PICK THREE (3) MINI CHALLENGE - APRIL 2023

PICK THREE (3) MINI CHALLENGE...APRIL 2023


April's Classy Classic is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is an American classic and widely regarded as one of the most important work of science fiction ever published. The novel presents a future dystopian America where books are outlawed, and the job of “firemen” is to burn down houses in which books have been discovered.

1.The first draft of Fahrenheit 451 was written in just nine days. Ray Bradbury wrote a short story entitled “The Fireman” which was published in 1951 in Galaxy Science Fiction, a science fiction magazine. This is largely considered to the be the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 which was published in 1963.

2. Ray Bradbury wrote The Fireman in the basement of UCLA’s Powell library on a pay typewriter. He paid 10-cents-per-hour in typewriter rental fees and the story ran about 50,000 words to print. It cost him $9.80 to print the story.

3.Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most frequently banned books. Ballantine Books, Ray Bradbury’s own publisher, even issued a censored version .A year after Fahrenheit 451 was published, it was serialized in "Playboy" magazine. Playboy really helped with the circulation of the book.

4. Bradbury only permitted Fahrenheit 451 to be published as an ebook in November 2011. The author had once said that ebooks “smell like burned fuel”, in spite of that at the age of 91, Bradbury finally relented and allowed his landmark work to be released as an ebook.

5. An HTTP error code was named for the novel. The error code “HTTP 451” appears when a webpage cannot be viewed because the material that you’re seeking has been censored by a government in some way... possibly because of a copyright violation or is or can be a threat to national security.

6.Many of the items described in Fahrenheit 451 later appeared in real life. Drones, earbuds, giant flatscreen TVs, Facetime, ATMs and more can all be found in some form in the novel. For example, the “seashells” and “thimble radios” are basically earbuds. Self-driving cars heightened electronic surveillance, and social interaction via digital friendships are all things that Fahrenheit 451 predicted. Not a bad accomplishment for a novel that won't begin to see these things in real live for almost another 50 years.

7.Mel Gibson obtained the rights to the film and had planned a release with a Frank Darabont script. It was intended to star either Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, but it never happened. An HBO film starring Michael B. Jordan was eventually released in 2018.

8. In the novel, the government didn’t mandate the burning of books, the people did. Book burning was imposed because society wanted to avoid disturbing concepts. Books could bring about too much to think about or could be upsetting. Rather than deal with these thoughts, the people decided to avoid them and burn the books. Bradbury also insisted that it was also not about censorship...although this act did take place in Nazi Germany in real life. Bradbury was very much afraid that television would kill people's desire to read books.

9. A video game based on the book was released in 1984.

10.The title of the book is wrong. While Fahrenheit 451 is a very cool sounding title, but there is one hitch... there isn’t a set auto-ignition point for all book paper. There are several factors that determine the temperature at which a book will catch fire and burn. Age of the book, thickness of the paper, the thickness of the book and more which all will influence what temperature will be needed which will likely be much hotter than 451 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Challenge
Choose a book or books that meet the categories below. Can be one from three different categories or 3 from the same category.
1. Read a Fahrenheit 451 or The Fireman or any other book by Ray Bardbury.
2. Read a book that has a fire on the cover or features a character that is a fire fighter.
3. Read a book that is in the science fiction genera or a book of any genera that is set at any time in the future.
4. Read a book of any general that was published in the 1950's or the 1960's.
5. Read any science fiction book in e-book format. (Just needs to have been produced in e-book as well as any other format)
6. Read a book that has been banned or censored...or just received bad reviews.
7. Read a book in any genera that has been made into a movie or a television production.
8. Read a book of any genera that features a threat to national security in the story to any country.
9. Read a book whose author's first and last initials ca be found in FAHRENHEIT.

Carol Visits With A Classic
🎂 - ★
3/3
1.Read a Fahrenheit 451 or The Fireman or any other book by Ray Bradbury.
🎂1. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Brdbury - 4★
🎂2. Something Wicked This Way Comes - 5★ (I Loved the movie and the book)
🎂3. Farewell Summer - Ray Bradbury ★3

🎂 - ★
1/3
2.Read a book that has a fire on the cover or features a character that is a fire fighter.
🎂1.Clear by Fire - Joshua Hood - 3★ (A fire on the cover and a fire fighter in the story.)
2.★
3.★

🎂 - ★
3/3
3. Read any science fiction book in e-book format. (Just needs to have been produced in e-book as well as any other format)
🎂 1. A Sound of Thunder - Ray Bradbury - 4★
🎂2.From the Dust Returned - Ray Bradbury 3★
🎂3.Now and Forever - Ray Bradbury 3★

I just loved Farenheit 451 and how prescient Ray Bradbury was. Computer screens and Zoom and TV's where people spend all their time. And I loved your observations on #8 - I had not made the connection that it was the people, not the government, that was banning books.

Stepping into this challenge:

1. Read Fahrenheit 451 or The Fireman or any other book by Ray Bradbury

2. Read a book that has a fire on the cover or features a character that is a fire fighter.

3. Read a book that is in the science fiction genera or a book of any genera that is set at any time in the future.

4. Read a book of any general that was published in the 1950's or the 1960's.

5. Read any science fiction book in e-book format. (Just needs to have been produced in e-book as well as any other format)

6. Read a book that has been banned or censored...or just received bad reviews.

7. Read a book in any genera that has been made into a movie or a television production.

8. Read a book of any genera that features a threat to national security in the story to any country.

9. Read a book whose author's first and last initials can be found in FAHRENHEIT.

Edited to update the categories and the books I'm reading for this challenge:

1) The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. This book fits #1, #3, #4, and also #6.
#1, it is written by Ray Bradbury.

#6: one of the stories, "The Exiles," features Edgar Allen Poe, L. Frank Baum, and other authors who are banned on an Earth that wants only scientific thought and has therefore burned all copies of these (and other) authors's books. The final copies of imaginative literature are brought to Mars with the team from Earth.

#3 Most, but not all, of the stories were written as futuristic tales. The narrator of the prologue and epilogue meets the Illustrated Man as they are walking through Wisconsin, he as part of a walking tour and the Illlustrated Man because he can only get limited work at the traveling carnivals.

#4 Many of these short stories were published independently in the 1950's in various magazines until they were collected in this volume.

2) The War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches ed. by Kevin J. Anderson fits #7, #8, and #3. It was made into a famous radio broadcast (I think it is replayed during Halloween for the scare factor, after being initially broadcast on Halloween in the early 1930's to great acclaim) and several movies.

It fits #8 in that there are many, many threats to national (worldwide) security) from each of the global dispatches as set down by the different authors, written as 1899-1900 witnesses to the Martians landing on Earth.

And #3: when it was written by H.G. Wells it was the cutting edge of science/speculative fiction.

3) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was banned in China because it featured talking animals. And that's just the first ban that came up on the Google search! So that covers #6, and certainly #7 is the main reason I chose this book. Because it was one of my favorite literary characters (girls who did stuff, like Dorothy) in part because I saw the Disney movie when I was 7 with my Dad who seemed to enjoy the experience as well. And I thought the recent adaptation of a grown Alice re-visiting Wonderland was a great expansion on the story.

April challenge:

The Challenge
Choose a book or books that meet the categories below. Can be one from three different categories or 3 from the same category.
1. Read a Fahrenheit 451 or The Fireman or any other book by Ray Bradbury.
4. Read a book of any genre that was published in the 1950's or the 1960's.
5. Read any science fiction book in e-book format. (Just needs to have been produced in e-book as well as any other format)
6. Read a book that has been banned or censored...or just received bad reviews.
7. Read a book in any genre that has been made into a movie or a television production.
8. Read a book of any genre that features a threat to national security in the story to any country.
9. Read a book whose author's first and last initials can be found in FAHRENHEIT.

COMPLETED
2. Read a book that has a fire on the cover or features a character that is a fire fighter.
✔ - 06Apr23

3. Read a book that is in the science fiction genre or a book of any genre that is set at any time in the future.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr - ✔ 11Apr23

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller - Joanne Harris 4★s (Science fiction ebook)
Trustee from the Toolroom - Nevil Shute 5★s (Published 1960)
Planet of the Damned - Harry Harrison 4★s (Science fiction ebook)

I can do this one since I read a lot of science fiction.

Completed
The Dreaming Void - Peter F. Hamilton
Needle - Linda Nagata
Otherness - David Brin (also an ebook)

So in looking at my list above, I only see 2 books that I am reading /preparing to read for this challenge, and will be hard-pressed to find and complete a third. I'll keep looking, but may not be able to.

Unless I can find a short story by Ray Bradbury among some of the sci-fi collected volumes . . . stay tuned! Hope is springing eternal!!

Ed: I finally correlated my books and ways that they fit the challenge for April!