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 Presents” entitled “Special Delivery” (1959) and was later published as a...