SOURCE: Wolfe, Gary K. “The Frontier Myth in Ray Bradbury.” In Ray Bradbury, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander, pp. 33-54. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1980.

In the following essay, Wolfe links “the traditional frontier orientation of much of American literature” and Bradbury's science fiction tales.

In an interview in 1961 Ray Bradbury described an unwritten story of his which was to be cast in the form of an American Indian legend. An old Indian tells of a trip he made years earlier to visit tribes in the East. During this trip a strange event occurs: “One night there was a smell on the wind, there was a sound coming from a great distance.” Nature seems suddenly transformed and silent, as though a great event is about to take place. Searching for the source of this portent, the Indian and his young grandson wander for days...