SOURCE: "Two Views: The Past, the Future, and Ray Bradbury," in Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976, pp. 175-84.

In the excerpt that follows, Stupple explores the relationship between the past and the future in Bradbury's short stories.

Anyone who has ever watched those classic "Flash Gordon" serials must have been puzzled by the incongruous meeting of the past and the future which runs through them. Planet Mongo is filled with marvelous technological advancements. Yet, at the same time, it is a world which is hopelessly feudal, filled with endless sword play and courtly intrigues. It is as if we travel deep within the future only to meet instead the remote and archaic past. This is not, however, a special effect peculiar to adolescent space operas. On the contrary, this overlapping of past and future is one of the...