' could be more cynical considering its a dystopian novel, but ''Literature/TheHalloweenTree'' is clearly more idealistic.

* TomatoInTheMirror: In "Literature/TheTownWhereNoOneGotOff", by Creator/RayBradbury, has a protagonist that is [[IllKillYou suddenly threatened by an old man]], so he reveals [[spoiler:that he was planning on killing someone in this town, which surprises the protagonist, too]].

-->It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping in the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains.

* WouldHurtAChild: The end of "The Small Assassin" has the doctor go looking for Lucifer with a scalpel, intending to kill him, having become convinced that David and Alice's suspicions of him being murderous were right.
** In ''The October Game'', an embittered and depressed father, disgusted by the fact that his wife and daughter have turned against him, decides to murder and dismember his daughter as revenge against her and his wife.