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The Veldt

1987Ray Bradbury

1.1/5

I am constantly amazed at the predictive capacity of Golden Age science fiction writers. In the early 1950’s, Ray Bradbury wrote this story on the dangers of immersive entertainment and technology advancements could have on children. He aptly describes a smart home and a lifelike (too lifelike) virtual reality room (sort of a Star Trek holodeck). This story must be more impactful in today’s world of ubiquitous screens, immersive video games, and augmented reality. In the early 1950’s the transistor was only recently invented, televisions were not common, and radios were not yet portable. I first ran into this story decades ago when I read, “The Illustrated Man”. I just reread it, as part of a Science Fiction Facebook group I belong to. I love the little tie into Peter Pan and Neverland by naming the kids Peter and Wendy. It struck me as a ‘evil twin’ of Moore and Kuttner’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” which was written earlier. Bradbury's prose is pedestrian in this piece, compared to some of his more flowery and near poetic work, but it’s more effectively written as a straight cautionary tale.

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